ORCID

0009-0008-8742-8339

Keywords

strategic communication, K-12 enrollment, school-family communication

Subject Categories

Communication | Other Social and Behavioral Sciences | Public Administration

Abstract

Public school districts depend on timely enrollment to plan staffing, classroom rosters, programs, and resources. Yet, many families experience enrollment as a high-stakes communication encounter rather than a routine administrative task. This qualitative research study examines how families experience and interpret communication about kindergarten enrollment in Orange County Public Schools (OCPS), the nation’s ninth-largest school district, and what those experiences reveal about access, usability, and trust. Using an autoethnographically-informed stance, the study draws on 26 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with parents and guardians of children enrolled in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. Findings are interpreted through three complementary lenses: Critical race theory as the primary theoretical framework, the hidden curriculum as a conceptual lens for implicit institutional expectations, and the knowledge gap hypothesis as a communication mechanism for uneven information acquisition. Across interviews, four interlocking themes emerged: Conditions, Channels, Friction, and Consequences. Findings indicate that late enrollment is not best understood as evidence of family disengagement but as a predictable outcome of communication and procedural systems that require families to translate complex institutional expectations into action under unequal conditions of time, language, access to technology, and institutional familiarity. The dissertation contributes to strategic communication scholarship by reframing enrollment as a communication system with academic, operational, and administrative consequences, and by offering practitioner recommendations to make enrollment communication more navigable, to replace partial digitization with end-to-end digital workflows, to shift from pull-based to proactive outreach, and to integrate two-way support into enrollment communication.

Completion Date

2026

Semester

Summer

Committee Chair

Sandoval, Jennifer

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Nicholson School of Communicaton and Media

Format

PDF

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Release Date

8-15-2027

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Available for download on Sunday, August 15, 2027

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