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In Germany, we have something similar but only for Elementary Schools (1st - 4th grade). After that, you are mostly free to choose, which school you want to attend.
I am German, so I am familiar with our system, which is why I asked specifically about high schools ;)
Huh the world is small, I live in the city where you study ;)
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As someone from the US - does this mean there are places where students are free to go to any high school they wish? Could this result in overcrowding if all the students want to go to the same school?
I am from Brazil, I don't know how it is in other parts of the country, but there are no restrictions here as far as I know. I heard of people that would study in the school in the other side of the city because it was considered the best school. But there is a limit of how many students a school can accept, so they need to enroll as soon as possible. And I think they need to arrange their own way to get to school, b…
As someone not from the US, does this mean you don't get to choose the high school you go to and it is only determined by your address regardless of where you friends go, etc.?
As someone from the US - does this mean there are places where students are free to go to any high school they wish? Could this result in overcrowding if all the students want to go to the same school?
In Boston where there are some VERY good high schools and some meh high schools there is an exam system that may or may not be replaced by something else due to the fact it blatantly favors the wealthier residents.
Great idea! I recently heard of a family that leased an expensive home (in Atherton) that was immediately adjacent to a public elementary school. They assumed it was zoned for the school that it abutted, but learned after trying to enroll their kids they discovered it was not. When you look at the district map, you can see that it extends quite a bit into Atherton, and there are many homes that are much farther away…
As someone not from the US, does this mean you don't get to choose the high school you go to and it is only determined by your address regardless of where you friends go, etc.?
This was (along with other things) used to avoid regulations banning racial segregation of schools (since neighborhoods were already segregated due to policies like redlining).
When people perceive one school to be better than another, they may use various forms of fraud to get their children into the school; using the grandparent's address is common (since grandparents may own a house in the suburbs while the parents are younger and live in an apartment in a poorer neighborhood).
Are school districts contiguous?
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Also, about the "regardless of where your friends go" part, I'd say most people meet their friends in school. I guess if they moved and had to change schools that would suck but I can't think of anyone that happened to personally (other than friends who moved far away, like to another state). And the school district is often a very key factor when people with kids are looking for housing.
At least where I live you change the school you go to at least once and I just assumed it was the same in the US considering that there are middle and high school. So when you switch from middle to high school, I would have assumed not all of your friends end up at the same school...
This is all "typical"; there are many exceptions. Where I live now, they unified the secondary schools (i.e. junior-high and high-school) so that you can apply to go to a different junior-high or high-school than your local one, space permitting. Similarly where I grew up, you could apply to go to a different school, but a "legitimate academic reason" was required. People did game the system, most commonly by claiming they wanted to study a foreign language that was offered at the school they wanted to go to, but not the school they were in the district for.
I should note that where I grew up the school-system was unusually non-local in the sense that there was one system for the entire county (which was about half the land area of Saarland). Even then you were required to go to the local school though. More typical is that each town or city manages the schools for their area.
Great idea! I recently heard of a family that leased an expensive home (in Atherton) that was immediately adjacent to a public elementary school. They assumed it was zoned for the school that it abutted, but learned after trying to enroll their kids they discovered it was not. When you look at the district map, you can see that it extends quite a bit into Atherton, and there are many homes that are much farther away…
As somebody who's company has been involved in creating those maps and has been accused of "destroying property values and ruining lives" there are some really complex trade offs that go into these things.
Curious about the downvotes — isn't this a relevant anecdote that shows the need for products like this one?
This might help with a project i've been toying with. obviously US focused, but parse all the school calendars I could find and then query the dataset for like "when is the best time I could go XYZ and see as few school kids as possible" would look at schools in the area and look at all the calendars and show the time where the majority of schools are in session
Unfortunately there are some perverts who would love to use it for the inverse reason.