If the goal is to retain families who are inclined to leave the district (or even persuade those who have left to return), it would be reasonable to gather meaningful feedback on why families are making those choices. One survey with 75 responders from four school years ago is unlikely to be helpful for this. If an effort is made in the future to ask leavers why they left, that feedback should also be elicited from those who have sought to leave but are prevented from doing so by the district's open enrollment denial policies. After the 2007 US Supreme Court decision in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, open enrollment denials on the basis of 'racial imbalance' have ended, but open enrollment denials against many students with disabilities who seek to leave the district continue. The impressions left by the manner in which those denials are issued and enforced are unlikely to be overcome by the p.r. strategies recommended by the report.

My reading of the data (not all of which is presented above) indicates white flight, predominantly around the edges of the district. How can anyone be surprised by this? Our abject failure to support the highest achievers while concurrently throwing everything we have at the lowest achievers hasn't worked very well. Art Rainwater said this was going to happen. He was right. Luckily for the MMSD, there are many families who are dedicated to public education AND have high achieving children. Rather than run, they have doubled down on their efforts for their own children. I fear that trend could be changing.