The Future of K-12 Enrollment Will Be Defined by Family Trust

At this year’s ASU+GSV Summit, I joined a panel discussion on the rise of the “choice consumer marketplace” in education.

The full conversation is now available on Spotify, and I’d encourage anyone thinking about the future of K-12 enrollment to listen. The panel covered a lot of ground:

• School choice
• Education savings accounts (ESAs)
• Education marketplaces
• Family decision-making as it relates to school choice

During the conversation, I shared one lens I’ve found useful for understanding how school choice has evolved: does the funding follow the school building, or does it follow the student?

For much of modern K-12 education, the answer was the building. Students were assigned to schools based on where they lived. District boundaries, attendance zones, and neighborhood schools shaped the enrollment experience for families.

That model has been changing for decades. Magnet schools emerged as a public school choice model tied to desegregation and educational equity. Charter schools expanded the idea of public school options after the first charter school law passed in Minnesota in 1991.

Now, more recently, virtual schools, homeschooling, hybrid models, vouchers, ESAs, and similar programs have continued moving more decision-making power closer to families.

But the point isn’t simply that there are more school options. The bigger shift is that families are becoming more active participants in the enrollment market, and that changes what enrollment teams have to do.

When we started SchoolMint, enrollment was already harder than it needed to be

SchoolMint was born from a problem my wife and I experienced personally.

Like many parents, we were trying to understand our school options and navigate an enrollment process that felt more complicated than it should have been. It wasn’t just frustrating because forms were involved but more so because the process carried real weight. We were making a decision about our children’s education, and we wanted the path to that decision to feel clear.

That experience shaped the earliest version of SchoolMint.

At the time, much of the work was about making applications, lotteries, and registration easier. Schools needed better tools. Families needed a simpler process. Language and technology barriers, paper applications and registration forms, lack of enrollment communications, and confusing next steps created unnecessary friction for everyone.

Those problems haven’t gone away. But over time, I’ve come to see them as part of a much larger market shift:

• Back then, enrollment technology was relatively new and mostly about modernizing an existing process.
• Today, enrollment technology is about helping schools and districts operate more efficiently and effectively in a market where families have more choices, more information, and higher expectations.

That is a very different challenge.

The family’s role has changed

Families have always cared deeply about where their children go to school. That’s not new. What is new is how much more visible, active, and influential the family role has become:

• In the old enrollment model, many families moved through a process the school or district controlled
• In a more choice-driven model, families are forming opinions long before they submit an application.

They are asking other parents, searching online, comparing programs, reading school websites, and browsing social media. That means enrollment no longer begins with the form but instead begins when a family first becomes aware of an option and starts deciding whether that option feels trustworthy, understandable, and worth pursuing.

This is one of the most important changes I see for schools and districts: enrollment is no longer only a central-office, behind-the-scenes workflow. It’s become one of the first ways a family experiences a school.

• Is the information clear?
• Is the process easy to understand?
• Can I complete the next step from my phone?
• Can I do it in my preferred language?
• Does the school communicate well?

Each answer gives families a signal. If the process is clear, accessible, and responsive, families are more likely to feel that the school understands their needs and respects their time. If it is confusing, difficult to access, or hard to complete, they may begin to question whether the school will be just as difficult to navigate after enrollment.

More choice does not automatically mean better access

One of the reasons I think this moment is so important is that choice, on its own, is not enough.

At ASU+GSV, several panelists talked about the complexity families face as more options and marketplaces emerge. One speaker put it well: this is not simply a parent “sitting there with a debit card surfing the internet.”

These programs can involve complex rules, marketplaces, eligibility requirements, approved expenses, and different family experiences depending on the state or program.

That complexity matters. If families with more time, more resources, or stronger networks are the only ones who can navigate the system well, then choice can reinforce the very gaps it’s supposed to close.

This is why I believe the next phase of enrollment has to be about more than creating options. Instead, it has to be about making those options easier to understand and act on. That includes:

• Schools communicating their value clearly
• Enrollment processes that are mobile-friendly and multilingual
• Reducing the need for families to take time off work, visit an office, or chase paper forms
• Giving school teams the tools to see where families are getting stuck and follow up before interest disappears

This is where SchoolMint’s founding belief still matters: enrollment should not be hard for families to access and understand.

The market is moving from assumed demand to earned trust

For many schools, the old enrollment model was built around assumed demand. If a student lived in a boundary, the school could reasonably expect that student to enroll. The work was still complex, but it was largely administrative: collect information, manage records, meet deadlines, fill seats, and report data.

In a more family-driven market, demand cannot always be assumed. It has to be earned.

That doesn’t mean every school should think of itself like a consumer brand. Education isn’t the same as buying a product online, and a school decision is far more consequential.

However, families do bring expectations from the rest of their lives into the enrollment experience. They expect information to be accessible, processes to work on their phones, communication to be timely, and to understand what happens next.

If the experience is confusing, they may not wait for the school to fix it. They may move on.

That’s why I think the ease of the family enrollment journey is a strategic growth function for K-12: it sits at the intersection of operations, family experience, communication, data, and trust. Schools and districts that treat those pieces separately will have a harder time adapting to the market that is already forming around them.

What this means for SchoolMint’s work

This shift has also shaped how I think about SchoolMint’s role. We’re long past where we started with helping schools move application, lottery, and registration management online.

Today, I see the need for schools and districts to manage the full enrollment journey: how families discover schools, express interest, apply, move through lotteries, complete registration, receive communication, and, ultimately, become enrolled.

Additionally, with the increasing challenge of growing enrollment, administrators also need visibility into that enrollment journey and to answer questions that weren’t as pressing a decade ago:

• Where is interest coming from?
• Which families need follow-up?
• Where are families dropping off?
• Which schools or programs are generating demand?
• Are the programs and services parents want being offered (i.e., is there an unmet demand)?
• Which outreach efforts are producing real enrollment outcomes?

Those questions are becoming central for leaders because enrollment is no longer just about processing families who have already decided.

It is about helping families decide with confidence.

That is where the family experience and the operational experience come together. When the process is easier for families, schools are better positioned to serve them. And when staff have better tools, they can automate most of the enrollment journey to focus more on supporting families.

That is the future SchoolMint is building for.

The next phase of enrollment will be defined by confidence

Near the end of the ASU+GSV panel, another speaker made a point I agree with: success should not be measured only by how many dollars flow through ESAs or how many families choose to customize their child’s education. Instead, a better measure is whether families feel confident in the decision they made, including confidence in choosing their local public school.

That is exactly right.

For schools and districts, that means the enrollment experience sends a message: it tells families whether the organization understands their needs, respects their time, and can be trusted.

When my wife and I first experienced the frustration of school enrollment as parents, we felt that deeply. Years later, after working with schools and districts across the country, I believe it even more strongly.

Enrollment isn’t just a process families complete. It’s one of the first promises a school makes to them. And when enrollment is easier for both families and schools, that promise becomes easier to keep. Families can move forward with more confidence, schools can spend more time supporting them, and students are more likely to enroll in the best-fit school environment where they can thrive.

In a choice-driven K-12 landscape, that matters more than ever.

This is the work SchoolMint is focused on helping schools and districts do: build enrollment systems that are easier for families, more manageable for staff, and better aligned to the way families make decisions today.

If your team is preparing for a more choice-driven enrollment landscape, we’d welcome the conversation. Learn how SchoolMint can help.