Possibility of Open Enrollment for TUSD to other School Districts

I thought many of the owners at Sabino Mountain would like to know how Catalina Foothills-District 16 has handled open enrollment in the past. This is a timely issue since it is likely that Unified Status will be reached for TUSD, and if this happens many of you will want to transfer your children into Catalina District 16 schools. Arizona is a school open enrollment state, so once Unitary status is obtained you can attempt to open enroll your children into other school districts. Since District 16 schools are closer to Sabino Mountain than TUSD schools and the test scores are usually higher, there may be a mass exodus out of TUSD from Sabino Mountain and other area families. In the past few years, District 16 has started taking applications for open enrollment for the next school year on December 1st; this year Dec 1st falls on a Saturday, so my guess is that it will start on November 30th or December 3rd. Last year there was an application on the internet that could be faxed in; the years before that you had to bring the application in person to their central administrative office. This year there should be many more who want to open enroll, so if you want your child to go to District 16 for the next school year, you should call the District 16 administrative office at 299-6446 (located at 2101 E River Rd just before River meets Campbell) to find out how they will handle open enrollment this year. District 16 definitely has room for more students than are presently enrolled since it has been under-enrolled ever since there were many apartment to condominium conversions two years ago. Historically there were many renters in this district since the parents wanted to send their kids to what they perceived were the premier schools in Arizona. However, my guess is they will not have room for all the students who will want to enroll once TUSD reaches unitary status. Maybe there will be a lottery system; maybe it will be first come, first served, but it always pays to be prepared.