Ann Arbor misses its Schools of Choice target

Ann Arbor schools fell about 40 students shy of meeting its goal for filling 2011-12 Schools of Choice spots, attracting 130 pupils for the 190 places opened for students who live outside of the district's boundaries.

Interim superintendent Robert Allen announced Friday that the empty slots will cost the district about $300,000 in anticipated revenue. The district had hoped to fill at least 170 of the open slots.

The total is more than the district filled in Schools of Choice openings in the 2010-11 school year, when 79 of 150 open slots were filled.

The district had hoped to fill more spaces for the upcoming school year due to greater flexibility in the grades that had spaces available.There were 60 spaces each for kindergarten and first grade, 5 spots each in second, third, fourth and fifth grades and 50 spots in sixth grade.

District spokesperson Liz Margolis said the window for applying for Schools of Choice openings in 2011-12 is now closed.

Margolis said part of the reason the district's goal was not met was families had trouble committing to an open slot if they had children in grades that didn't have available openings.

In addition, the district did not have any openings in any of the high schools, Margolis said.