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This is a special edition of my weekly family update. I hope you and your students enjoyed the long weekend. While it’s hard to believe, my team, like many of you, is already working on the start of the 24-25 school year. In this special edition of my weekly update, I am asking you to help the team make the school choice and enrollment process better and more accessible for all families. HISD’s school choice and enrollment systems must be user friendly, easily accessible, and most importantly, more equitably available to students across the district. We need your input and partnership to get this done. We are providing families three unique opportunities to weigh in on the systems and processes HISD uses to allow families to select the best-fit school for their students. I hope you will participate in one or more of them over the course of the next month. We will use your feedback to build a stronger system of high-quality choices that combine with exceptional neighborhood schools to give all students what they need. To do this well and ensure we are not guessing at what families want and need, we plan to obtain feedback through November, open the application process in January, and complete the lottery phase by April. Finally, we are asking families to complete one step in the process in the next six weeks. Any parent who wishes to request gifted and talented testing (required for some schools) should do so no later than December 8, 2023. If your student has already been classified as gifted and talented, no action is required. We will be sending out more information with a link to the request no later than Friday, October 20, 2023. Beginning Wednesday, October 18, 2023, we are asking all parents to complete an online survey to share their experiences and suggestions for our school choice and enrollment processes. A link to the survey will be emailed to all families, and it will be available on the HISD website. Please take a moment to complete it - your experiences will provide valuable guidance to the team. The HISD Research Team will be conducting focus groups to better understand what is working and what needs to be improved about the school choice process. We need a diverse set of perspectives and experiences from families. If you would like to volunteer for a focus group, please enter your information here. In addition, we will also be recruiting participants from across the District. This will ensure that we gain a better understanding of how our enrollment systems are working for different families and communities. If you receive an invitation to participate, please consider joining a focus group. During the months of October and November, the team working on enrollment and school choice systems will host a series of community information sessions. We will plan at least two meetings in each division. These meetings will give families an opportunity to hear more about potential improvements being considered and ask any initial questions they may have. Look for dates for these meetings later this week. Parents must request gifted and talented testing now so they will have information about their child’s eligibility for specific schools and programs before the enrollment process closes. Additional information about how parents can request gifted and talented testing for their students will be released on Friday, October 20, 2023. It is critical that parents who want testing for their child, request it no later than December 8, 2023. |