Open Enrollment Made Northfield Schools Slightly More Diverse

While not by a large margin, a study of recent open enrollment numbers show Northfield Public Schools became slightly more diverse because the number of outgoing students who were white was greater than those coming in, according to a recent study from the University of Minnesota Law School.

Northfield experienced a 1-percent decrease in overall enrollment because of outgoing students in the 2009-10 school year—127 students left the district while 87 came to the district. Of those outgoing students, 119 were white, while only 84 non-resident white students enrolled with Northfield schools. There was a net loss of three black students and one Hispanic student, while Asian and Native American numbers were unaffected, according to the study.

For the 2009-10 school year, 85.7 percent of the district's enrollment were white students, according to data provided by the district. The most diverse school was Greenvale Park Elementary, which had a 27.9 percent minority enrollment.

The study found that open enrollment increased segregation in the metro region overall between 2000 and 2010, with 36 percent of open enrollment classified as segregative in the 2009-10 school year. By contrast, just 24 percent were integrative. The rest were race neutral.

“Open enrollment allows parents a wider choice in matching a school’s programs to a child’s needs and creates clearer competition between schools that could encourage innovation or improvement,” the study reported. “Yet, open enrollment also enables moves based on less noble motivations that can accelerate racial or economic transition in a racially diverse school district.”

Click on the PDF to read the full report. Use the widget above to see the racial makeup of each district in Minnesota.

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