Ten educators will canvass the neighborhoods of nine under-enrolled schools this summer in hopes of bringing students — and state money — back to St. Paul Public Schools.
Amid increased competition from charter and suburban district schools, St. Paul has lost about 1,000 students in the past three years, or 2.7 percent of its K-12 enrollment.
Those students represent at least $6.3 million in state funding next year alone.
Over six weeks starting Monday, trained canvassers aim to knock on 10,000 doors and have 2,500 conversations about what the public schools have to offer. Some of that outreach will target families who have pulled their children out of district schools.
There is no formal goal for how many will enroll.
Nick Faber, president of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, said he and others at John A. Johnson Elementary used to knock on doors in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood and invite families to check out the neighborhood school.
“Our biggest assets are having those conversations with community members,” he said at a news conference Thursday at Hamline Elementary, which was nearly consolidated with nearby Galtier in 2016.
The enrollment drive is part of a school-finance package the school district agreed to during teacher contract negotiations in February. They also will work with teachers to lobby for more government funding, solicit local nonprofits and corporations for donations and pass a St. Paul property tax referendum in November.
The American Federation of Teachers is contributing $31,600 and the school district $10,000 plus in-kind support. That will pay 10 educators — a mix of educational assistants, behavior specialists and preschool teachers — to invite families to enroll and ask folks what they think makes a quality school.
If a knock goes unanswered, they’ll drop off a “Select SPPS” pamphlet with enrollment instructions printed in the district’s top five languages: English, Spanish, Hmong, Somali and Karen. There also will be lawn signs to support the campaign.
AFT President Randi Weingarten said it’s the second enrollment drive the national union has supported. It follows a $200,000 effort in Baltimore last summer that the union says got 450 preschoolers to sign up and 13 dropouts to return.
“Lots of parents brought kids back to the public schools. But more than that, there was such a change of climate. There was a sense that we’re in this all together,” she said.
Jackie Turner, chief operations officer for the district, said they’ll likely build summer enrollment canvassing into their regular budget in future years.
Emily Cashel is among those who left the district. Fed up with Highland Park Middle School’s 7:30 a.m. start, she moved in 2014 to Great River, a Montessori charter school, where she studies among goats and chickens and plays on an Ultimate Frisbee team.
St. Paul district secondary schools are moving to 8:30 a.m. starts in 2019, but her mother, Katie Cashel, said there’s no chance they’ll be talked into leaving for a district high school.
“I can’t imagine being at a school that size with that many students in the building,” she said.
The share of St. Paul students attending district schools fell to 63 percent last year from 72 percent a decade earlier, according to a demographer’s report, and the majority are choosing charter schools.
A previous enrollment drive, in 2011 and 2012, held the K-12 total steady but failed to bring in the 3,000 students that former superintendent Valeria Silva expected.
The campaign will target residents near LEAP High School and eight elementary schools: Dayton’s Bluff, John A. Johnson, Riverview, Jackson, Maxfield, Obama, Galtier and Hamline.