‘Home Field Advantage’ program building educational stability for students

Students whose families move during the middle of the school year are being allowed to stay at their “home school,” or the one they enrolled in at the beginning of the academic year, thanks to a innovative HISD program called Home Field Advantage.  Since May 2014, schools involved in the program have seen their overall mobility rate drop by an average of 10 percentage points.

During his State of the Schools address last February, HISD Superintendent Terry Grier promised to create a program to build educational stability among highly mobile students. Subsequently, students at 13 elementary schools, where roughly 30 percent of families move in any given year, were offered transportation to their “home” school, even if their parents moved.

“According to research, students who move three or more times before eighth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school,” said HISD Student Services Officer Susan Kaler.

Below is a list of schools involved in the Home Field Advantage initiative. The percentages compare the mobility rate from the first semester of 2013-2014 to the first semester of the current school year. Every school in the program has a lower mobility rate for the current school year.

Mobility Rates of Home Field Advantage Schools

School Name 2013-2014 school year Fall semester 2014
Elmore ES 35.6% 22.4%
Foerster ES 32.8% 20.7%
Foster ES 22.4% 11.7%
Hilliard ES 30.0% 21.8%
Kashmere Gardens ES 34.6% 20.7%
Kate Smith ES 31.6% 13.2%
Marshall ES 19.1% 12.3%
RP Harris ES 31.0% 18.1%
Rusk ES 34.0% 29.4%
Shadydale ES 30.3% 21.8%
Stevens ES 28.5% 15.5%
Wesley ES 26.8% 16.0%
Woodson ES 30.0% 22.5%

See the HISD Home Field Advantage webpage for the answers to frequently asked questions and an application. For other types of transfers, visit Student Transfers. For more information, please contact your child’s school office or send an email to studenttransfer@houstonisd.org.