A Balanced Approach To The School Enrollment Process

The enrollment processes of charter schools and traditional public schools can be challenging to understand. With the era of school choice upon us, families can choose where they want their students to attend school. The archaic thinking that students should be assigned where to go to school based on where they live is a no longer sensible (was it ever?). For some reason, we've known for centuries that being assigned where to shop for goods shouldn't be determined by where we live, but for some reason it look us a long time to figure this out with education. However...that's another discussion for another day.

With school choice, parents, and students, might have to navigate a tricky and unfamiliar enrollment process that can be confusing, and, often, unecessarily complex. It may not seem like a big deal, but we talk to hundreds of parents (this summer it was thousands), and the general consensus is that parents and students are often confused and frustrated by the enrollment processes of K-12 schools.

At Method Schools, our intent is to provide a simple and convenient approach to enrollment, where families can enroll their students online, often by mobile device, in a matter of minutes. We love how easy it is, and we think our families do too. But we must balance this simple approach with the need to meet all state and federal guidelines (there can be a lot of info required by the government to enroll students!). We also want to make sure our enrollment process isn't so simple that parents enroll their students without fully understanding what our schools are all about. No one wins when this happens. While we think our schools are great options for students, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to a child's education. At times, Method isn't the best option (we think those times are rare).

If you're confused about what is required to enroll your student at Method (or another school), let us know. We'd love to help you navigate it. We can't speak for all schools, but we've made serious attempts to make the enrollment process clear, simple, and quick.