MINNESOTA SCHOOLS STATEWIDE ENROLLMENT OPTIONS AND THE IMPACTS ON SRTS Minnesota law allows parents whose children are Minnesota residents the choice to enroll their children in a regular public school district other than the one in which they reside.
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While not required to provide
transportation, school districts will often send buses into the immediate neighboring districts with the practical and alluring promise of front-door pickups. To compete, local school districts have then felt compelled to offer equivalent transportation services, even for students living within immediate proximity of the local school. This has had the unintended consequence of undermining many SRTS efforts. In prior communities in which WCI has done SRTS plans, the SRTS team had observed students being picked up by the local district bus only to be transported to the school a block away, a distance walked in no more than a minute.
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Minnesota Department of Education. Enrollment Choices Statewide Enrollment Options (Open Enrollment) Key Topics, webpage. http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/EnrollChoice/003871. Accessed on January 14, 2016.
P a g e 32 | Chapter 2: About Safe Routes to School (SRTS)
