Lawmakers are discussing Assembly Bill 533, proposing an open enrollment policy that allows students to attend any public school they'd like without zoning boundaries to restrict them.
Not all schools have the same programs and resources available. Lawmakers are saying this bill will allow students to enroll in a school that best meets their specific needs that can further help their education.
Elisa Martinez, a sophomore at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, says she would not be where she is today if it weren't for her high school of choice: "The summer before my senior year, my zone variance was denied and I was informed that I would need to transfer to a different high school. Unfortunately, that high school did not offer the programs that had been central to my development throughout high school such as Speech and Debate and AP Japanese."
Martinez says her mother made the sacrifice to move in order for her to remain at her school.
Justin, a high school senior, says he actually had to resort to home schooling after he was forced to switch from his school of choice to his zoned school.
"Resources were limited. I fell behind with my grades, my attendance became poor, and overall, I lost passion. We knew I couldn't stay in a situation where I was struggling to learn so my family and I made a dramatic change," he says.
Director of Public Policy for Opportunity 180, Anthony Curry, tells us AB 533 can break barriers of school zones that are historically tied to red lining maps.
"Back in the 1940s when there was red lining, if you lay over the school zoning maps that we have now they line up pretty evenly and so what we see from that is that the schools that are in more disadvantaged areas get less resources and student outcomes and performance of those schools are lower."
Curry says this program breaks that restriction, no longer tying student's education to where they live.
A common question people are asking is how transportation will work. Lawmakers are saying they don't have a plan yet as they would need to collect data first to find a solution but can't get data until they see the enrollment numbers for this new policy.
Assembly Member Selena Torres-Fossett says, "While I agree transportation ultimately should be the goal and we should look at how we're going to do that, the reality is that is a multi-million-dollar investment that we're not going to make this legislative session especially without evidence that this is a program that will work."
While several public commenters have expressed their support on this bill, representative of Clark County School District Brad Keeney is opposing the bill, for what he says is two reasons.
One, the school district disagrees with using student behavior as factor in the application process.
Keeney says, "Clark County School District does not believe we should be using that. We should not hurt a student based on their behavior at another school. It should be a blind process."
And the second reason is concerns for school capacity as right now the bill allows enough applications based on fire codes rather than realistic classroom numbers.
"So, at an elementary school it would allow that we have over two thousand students in a school. Clearly none of us want that."
28 states already have a similar open enrollment policy. Arizona and Colorado each have over 100 thousand students enrolled in this policy.Â
To learn more about Assembly Bill 533, check out the Nevada Legislature's website.
