Equitably Improve Enrollment
Virtual Panel Recording
Virtual panel recording of a discussion with the Newark Common App Team on how to equitably Improve enrollment.
Virtual Panel Transcript
Introduction
Would love to welcome everybody today and send appreciation to all of our attendees who are live with us on this webinar and also all of you that are watching sometime in the future, ee welcome you as well. I really appreciate you jumping in and hearing from this amazing panel today, we are really excited to have the Newark Common App team with us today. And I'm going to let them share about themselves in just a second.
Josh Kinoshita, Client Services, Avela
I should formally introduce myself. My name is Josh Kishida and I am on the client services team here at Avela. And at Avela, we are lucky enough to work with and support So many different amazing teams from from districts and from State Departments of Ed and from charter networks and from amazing nonprofits like the New Jersey Children's Foundation, which is where we have our wonderful panelists from today. And so, I would love to just hand it over, whichever of you wants to kick it off to just briefly introduce yourself.
Sarah Yan, Head of school support, New Jersey Children's Foundation
Hi, everyone. I'll kick off. My name is Sarah Yan, I have been working in the city of Newark for over a decade starting as a teach for America Corps member. I've been working in a variety of roles including at the district as the head of recruitment and staffing. I now work at New Jersey Children's Foundation as the head of school support. And so what we do on the team is oversee things like convening of the education sector in the city. We also do grant making for education initiatives and for high quality school growth. And finally, we run two very important family and community initiatives and that includes Newark Common App and my schools Newark.
Leslie Comesañas, Director of Family and Community Support, New Jersey Children's Foundation
Good afternoon, good morning, depending on where you're tuning in from. My name is Leslie and I am the director of Family and Community Support for the New Jersey Children's Foundation and just a little bit of background. I was born and raised in Newark and I have been in education for at least I would say 10 to 15 years. Working also with the district, I used to lead family engagement and just coaching for a lot of parent liaisons and just, you know, moving their parent programming along with translations and different things. And then I just joined and not just because actually it's about to be a year. But I joined the wonderful team at NJCF in December.
Kate Fletcher, Consultant, Newark Common App
Happy to be with you all today. My name is Kate and I am a consultant.I primarily work on school enrollment systems planning and analysis and have been very lucky to work with the New Jersey Children Foundation for a number of years and most recently helping them launch and lead the Newark Common Act, which is what we're here to talk about today. And I've also been lucky to work with Sarah and Leslie in the city of Newark even prior to NJCF at the district for even longer.
Context Setting
Awesome. Thank you all so much, appreciate you being here and sharing your journey with everybody today. So the most of our time together today is going to be in conversation. And the Newark Common app team, you know, helping to share their journey. But we do want to provide a little bit of context thinking about common applications, you know, specifically here we can talk about in the context of Newark Common App as it is situated today as a charter common application. It really is just one type of enrollment reform. You know, moving from individual schools or individually managed by like a CMO a single entity towards a unification of processes and profit policies across the region, right? Make it more equitable, more accessible for families. And so this can look and feel very different in different places, it can be called different things.You can see on the screen that we have kind of representative examples of charter common applications. But I will note that the the lessons learned through starting a successful charter common application are definitely applicable to many different scenarios when we're thinking about enrollment equity in the ways that we bring schools together to be more accessible and the way that we reach out to families and build systems that are equitable for them to, to be able to access the educational opportunities that, that they desire for their, for their kiddos. So yeah, it's a little bit of broad context setting.
What does equitably improving enrollment mean to the Newark Common App team?
I think Leslie is gonna kick this off with a little bit narrower context setting for what improving enrollment looks like for for their team. And so Leslie, I can hand it off over to you.
Thank you Josh. So I think to kick stuff off. I do want to share this slide because it's pretty much drives our day to day work with no coming up and you're going to be here as mentioning equity, you know, and we just wanted to kind of give you a brief definition of what we mean and then just see if when we talk about equity, you know, which is recognizing the advantages and barriers exist. And as a result, we have all, you know, different needs and centering equity around the idea of not providing the same resources for everyone but giving people what they need. And I think, you know, every day when we do the work, we try to keep that in mind and make that the driver. And so these are just some of the points that you will be hearing frequently from one of us about equity and just keeping our core values and serving families. And so the three will be families and students receive support based on their needs to remove barriers to applying. And you know, that can be anything from the language, you know, or families who are not tech savvy and just making sure that after building an enrollment system that we put, you know, things in place to eliminate as many barriers as possible for families. And then the application process which is quick, straightforward, available in multiple language languages and formats. And also, you know we have the group of students who have been underrepresented at the school in the past and so that they have a preference in the lottery for schools. And so when we are planning or anything that we do around, you know, our enrollment or meeting with schools or meeting with stakeholders, we wanna make sure that equity stays, you know, at the forefront when we're serving families and you know, and have people at the table who have this lens needed to provide, you know, families with the best support available. So I think just to kick it off, we wanted to make sure that we you know, define it for us and because we hear it frequently, right, we have to have equity and equitable this and equitable that. But I think that having this definition as we proceed today with our conversations, always bring it back to, you know, not necessarily providing all the same resources but meeting families where they're at and giving them what they need. So, thanks, Josh.
I really appreciate you grounding us in this today and setting us up for a lot of success in the conversation to go forward. Appreciate that Leslie.
Can you provide background on how the Newark Common App came to be?
So let's, let's, let's keep in that kind of context setting and maybe thinking about, you know, the background. Where did the Newark Common App come from? Can you provide a little historical context from us around, you know, the broader enrollment reform in Newark? And then, you know, the, the kind of genesis of the Newark common app? I think we do have some unique circumstances in Newark. And wanted to, yeah, explain where the Newark Common App came from and also some of the lessons we've learned from our history. So most of the participating schools in the Newark Common App actually previously participated in a different Common enrollment system that is led by the district in Newark. And, that is, you know, I think a unique context, as I mentioned. But, I think a couple, a couple things, about that context, that I think will, you know, could apply in any setting. Are that, schools, who had participated in a common app wanted to continue being part of a universal common application process which I think kind of speaks to the power of having a system like this that even when and that particular collaboration was no longer sustainable for many of the participating schools. Schools did not want to go back to operating alone on enrollment. They wanted to continue in a common process. So when when the prior enrollment system was not sustainable for many of the participating schools, and NJCF stepped in to core the common application with schools to maintain as many of the benefits as possible of a common process for families and schools. And with the goal of creating a streamlined and straightforward, easy process that ultimately will work well for families and work well for schools. So we sought to work with schools to make sure we create a system where families have a positive experience and receive the support. As Leslie mentioned, as they need it when they need it, and in turn, that would allow schools to more easily meet their enrollment goals. And work in alignment with us to have continued to invest in and improve the system.
So we'll get a little more into the planning process, but we launched in December 2022. So we have finished our first year. And in that year, we had eight participating networks which represented 43 schools. That's that about 80% of the charter sector in Newark. So 16,000 students. And it was important to us that all schools of all size would be able to participate. So from, you know, a school of as small as 100 students up to over 6000 students in a large network that participates with us, wanted to make sure that our system would work for, for all schools. So, in brief, the common app allows Newark families to rank multiple schools on one application and students are then matched to the highest ranked school possible through our common lottery. We partnered with Vella on both the application and the common lottery.
That's great. That's some really awesome context setting, Kate.
What are the benefits for stakeholders involved? School and families?
I'd be curious. You, I think you touched on it a little bit that maybe we can be a little bit more explicit you mentioned that the schools didn't want to lose the benefit of being part of kind of a common process together if you want to share, maybe just at the highest level, what some of those kind of benefits that you feel are for both the schools themselves and also, you know, family with another stakeholder maybe.
Yeah, absolutely. So, for, I think, most importantly, both for us and for participating schools, having a process where families can select multiple schools on one application and go through one process rather than potentially dozens of processes around the city that might have different timelines works much better for families. And, and I think we were aligned with all of the participating schools that in centering equity having a process that is as accessible as possible to families all across the city. It would ultimately serve Newark families best and would also better support school operations. So schools not only what we're thinking, you know, both about what is best for families, and what is best for their schools to make sure that there are as few barriers as possible in place for families to access schools of their choice.
Yeah, that's amazing. And I think something I'm excited for all of you as you continue to grow is thinking about, you know, the broader stakeholders thinking about policy makers in, in the city. And you know, the kind of data that we'll be able to provideto really inform the educational landscape of the city, right, when we have enough data to understand where demand exists and what kind of programs are needed and desired by families. It's a, it's a really fun journey that you're all on.So I appreciate that. Great. I mean, that's some great context setting for the the initial phases of of the launch of the Newark Common App.
What were the initial planning step NJCF took to form the Newark Common App?
But let's let's dig even further in. You know, so much of what you've been able to accomplish is based off of a really robust planning process. I know I've been able to see it a little bit. So I'd love to, to dig in and maybe Sarah if you want to pick up the time, Let's for you just walk through some of kind of those initial planning steps, you know, we kind of alluded to the genesis of this, but how did, how did the Newark Common App really come to form?
Yeah, thanks, Josh. I'm happy to talk a little bit about how we got started and went through the development and implementation process. I will say I'll answer a couple of the questions that popped up in the Q and A in my response here. But I would say the, the very first thing that we did was just fact finding and research. So as I mentioned in my introduction, we at NJCF, we are already convening schools regularly and consistently. And so one of the things that we often talked about were enrollment issues. Of course, the pandemic happened and there were enrollment issues all around. But we also knew from our school partners that there were deep issues regarding the of a different common enrollment system. And those deep issues were along some major topics and that included things like transparency around how the actual lottery and applications were being administered and also around family support. There were, there was previously a family support center where families could go in and ask questions and that was closed without any collaboration or without any notice. And those are two incredibly important pieces to, to us in terms of our core values, transparency and family support. And so when there were issues surrounding some of those core values, that was when schools were saying, hey, there were major issues with enrollment in this current system that they were participating in, but we were also hearing it only from the school side and we wanted to make sure at NJCF before we embarked on something as huge as creating and developing a common enrollment system that these issues were true for families that were actually undergoing the enrollment process. And so what we elected to do was to also conduct focus groups and surveying of actual Newark families and Newark parents. And so that we could understand what they were going through and what their experiences were through the enrollment process because they are our primary number one customers and clients. And so that was important to us. So that was step one is just making sure that there was an actual need from both the school perspective and from the family perspective for something different, a better common enrollment system. Before we even went to schools, the second part of that was having kind of deep internal discussions at NJCF on things I would say three major areas. The first being, budget and finances, the second being governance and the third being infrastructure. So when I talk about budget and finance, we want to create a common enrollment system that is sustainable. So it's not something that we only, we have the money for, for the next 235 years, we want to make sure that we can sustain a common enrollment system for as long as long as possible, as long as families need it. And so our, we had initial budget discussions and common enrollment systems can be expensive and we've had budgets that balloon to over a million dollars a year to sustain a common enrollment system. So we really needed to get together and scale down those costs and plan for sustainable funding. And the way that we did that was to actually charge schools a fee for participating. And that way schools, the school revenue pays for almost 50% of our common enrollment system. And so we only NJCF itself through philanthropic funding only needs to, to sustain a little over 50% of the actual cost yearly costs of a common enrollment system. The second thing I mentioned was governance and that was important to us because even though NJCF is the system administrator of the common and enrollment system, no common app, we also wanted to make sure that our participating schools and felt like they were co owners of the system with us. And so we created an advisory board that kind of that works alongside NJCF to create the policies. We also have an enrollment working group to cover technical issues that schools are actually facing as participating schools. And so that was important to us to figure out like who actually makes the decisions and who, who are the ones who kind of make. Like I said, make the decisions as we face them as things come up who actually have gets the, gets the last word. And so that was important to us that NJCF is the system administrator, but we also have an advisory board of schools that help create the policies that undergird the system. And then we also have an enrollment working group where people can voice any concerns that they have around technical issues or family support issues. Finally, the third part was infrastructure. So as Kate mentioned, she has an extensive experience with enrollment. but she was a consultant.
And so we really decided that we needed to invest in a director to lead no common that was really critically important for us. And we really wanted that director to have deep family engagement experience because family support is our number one core value. And so that was the second step. So first step being making sure that it was actually needed. Second step making be being that making sure that NJCF could actually support and do this. And the third step was to actually kind of figure out the enrollment system. I would say that, you know, we're all in education and everyone loves backwards planning and project planning. But we didn't really have to take a true kind of backwards planning approach because we had a foundation of another enrollment system. And so we knew approximate timeline, we knew what the policies were gonna be approximately. So we knew that we were going to have a November to early December launch of the application. And we also knew that we needed the mou that outlines the policies signed by the boards of the participating schools in October. So those were the dates that we were working backwards from approximately. And so instead of taking a long time figuring out policies and timeline, we were able to invest a lot of our time, significant time, months of time upfront on stakeholder engagement and collaboration, primarily with our participating or those who we thought would be participating schools. And I, I think I've said this a few times, but what was really critically important to us was that our participating schools, especially the group that was launching the system with us really felt like they were true partners and co-owner of the system so that the, the success of the entire system was on their shoulders as well as NJCS. And so we held regular and consistent group convening. We also had individual conversations with each participating school. We, we spent a lot of time just deeply understanding from a school's perspective, what was critically important to them and what was non-negotiable for an enrollment system. And that's where we started with our core values. Then we discussed details of the policies and the timeline and then we also discussed broader topics like what is our, what is going to be our general approach to things like family support. One of the reasons why costs can balloon is because a lot of times with an enrollment system, you want to stand up a family support center, we knew that we weren't gonna be able to do that. And so together with our participating schools, we needed to figure out how were we actually going to robustly support families that had issues with the enrollment system?
Now, you've hit on so many great topics that we'll be able to, to jump into a little bit more detail and in all those different strands as we think about you know, that that stakeholder engagement and that buy in process and kind of building collaboratively.
Questions from the audience
I'll name, we've had a couple of questions come through. One from Tamika. Thanks so much. I'm not sure that's totally visible to everybody because it was in the chat. But she was curious about who makes up the advisory board that she mentioned. Sarah. And so, you know, Kate was nice enough to, to drop into chat also that right now the advisory board has one member of her participating school. So it's, you know, representative across the our school system, I guess. Great and we'll, we'll keep picking up some of these questions as we go along.
What specifically did engagement look like when you went out to families?
But I, I'd love to, to, to dig in, especially on that last topic that you brought up, Sarah and, and they can throw it out to the, the bigger group, whoever wants to, to, to dive in. You talked a lot about investing and hearing directly from parents and families and then of course, you know, this advisory group with with schools as well. I'd love to just dig in a little bit more. I'd love to hear kind of the strategy of implementation. You said, you know, you had months and months to do this, this engagement, you know, what did that actually look like when you went out to let's start with families maybe.
We partnered with our participating schools on reaching out to their communities because at the end of the day, what we understood from, at least in the Newark context was that families really want to connect to schools because families want to be part of a school community. And so we partnered with our participating schools to get, get the word out through our participating schools that they were kind of our ambassadors. They were the ones that were championing, championing the Newark Common App. And so we worked with them very closely, as I mentioned, we did do focus groups and surveying of families to better understand like what exactly their needs were. And what they felt felt was very difficult about the the enrollment processes in Newark. They are still, they still remain very complicated. There's multiple enrollment systems, there's individual school applications, there's selective admissions processes. And so it is a complicated process. And so we wanted to understand from the parent and family perspective, what was, what were the barriers that they felt they had to overcome in order to actually be able to access the schools of their choice?
Great. That's super helpful.
How do you bring schools together as a true collaboration with a shared ownership model?
I think maybe pivoting over to the schools because they are obviously, you know, a huge portion of that continued engagement. You know, Kate you had mentioned earlier, I think you just like co ownership is, is a way that you describe the Newark Common App and, and thinking of those co owners as, as the participating schools. And so would love to, to dig in there kind of, you know, how, how did you bring this group together? How does this group come together and how is it that you kind of see this as a collaboration and shared ownership model, Kate or Leslie, whoever wants to give Sarah a break.
So, I can answer that. So I, this is part of what I love on the day to day because we have implemented some, you know, key things to keep schools involved and engaged and, you know, and, and become true owners of, you know, the enrollment. And so we do a couple of things. So the first one I would say is just, you know, Josh, we meet on a regular, right? We meet with Avela every Friday and it's true partnership from the top, you know, all the way down to, to our families, but meeting every day with, with Avela and getting, you know, being part of just knowing how the system works and being part of just brainstorming and how to make it better.And so that part, it's what goes over to our weekly meetings with schools. And so our weekly meetings with schools give the chance for schools to have their voice in true partnership. And like Sarah mentioned before, you appreciate something more when you have money invested as opposed to something that's just given to you, right? So all our schools are invested and do have funding attached to their enrollment, but it's also takes partnership one step, you know, further when you actually bring them to the table. And so our weekly meetings with schools are really just to hear from them on what's working, you know, as a school, you know, as the admin team, but also what are they hearing from families? Right. How can we make the system better? So that families are, you know, it's not only starting the application but finishing and actually going through the whole process all the way up to registration, which is key with enrollment. It's not just filling an application on the school's end, but making sure that families are not only understand what enrollment is but finishing all the way through to registration, We hear from schools on a regular basis which gives them ownership and it's true partnership, right? A lot of the things that we've heard, which is another thing that we also implemented was our one on one feedbacks at the end of the academic year. And we wanted to hear straight from schools what worked and a lot of the feedback that we received from schools. And I think this was one of the questions in the right now in the chat is what happened before, when they were part of, you know, a different enrollment system. Is that on paper, there was partnership, but in reality, there probably was none. And so our one on one feedbacks were like, you know, we feel like we're true partners because we are, voicing our opinions and then when the issue comes up, you know, we present it like, what does everybody think, think as the collective? And so that has worked very well. It's funny because when, you know, they wanted a voice and now that they have a voice, our meetings are sometimes are a little quiet because it's like, wow, you're actually giving us a voice and they have to really think about, making a suggestion to the team because it would then be the entire collector will be either given an opinion or agreeing with it. Right. So, I think that's something that we have implemented. And then we already spoke about the advisory board. The advisory board is brand new. We're actually having our second meeting this week and it's just one representative from each school to kind of come in and we're gonna be going over the mou and doing over some policies and kind of making sure that each school is at the table, you know, and I think moving forward, is important to have also a family or two on this advisory board, a student or two on this advisory board because sometimes I find it astounding that we make decisions for people that are not at the table, right? So we make decisions for families, but they're not at the table. And so we kind of guess of what of what we we've heard, right? We've heard they say this or we think this, right? We, we sometimes say we're gonna have a workshop and families are not gonna come and we make that decision, right? So I think moving forward, our advisory board, we want to make it a little bit more robust, but we are starting with just each school represented. So they have a voice and I think providing true partnership like that allows for true ownership from the schools. I know that, yeah, we're all in this together. making sure that, you know, we keep families first and, and, and stay equitable.
How do you set expectation when you have so many stakeholders invovled?
Would love to get a sense of how you all set expectations around. You know, when you have a, a lot of stakeholders together, they're sitting at a table, you're trying to be as transparent as possible about the challenges and decisions that need to be made. I wonder about that kind of final decision making process. Who's holding that final decision making authority and kind of what are the expectations settings that you're creating with these groups so that everybody understands that they have a voice but may not get what they want because obviously, there's a lot of compromise that has to happen when you were working with many different entities would love a, a glimpse into that world for all of you.
I think that's definitely, certainly always very interesting. I will say there, there are no surprises. We, as Leslie mentioned, we meet with our schools every single week and we have open discussions. So any issues that schools are facing, whether it's like a technical issue, a family support issue or an issue with the administration of the system, it is out in the open. These are the, there's a reason why we spent so much time having doing stakeholder engagement and making sure that we are building trust amongst our participating schools so that they understand that as the system administrator, no common app has the adheres to these core values and is a family first system. And so that is critically important to us. We are have open discussions. We have a lot of time with our schools to talk about their issues, to talk about things that are impacting their enrollment. But and so we, we hear all of the perspectives we think about how this impacts families. But as the system administrator, no common app, we here at NJCF are the final decision makers and schools understand that. But what's important, what we have found is important to our schools is number one that their issues are actually heard. And so we address their issues, we give them a response and then we discuss it collectively as a group. By the time we get to the final decision there, it's not a surprise. Our schools know where we're going to land because we've talked about it and we've talked about gathering different perspectives, but it always comes down to our core values and what is most important for families. So how do fam, how is it easiest for families to access their choice? Of course, our participating schools are incredibly important to us. But this is what they've signed on for and that is what has taken us. That is why we spent so much time in stakeholder engagement is because we wanted to build that trust in us as system administrators that we are not beholden to anybody except for families. And we are, it is incredibly important to us to honor the choices of families. And that is our number one goal. And so I think that that is, that's really our process. But the short answer is that we are the final decision makers as a system.
Perfect. Thank you for that, that context. And and you brought back up putting families first and it was the place we wanted to go kind of go next anyhow.
What advise would you give to organization embarking on this work?
We have a lot of amazing attendees today in different locales and in different structures would love to get a sense of, you know, any advice you'd have for organizations kind of embarking on this type of work of focusing on families, focusing on equity as they continue to build or refine their enrollment processes, you know, how they can promote equity, especially for underrepresented communities. So a little, any advice giving or lessons learned or just a little share out of, of what else you've been doing to, to help put families first.
I think just remaining true to your core values and your goal. No one will ever negate that if you bring it back. Right? No one will ever be like, oh no, we, you know, deviate or whatever like this is the foundation. So, like we said in the beginning, you know, equity and then it's part of our core, our core, you know, values and serving families. And so, you know, one of the, I guess recommendations I would say is to remain true to your core values. And, you know, we throughout the year we, so we've had like just a little anecdote, we've had like a a fair, right? A school fair and all the schools are there and you know, the school fairs, you know, schools are trying to outdo each other. So this one has balloons but this one has a popcorn machine and this one has a popcorn machine. So let's have a candy machine, right? It's like, it's, it's great right to see a school spirit. And so everybody's like asking for certain things. And then so in the planning phase and end of the day off, it's like, well, we want the families to visit us. So let's have this big right? Bringing it back to core values is like, just remember that we're here for families, right? And we want to make sure that we provide to families. So not a number of, of popcorn or candy or where you're placed at the fair. If you're first or the last. Just remember that what we're here for is to serve families. So we want families to visit every booth because that's true school choice, right? We don't want you to monopolize on the family's time and keep them for an hour. So that that way they can't visit any other of the stations, right? So we try to like make sure that I think the core values are always represented and we're always bringing it back. And if there's a decision to be made, let's bring it back to the court, what what, what can we do or what decision can be made to serve this family the best way possible. And I also think being transparent about the challenges when we meet with schools and there's a challenge that as a team. We don't know. And we're like, yeah, that's a good question, right? Being open and say yes, that's a challenge. We, we're gonna brainstorm about it and see how can we come up with a better solution and if we don't have one right now, just being up front, not only with the schools, but with, with families, I think families appreciate and that's how you build trust when you know, that there's challenges or there's different things that we haven't accomplished yet. And you're honest with the families in our info box, sometimes families are, you know, ask certain questions about, you know, school location or a weightless number or something and it's just really letting them know, you know, unfortunately, we don't have enough space at this particular school, right? Just being honest and if there's a challenge, you know, whatever the case may be, but I think that's also part of, you know, fostering collaboration. And, you know, like we spoke about before just decision make, decision making as a, as a collective. And I think what's, what really has helped us as a team is we're always asking and open to feedback from schools because we know that sometimes something might not work and we're also not in the schools when families and you know, the hustle and bustle of the school. So I think that's, that's important. You know, those recommendations to kind of make sure that organizations foster that collaboration and keep families first when it comes to serving.
Yeah, it's something I definitely appreciated in my work with all of you is, is your focus on that continual, a continuous improvement Both in our conversations and obviously extended to your schools and, and getting feedback from families. I really appreciate that.
Audience Questions
I was just gonna quickly address a couple questions that are somewhat related to this from the chat. So, how do you ensure that equity exists within the application and lottery process?
I think when it comes to the application, we've, already talked about how important it is for us to make sure that all families can access the application in the way that works best for them in the language that works best for them and that we're meeting them where they are to, to ensure that all families regardless of where they live in the city, their, you know, educational or programmatic need. And the schools they're applying to that, they, they feel welcome and supported in applying to our participating schools. And that our application and the technical elements of the application are supporting that. So we think about equity in that sense in every part of the work. So when we're doing the planning with Avela, when we're cleaning data, we think about how is each step that we're taking to make this more accessible, to make sure families are seeing accurate information. How is that going to support equity and how is it going to make the experience better for families? And then when it comes to our lottery process, we partnered with Avlea to implement a lottery that includes preferences for students with IEPs, students who receive English language learning services, students who receive free lunch, and students who are experiencing homelessness or displacement. And for the first three of those priorities I mentioned we look at where the school is compared to the citywide average in those areas. So Leslie brought this up at the beginning. We are through that addressing potential underrepresentation of students in each of those groups at our participating schools to make sure that if a student group has been historically underrepresented at a school, when those students are applying and choosing that school, they have a boost to get into schools of their choice. So that I think that answers the questions related to the lottery.
What outcomes is the Newark Common App experiencing in this first year?
We were common app team was nice enough to, to throw together a little slide for us just to be able to share some of these outcomes a little bit more data heavy. So we thought we'd throw it up for people to be able to see Kate, you wanna or Kate and Leslie, you wanna voice over.
So stepping back to our application process. So first we wanted to make sure you know, families were able to access the application and we were receiving applications to support enrollment at our participating schools and received during our main application round, about 3400 applications. And then that has more than double since then as we continue to receive applications over the spring and summer. We think also important for equity is that the application should be accessible for as much of the year as possible. Families are moving to the city or moving around the city all times of year. So they need to have access when it's necessary to apply to a school that will work for them or will work better for them at any point in the year. And overall, on the whole, in our lottery process, families were matched to choices that they ranked high on their list of schools, with 98% of kindergarten applicants matched to their top choice. And in terms of our kind of preliminary findings, we, we saw that across those student groups that I mentioned, we had students applying and being matched at overall, at very close to the citywide average in each very close or above the citywide average in each of those categories. So we're very excited about our you know, again, preliminary results and what we're seeing in terms of our lottery working to boost the representation of these groups at our participating schools. And we are certainly, I say preliminary because, you know, we, have recently started the school year and we're certainly gonna be working to understand what enrollment looks like this year at all of our participating schools. You know, as a result of this process, I think also important for outcomes is that we are looking all the time for school and family feedback, we've touched on a lot of this already. So I won't go into too much more detail on the feedback. But we I think, you know, as important is as our quantitative outcomes are of the qualitative data that we collect from schools and families about their experience. And I will just emphasize that the number one kind of point of positive feedback that we've heard both from families and schools is that this application is easy. And families are are not intimidated by it and we are able to complete the application you know, quickly and easily. And then, you know, as a result, we have seen importantly that our participating schools are meeting or exceeding their enrollment goals in this first year.
Thank you so much for sharing. You know, what this year one has looked like it's been an absolute pleasure to be in partnership with all of you, and helping you all to meet these goals and have these outcomes come true.
What does the future hold for Newark Common App?
Well, you know, we are running towards the, the 30 minute marker at the bottom of the hour here. So I want to give you all a chance just to look a little bit into the future for a couple of minutes. Think about what's next for, for Newark Common App. I'll keep it broad just so you can take it wherever you want within the few minutes. We have for this and just, you know, we talked about a continuous improvement, would love to have a sense of some of the long term goals or the vision that you imagine for, for the Newark Common App as we, we move forward in time and hit year 2, 3, 4…however long it's needed as you, as you said earlier, Sarah.
WE’RE NOT STOPPING AT FOUR! But yeah, I'm happy to talk a little bit about what's next for our team in the immediate future. We have two major goals for this year too. The first is just expansion of enrollment. We deeply believe that we have built a really, really, really great common enro system, both for our participating schools and for our families in the city of Newark. And so it is important to us to continue to try to get more school partners, more diverse schools to join the Newark Common App system. We are, we purposely called it the Newark Common App because it is not just for one type of school, it is for all of the schools in the city of Newark. And that is incredibly important to us. We are having some very real, very exciting conversations with different types of schools including private and parochial schools in the city. And that is exciting to be able to expand that to even more even more communities, school communities in the city of Newark. And so that is incredibly important to us, but I would say our main focus for year two is to to continue but expand our focus on family outreach. So making sure that we are reaching out to more families, everybody knows about Newark Common App, but not just engaging them in the Newark Common Application, but also engaging families on the entire application process and really making sure that families feel empowered and educated about every single step of enrollment we have, we have an application system. But there are so many steps before a family even submits an application, right? Understanding the school choices, understanding that you have a choice, understanding what those choices are, understanding how to access those choices. And then there's a lot of steps even after the application accepting the match registering at the school becoming a part of a school community. That's something I've heard Leslie talk about a lot. There's, there's so much before and after the application process that we really want to make sure that we're focusing on the education and, and empowerment of parents and families throughout the entire enrollment admissions registration process. And that's incredibly important to us in year two. The long term vision is, of course, I can't emphasize enough.We really deeply believe in our common enrollment system and we really think it could be the citywide enrollment system for the entire city of Newark. And that is the ultimate vision, the ultimate goal, whether NJCF runs it or we just give the playbook to another entity that wants to run a citywide enrollment system that's of course, to be determined. But it is really important to us that we have built a foundation, a baseline of this enrollment system that can really support the enrollment of all of the different types of schools in Newark. And that would be the ultimate goal because for us family to be able to, to submit one application and be able to get to the top school of their choice in the city. That would be incredible for families, it would be easy for them to access all of their choices and to really have a seamless easy to use process. And so that is the the ultimate goal and vision for us.
I'm really excited for the next phase and the next part, with, when it comes to just engaging families, because I do think there's sometimes a disconnect with, you know, when we talk about enrollment and we just thinking, well, we just need to get this family, you know, a seat at our school. It, it's really not so much about that. That's just like the beginning, like Sarah said, you know, I think we want to make sure that our families are to the point where they can advocate for themselves and have enough tools and resources that, you know, we know that this family is gonna be part of your school if you're a K to eight or pre K to eight, I mean, for 15 years, a family is gonna be engaged if you start from pre K three, all the way to 12th grade. Right? And there's so many missed opportunities in engaging families and everything that we do from a, from enrollment to back to school night to just different things that happen at the school community portion of it. And so I think enrollment is where we get them at the beginning and it's important to get this right? Because if we engage them properly and give them all the tools and learn, have them, learn how to advocate. We have them for at least the next 15 years and there's nothing better than a family, sharing their experience of how wonderful your school community is. It's better to hear it from it, from a family than you hear from an admin at, you know, at a back to school night because they're gonna say their school is great. But if a family tells me this was amazing from the beginning all the way to, you know, my child graduating 12th grade, it was amazing. It's important, right? And like we said, and we continue to say, it's putting families first and creating opportunities for them to learn and feel empowered. And for the most part, our families have more than one child. So they're gonna be going through this more than once and it's just really important. So I am like Sarah said, we are really excited for the second part of just, you know, making sure that our families are educated and that, you know, we have them at the forefront, kind of helping other families fill out the application and just being part of what it is to be fully engaged with your child's education journey.
That's perfect. I think it's a perfect way to end this portion of our conversation. Thinking about families first and, and such a core anchor to all the work that you guys are doing. Just want to send so much appreciation to the NJCF team first for being here. But way more importantly for the amazing work that you've been doing in, in Newark. The impact of which is clearly evident for, for the families that you're being able to serve. And so, just a lot of kudos to your team.
Thanks so much, Josh, and thank you again to the Newark Common App team. We're so grateful for each of you sharing your story today and surfacing these powerful insights to our audience to learn. For those of you joining us today, if Newark story resonates with you, I know Deja has already dropped in the in the chat to, to schedule some follow up, we would love to hear where you are on your equitable enrollment journey and we'd love to see if Avela can help. We have a complete suite of enrollment products that Newark leverages in what they've described today and an unrivaled team of enrollment consultants and experts ready to help you. So we'd love to continue the conversation. Again, as Josh mentioned, we'll stay on and, and answer any other questions in depth. Otherwise, look out for my follow up communication. We'll be sharing a recording of today's webinar and some more information on how you can schedule some time with our consultants.
Audience Questions
So, in the chat, Steve has asked, can we speak to within the Vella suite, how we communicate with families along the enrollment journey? Notifications of the offered stage accepted. And also how do you inform school staff of status changes? Does anyone on the Newark team want to share this? I obviously we can with the Avela team as well or maybe something specific about how you do it, Leslie put you on the spot. So I I like this question because it allows me to engage at different points with the families and kind of nudge them to keep moving along, right? So they do receive a lot of communication from at different points. So when a family goes in and they fill in an application, they, they do receive an email that they fill out an application, when they have an offer, they receive an email that they have an offer. And we, we actually have like a little template where, you know, we translate it to Spanish and the family receives it, you know, depending on how they applied, whether it's through email or through text, they receive that they have an offer when they accept an offer, they receive it, right? And so sometimes sometimes when they receive that, you know, that that's a lot of where the education comes, right. Because in past, they didn't really have to do much as far as in the city of Newark. When the, where they were part of the district, they just were accepted and that's where you were gonna go, right? That's where, but now it's, it's great that families have the choice of accepting that or waiting to see if it's, they're on a waitlist that they really want to school, right. That it's their number one top choice waiting to see if another offer comes in. So they do have a lot of communication throughout the whole process. You know, the whole journey of enrollment, the, the whole journey they're getting notifications throughout, right? And, and then on the admin side, well, that's just the whole world that like, I love being in there because you can see the offers, you can see the waitlist, you can see who, you know, as far as the schools, they can move. You know, someone from the waitlist, if a seat opens up to an offer, like there's just so much that an admin can do that. I think the team can kind of talk about that more on because that's their wheelhouse. But it is very, there's a lot of communication throughout all the stages going on and the admin side. So the school side, they can go in and see a family where they are on a particular journey to finish, right? Whether they are just completing a new application, whether they're on a waitlist or whether they're, they have an offer and, and kind of deal one on one with that particular family or where they're at, which is great because it allows you to, when you pick up the call. Ok, I see that you have an offer, right? Or the email says I see you have an offer. You know, go and make sure that you accept. It's just, it's a really great tool for that. And I, I I'm always excited to be Kate and I are always in the system trying to, you see and download stuff and doing a whole bunch of things on there. But you know, Kate is our data person, so she loves that and I'm learning to love it, the data part.
That's awesome. Thank you so much Leslie. The one thing I think I would layer on top of Leslie's response is she talked a lot about the automatic messages that are available in Avela at different inflection points in the process. Those are completely customizable as far as the language that's shared with families as as Leslie mentioned, you know, they have translated versions that can go out to families as well. There also is the ability within a villa to have ad hoc messages. So if say, you know, a a family forgot to add in a document into their application, upload a document. It's really easy to go ahead and send a message directly to that family. You know, based off their preferred communication, text or email. Yeah, so always, always have that ability as well.
Great. You also host a digital fillable version of the registration package or the school take it from there. Definitely have registration capabilities. It's streamlined, easily, kind of the same backbone as our application process. We just build those forms into the platform.
We definitely have the ability to do integrations. You know, specific every integration is unique, it's its own little snowflake. And so, you know, we'll definitely, if we wanted to have a deeper conversation on what you're all using and how we can effectively get data to move between systems. That would be a conversation we would love to have.
Yeah, and and also just the follow up there. Yeah, great, happy to, to talk to registration and that it can definitely be how it, I can definitely go back to the schools if that's the, the process that you would prefer seeing no other questions coming in.
As Andrea already mentioned, she's gonna follow up with everybody who is here in attendance today and it will be an easy way to get back a hold of us if you do have any questions coming out of it. Also, in the future, all of our future attendees, you're seeing us definitely can, can be reach, can reach out to the team at that point as well. So I will sign us off and thank everybody for being here.
