Todd Hall, a McNair graduate, said he understands the board’s desire to change the policy, but cautioned that a similar shift in Chicago public schools in 2009 led a reduction in both racial and socioeconomic diversity. “With that my suggestion is that if you want to focus on improving socioeconomic diversity, it really would really be helpful to rely on student’s own free and reduced lunch status,” Hall, an education policy Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia, said.