How open enrollment is reshaping Twin Cities school districts
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Nearly 44,000 Twin Cities students crossed over into another district to attend school this year — a number that has grown every year for at least a decade, according to an Axios analysis.
Why it matters: The steady rise of "open enrollment" is the result of years of work by Minnesota policymakers to give parents more control over where to send their kids to school.
- These policies give districts a powerful financial incentive to compete with each other to attract families: Each new student brings additional state funding, and each student lost comes at a cost.
Stunning stats: Nearly 40% of Minnetonka Public Schools' students live in other districts, as do roughly a third of the students attending Fridley, Orono, Columbia Heights, Mahtomedi, St. Anthony and Hopkins schools.
- More than half of Brooklyn Center schools' enrollment comes from outside the district.
Case in point: Open enrollment has helped Minnetonka grow from a district of under 7,700 students two decades ago to more than 11,000 today.
- Funding gained from this student influx has helped "keep our district's programs at the level that our community has been used to seeing them," school board member Patrick Lee-O'Halloran said at a 2024 meeting.
Friction point: There's not enough school funding to go around, which raises the stakes of this competition between districts, Burnsville-Eagan-Savage school district spokesperson Aaron Tinklenberg told Axios.
- That's been trying for districts like Minneapolis Public Schools. Though MPS' overall enrollment has stabilized, its steep losses to open enrollment — more than any other district in the state — have complicated a precarious budget situation.
What they're saying: "I do not know of a metro school district that does not market its district in some way," Minnetonka Public Schools spokesperson JacQui Getty told Axios.
- "The potential audience from a marketing perspective is much larger than the neighborhood around a given school, which is both a challenge and an opportunity for school districts to recruit students," St. Paul Public Schools spokesperson Ryan Stanzel added.
How it works: State law lets parents apply for open enrollment in any district so long as the parent is willing to provide transportation.
- Districts can use an impartial lottery when applications exceed available seats, though they must give admissions preferences to siblings and staff members' children.
The intrigue: Hopkins school officials have found the sibling preference multiplies the impact of an open-enrollment decision: When families open-enroll one child into another district, their younger siblings are likely to follow, district spokesperson Jolene Goldade told Axios.
- "You could be losing 25 years of funding" if a whole generation of a family open-enrolls, she said.
Research has shown racial segregation is worsening in Twin Cities schools, and critics fear open enrollment is one reason why.
Between the lines: The Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity's most recent analysis found that in 2009-10, 36% of white open-enrolled children moved to a district with larger white populations.
- That's compared to 19% whose parents chose more-integrated settings.
- The rest moved to a district with about as many white kids, the institute's director, University of Minnesota law professor Myron Orfield, told Axios.
Catch up quick: While Minnesota has had an open enrollment law since 1988, the practice only became commonplace in the 2000s after state officials weakened school integration rules, removing guardrails that had limited open enrollment, Orfield says.
- The number of open-enrolled students statewide has grown 78% since Orfield's study of 2010 data — and though he hasn't crunched recent numbers, he fears the trend toward segregation is increasing.
- Schools "seem to be growing more segregated all the time," Orfield said.
Yes, but: In Minnetonka, school officials have downplayed the effect of race on families' enrollment decisions.
- "Most of our students come to us through word of mouth," drawn by quality programs and stories of "amazing experiences their children or grandchildren are having in our district," Getty said.
The fine print: Axios' maps do not show districts' net gains or losses from open enrollment.
- For example, one of our maps highlighted Osseo's loss of 2,500 resident students to other districts — but Osseo also saw 1,468 incoming students via open enrollment, according to state data.
Zoom out: In the Twin Cities, school districts' main publicly funded competitors are still charter schools — tuition-free schools run by nonprofits. Charters in the metro enroll more than 62,000 students.
Reality check: Districts that see higher numbers of students leave via open enrollment are not necessarily "undesirable," Tinklenberg argued.
- Tinklenberg's Burnsville district has seen greater net losses to open enrollment than any other district outside Minneapolis. (The number of students of color in the district has remained relatively stable, but white families have left, he said.)
- But Burnsville also has relatively stable finances and has beat its overall enrollment projections in four of the last five years: "The families who are here are really happy with the choice that they've made."