As some of you have recently heard, PHAME will be rolling out a new registration system this December. We’re moving away from online registration and instead will have students register using registration forms, which staff will process. We’ll be processing registration forms in a random order each term.

An illustration of how equity provides people with what they need to participate fully in a system that involves a barrier.***

Why is this happening? Well, we took a good hard look at our online registration process and realized that it was creating an accessibility barrier for many of our students. Students who are naturally more tech savvy—and students who have more family support—were more likely to get into the classes they wanted. Students without those supports were far more likely to be waitlisted.

At PHAME we think a lot about equity, which we define as the fair treatment of everyone. In an equitable system, everyone has what they need to fully participate. It’s about identifying the barriers that prevent some individuals from participating. We looked at our registration system and saw a lack of equity.

We know that no registration system is perfect, but our hope is that by removing the barrier of online registration, we’ll create a more equitable process for our students.

If you’re a PHAME student—or if you help register a student—here’s what you need to know for Winter Term registration:

PHAME will mail course catalogs and registration forms to any student who has taken classes in the last year on November 20. Students should receive theirs by November 23.
Students will have two options for registering:
- Option 1: Fill out and return the registration form received in the mail.
- Option 2: Fill out an online registration form, which will be available at www.phamepdx.org/registration. Students can fill this out and it will automatically be emailed to PHAME.
  Note: Students will be asked to provide a list of alternate classes in case their top choice classes are already full. As always, students who are waitlisted for a class will have first dibs on those classes the following term.
Registration forms will be due no later than Monday, December 9.
PHAME staff will gather all the registration forms on December 10 and will register them in a random order. Students will receive an auto-generated email confirming what classes they have been placed in.
Registration forms received after December 9 will be processed after the forms received by the deadline.

Questions about this process? Feel free to call Anya at (503) 764-9718 ext. 5 or send her an email at aroberts@phamepdx.org.

***Here’s another version of the image we posted above. In this version, there’s an option for the folks to view the game with no fence. In a truly equal and equitable society, there is no barrier preventing people from participating fully. So far, we haven’t figured out a registration system that is completely fence-free, but we still think the image on the far right illustrates our vision of what we want for our community. :)