• Utah policymakers should add language to the state’s existing statute that prohibits address discrimination and requires disclosure to parents of a school’s reason for denying a transfer application.
• In open enrollment policies for public schools, address discrimination is when a student’s residential address is the reason their application to transfer was accepted or denied. Utah’s law does not yet expressly prohibit address discrimination.
• Public policy ought to go out of its way to facilitate choice for those who desperately need it and protect against even potential abuses of the law.

Utah’s open enrollment law says local school districts must create a policy about accepting or rejecting nonresident students seeking to transfer.

According to Utah law, the reasons for accepting or denying open enrollment applications matter – they are guided by statute.

As summarized in an earlier article, reasons for accepting or rejecting a student may not include “academic or athletic ability, the need for special education services, English proficiency, or previous disciplinary proceedings.”

Acceptable reasons to be considered in the decision may include “enrollment threshold, program capacity (e.g., special education programs), compliance with constitutional rights of students or federal law, or even misbehavior in some cases.” The law says acceptable reasons also include the willingness of transfer students to comply with district policy and prioritizing intradistrict transfers over interdistrict transfers.

These contours are clearly aimed at a balance: ensuring kids are able to transfer largely unencumbered while also ensuring districts are able to meet their end of the deal.

One important reason that is not yet explicitly prohibited as an acceptable reason for acceptance or denial is where a student lives. Basically, Utah law does not expressly prohibit address discrimination.

What is address discrimination – and why does a prohibition against it matter?

In terms of open enrollment policies for public schools, address discrimination is when a student’s residential address is the reason their application to transfer was accepted or denied.

With America’s history of racial segregation in schools, you can see why this could be problematic. Taking into consideration where someone lives could be another form of discrimination that could disproportionately impact students by socioeconomic status or race. While discrimination in education based on race is already illegal, some policies may unintentionally invite similar outcomes.

At its core, the purpose of open enrollment is to increase choice for all students. Utah has shown a commitment to achieving this purpose for its kids, which is evident in the robust law the state already has on the books.

Another closely aligned goal is to increase choice for those students who need it most. Those might be students who are assigned to low-performing schools and do not inherently have choice through the financial means of their parents.

Public policy ought to go out of its way to facilitate choice for those who desperately need it and protect against even potential abuses of the law. Adding language to prohibit address discrimination in the state’s existing statute could help accomplish that.

What’s the status of address discrimination?

Address discrimination has not made major headlines, so it might be easy to assume that creating a prohibition of it in law is a solution in search of a problem. However, there is evidence to suggest that there could be a silent undercurrent that keeps kids from certain residential areas from being able to transfer to better schools.

For example, Reason scholar Jude Schwalbach highlights this problem in an article about Kansas superintendents who opposed a proposal to help kids get better education regardless of their residential area. The superintendents’ statement said, “While we can certainly empathize with parents in lower-performing districts, both Blue Valley and Olathe are among the highest-performing districts in Kansas—indeed competing nationally—and, as such, would find our districts overwhelmed with requests from non-residents. Without intending to sound elitist, it is nonetheless true that housing costs in our districts often provide a check on resident student growth now.”

Furthermore, another story shows that a change in 2021 to Oklahoma law to facilitate transfer of students – which showed signs of success – “continues to disproportionately exclude many students currently stuck in Oklahoma’s worst-performing schools.”

Idaho is the first – and for now, the only – state in the nation to enact a prohibition against address discrimination in its state open enrollment law. In 2023, it passed Senate Bill 1125. The language states that school district open enrollment policies “shall prohibit discrimination against any pupil on the basis of his residential address, ability, disability, race, ethnicity, sex or socioeconomic status.”

Utah could consider language that is this definitive and expansive as well, to include prohibition of discrimination based on socioeconomic status, a factor that also potentially serves as a proxy for discriminating based on race (illegal) or even academic ability (not an acceptable reason according to state statute).

There is more work to be done to ensure that there is not a quieter form of discrimination that allows state policies to discriminate against children seeking a better school simply because of where they live.

Why does Utah need this reform?

Added protection for students. Without a large public outcry about such abuses in the state, it might be easy to overlook beneficial reform like a prohibition on address discrimination. At the same time, including this language in the law protects against potential or future abuses and has no real policy downside. If districts claim they already abide by such a policy – and we anticipate that this is nearly always true – then policymakers and local leaders should anticipate no added burden.

More robust education choice landscape. As families increasingly come to feel that education choice is the natural policy backdrop to their decision-making when selecting a school, the state needs to ensure the policy infrastructure is as strong as possible. Strengthening and tweaking laws that impact public school choice – like open enrollment – is part of that effort.

Bolster needed transparency reforms. Utah’s open enrollment law could be bolstered through several reforms, including informing parents of the reason their student’s application for transfer was denied. This is a companion policy to an address discrimination prohibition. If districts must state the reason for denying a student, and a student’s residential area is off the table for consideration, it may push districts to commit to a deeper evaluation of why they accept or reject students.