Across the nation, governors and hundreds of city and county leaders have issued similar proclamations, with 32,000 School Choice Week-themed events taking place over the next six days.

In California, more than 2,300 events have been planned to raise awareness about educational opportunity. The rallies, roundtable discussions, coffeehouse gatherings, festivals and school fairs to engender conversation regarding educational choices (for example, readers in Los Angeles can attend a cocktail reception at the Reason Foundation with a panel discussion covering the current evidence for school choice).

“We are grateful to the California Senate for this resolution,” said Andrew Campanella, president of National School Choice Week, in a statement. “It’s amazing to see the momentum and enthusiasm that California parents have for choice. We hope they will use this opportunity to find the best schools for their kids.”

Additionally, the counties of Glenn, Imperial and Napa, and the cities of Brentwood, Buena Park, Colton, Cupertino, Foster City, Garden Grove, Hesperia, Loma Linda, Mission Viejo, Oakdale, Oceanside, Salinas, San Jose, San Ramon, Tustin, Vallejo, Walnut Creek, Woodlake, Huntington Park, Indian Wells, Rohnert Park, San Buenaventura, Santa Clara and Thousand Oaks have likewise issued proclamations recognizing the weeklong observance in their respective communities. California’s public school open enrollment policy is one of the nation’s broadest and most accommodating and includes, among other opportunities, tuition-free online schooling (California is the nation’s tech capital after all).

“Our families know firsthand how fortunate we are to have the freedom to choose where our students go to school. Every child deserves an educational setting that best enables him or her to succeed. We support school choice,” said Michelle Goetsch, principal of First Lutheran School, a private school with 113 students from preschool to grade 8 in Glendale, Calif.

The trend toward choice reaches beyond the Golden State, of course. Florida also recently passed legislation that also provides enrollment to its state’s students. What this portends for those in education and related industries is an upswing in potential opportunities to accommodate the ever-shifting needs of districts and their student distributions.

Held every January, National School Choice Week is an independent, nonpartisan, nonpolitical public awareness effort to spotlight education options. Through thousands of independently planned events across the country, National School Choice Week raises public awareness of all types of educational choices available — from traditional public schools, public charter schools and public magnet schools to online learning, private schools and homeschooling.

The post California Senate Proclaims This Week California School Choice Week appeared first on School Construction News.

The Lake County district, which serves approximately 42,000 students across 51 learning sites, needed to align with the recently passed requirement to permit students to apply to any public school throughout the state. Though the expanded school choice is a boon to families, it can be a burden to districts managing outdated enrollment and records systems.

“We knew it was important to invest in a simplified, scalable solution from an experienced technology provider to help our families navigate the state’s expanded school choice process,” said Julie Summerlin, supervisor of Choice, Charter and Community Education of Lake County Schools, in a statement. “SchoolMint’s flexibility in allowing us to configure lotteries and preferences as required by the state law, as well as the company’s overall expertise in the field, made them the right partner for our district.”

Since its founding in 2013, close to 6,000 schools have chosen SchoolMint to facilitate myriad aspects of student enrollment — from registration management to application, lottery oversight and even the management of digital forms and related uploadable documents. Lake County joins districts such as Boston Public Schools, Camden City School District, Chicago Public Schools, Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Denver Public Schools, Oakland Unified School District and Spring Branch Independent School District in implementing the system.

According to a TechCrunch article, in early 2016 SchoolMint raised $5.6 million in a round of funding that boasted a gallery of education- and government-focused investors. Among them was institutional investors Maiden Lane Ventures and CSC Upshot (one of China’s top three private equity firms, with $14 billion under management, according to Crunchbase).

When using such systems, school districts may increase family engagement, improve operational efficiency and obtain greater analytic and planning insights through the platform’s reporting tools. Also, there’s an app for that.

“As an increasing number of districts across the country are expanding choice and school options for their families, we are honored that more school systems, like Lake County, are looking to SchoolMint for our expertise in school choice,“ said Jinal Jhaveri, founder and CEO of SchoolMint, in a statement. “SchoolMint offers the system and the tools to make the school choice application process transparent, equitable and more accessible for families. And we are encouraged by the interest we are seeing among Florida’s school districts, given the state’s unique school choice requirements.”

Presently, the company has little in the way of competition since it’s only competitor, Infosnap, was acquired by PowerSchool, another K-12 education technology provider, narrowing the field as it addresses the state’s unique choice requirements.

The post Florida’s Lake County Schools Partners with SchoolMint to Help Align with New Legislation appeared first on School Construction News.