Are your local school districts cracking down on..

[Sum Dum Gai]

inter-district transfer students and whatnot? We've all heard the news stories of school districts cracking down on parents who are lying about their address, but are your local schools cracking down as well? Are they limiting legitimate inter-district transfer requests?

Our local schools are. The city recently announced that they'll limit inter-district transfers to 1% of the student population or 75 kids, whichever is lower. All the kids currently on inter-district transfer waivers will need to reapply, and a bunch of them are going to be denied. Some of the local schools are freaking out, especially the smaller rural schools outside of town. One of them has 48% of their student population there on inter-district transfers. The city is doing it so they can get the money from having the kids back in their schools, but it's really pissing off some of the parents who really don't like their local schools.

It'll be interesting to see what affect pulling all these kids back into the city schools has. I know they want the money back in the district, but are they really ready for the influx of kids, yanno? I'll bet we'll see some seriously crowded classrooms next year. The local private schools must be loving it. I imagine they'll see a pretty big spike in enrollment next year.

[swamp]

Yes. One of the local school districts stopped accepting tuition for children out of the district because the special ed costs were killing them. One kid was costing the district $50k a year because she had a 1 on 1 teacher's aid.

[Urban Chicago]

Yep. For years they've been scrutinizing addresses and such. Some of the suburban schools are limiting transfers, particularly with special needs kids. Of course, they can't discriminate like that so many of them had to ban transfers all together.

[jeffreymo]

My current school district limits the amount of interdistrict transfers - 3 High Schools, will only let a certain percentage switch between the 3 - and doesn't accept transfers from outside the district.

The rural area I grew up in had a buch of smaller school systems nearby and they all had open enrollment which meant I could have applied to switch to any of the HS that my school district shared a border with.

[justwhoever]

There's no need here. We have 3 towns and 3 schools in this county. If you live in town A but want your kid to go to school B or C then you enroll them. But it's your job to get them there and pick them up.

Cities are such a big huge mess. Will never understand why anyone would want to live in one.

[Deleted]

Not in my suburb - they're trying to attract kids because the money comes with them.

In the big city next door they are drastically cutting down on transfers between schools in their district because tons of kids are fleeing the failing schools. People are debating whether or not the parents are actually going to accept this or simply move to one of the 'burbs with decent schools.

[Sum Dum Gai]

Cities are such a big huge mess. Will never understand why anyone would want to live in one.

The crazy part is that we don't even live in a real city. The population is only like 50k or so. It's not Mayberry or anything, but it's not that big either. There's only one public high school in town, and one in the next town over which is 7 miles away. All the squabbling is really over elementary schools, and to a lesser extent junior high.

[Urban Chicago]

Because suburbs suck way more than cities.

[Sum Dum Gai]

Yeah, the wife and I still aren't sure how we ended up with two kids living in suburbia. I mean, I know how we got pregnant, but the whole middle class suburban couple thing... let's just say it's not AT ALL how I pictured my life turning out.

[Loopdilou]

You can say that again.

I'd be in San Francisco if it weren't for the damn kids.

[973beachbum]

Mar 2, 2011 17:05:11 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

Cities are such a big huge mess. Will never understand why anyone would want to live in one.

The crazy part is that we don't even live in a real city. The population is only like 50k or so. It's not Mayberry or anything, but it's not that big either. There's only one public high school in town, and one in the next town over which is 7 miles away. All the squabbling is really over elementary schools, and to a lesser extent junior high.

We don't have 100K in population and yet we have 17 school districts with 7 high schools. One district pays so much per pupil that they get "fined" every year and others have had to give out raises because they are below the state's "fair share".


There is a limited amount of switching of districts with most being to the vocational tech school but even that is by application and there is no guarantee that you will be accepted. Except if a school doesn't have an appropriate program for a disabled child and a set number of slots for the county "choice school" I have never heard of it at the lower grades. The choice school might have 20 spots they can put for out of district students.

This really is crazy the way we do things with school districts. We have created a 10 ton monster and there is no way to make it more manageable from a common sense standpoint.

[Sum Dum Gai]

We don't have 100K in population and yet we have 17 school districts with 7 high schools.

What??? How does that even work? Each high school would have a graduating class of like maybe a hundred. Let me guess, they each have a newish campus, full sports programs, spend a ton on field maintenance, don't have large enough student bodies to field decent teams anyway, and the school district can't figure out why they're in the red every year?

[Plain Old Petunia]

I haven't seen anything in the news about "cracking down". When my daughter (20 now) was starting school, you needed utility bills with your name and address on them back then, so nothing new there.

My particular school district (my city has several) has been closing campuses due to decline in student population. My son will start high school next year, and we received a mass recorded phone call about the newest high school (there are 7 public high schools in my city) having an information night for students who want inter-district transfers. We went to the information night and it seems that so long as you meet the criteria, it's a go.

[973beachbum]

Mar 2, 2011 17:35:35 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

We don't have 100K in population and yet we have 17 school districts with 7 high schools.

What??? How does that even work? Each high school would have a graduating class of like maybe a hundred. Let me guess, they each have a newish campus, full sports programs, spend a ton on field maintenance, don't have large enough student bodies to field decent teams anyway, and the school district can't figure out why they're in the red every year?

Most of them no. There are a couple HS's that have newer schools with nice campuses. My DD's school football team did look like a bunch of middle schoolers next to the other teams and literally had to have most players play both offense and defense all game. I think the average class size is 200 students. I think it is going down too.

Some districts are so small that they are in incredibly old buildings and they are screaming the town "has" to pay for a new building because it would be criminal to lose their school identity by closing the school and sending the kids to the HS district for all grades.

There is one that has a total of 2 students. And that isn't' a typo, they have two students. they choose to remain their own district because then they can just pay tuition to another district for the 2 kids. If they merged they would have to pay property taxes based on the value of their house and their taxes would go up maybe 10 times or something.

It is just crazy to have that many districts for so few people but every districts has it's own power base and people who desperately want it to continue.

[Deleted]

17 school districts and 7 high schools...
... ? So some districts share a high school?

[973beachbum]

Yes, OPED there is a centuries old set of sender/reciever districts agreements that set who goes where for what. And some of those districts without a HS are incredibly tiny and may not even go throug 6th grade before sending students to a recieve district. In fact one district sends the kids to one district for some grades and another for the other grades.

The only asnwer when I ask "why" is that it has always been that way.

[DVM gone riding]

frankly I see the solution to stop trying so hard to give special ed kids so many advantages. It does society no good nor in many circumstances the kids. We just can't afford to support "special" kids to the detrimate of gifted kids-flame away.

[bean29]

Inter-district transfers here are called "Open Enrollment" once a school district accepts a student into open enrollment they have agreed to educate that student through grade 12.

From my District Website:

Open Enrollment Information

· Open Enrollment is a state-wide program, established by law, in which all districts in the state must participate in accordance with the state rules and regulations.

· Students attending other districts through the Open Enrollment program must have their own transportation.

· In accordance with state law, currently enrolled students and siblings of currently enrolled students are given priority in filling available Open Enrollment seats. If there are any available seats left after the current students and siblings are selected, a random drawing is conducted by the district to fill the remaining available seats.

· 4.5% of the students in our district are Open Enrollment students.

· The state’s window to apply for Open Enrollment for the 2011-2012 school year is February 7 – 25, 2011.

· Parents can apply on-line at the school district administration building, located at 7630 S. 10th Street, Oak Creek, or they can go to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Website to apply: dpi.wi.gov/sms/psctoc.html



Number of Seats Available for 2011-2012:

· 4-year-old Kindergarten = 10 seats

· 6th Grade = 13 seats

· 9th Grade = 2 seats

· 10th Grade = 1 seat

The website says 5% of students in the district are from out of district Chapter 220/Open Enrollment. Open Enrollment is more favorable to the district b/c it pays better. Under Open Enrollment parents provide transportation- Chapter 220 provides transportation. Under Chapter 220 you must be a minority in the neighborhood you live in or (the district you are going to?) I know when we lived in Milwaukee my kids would not have qualified for 220 b/c they were mexicans in a predominately White neighborhood.

Anyways Who is John Galt/Lena asked a similar Q the other day.

So, I am signing a permission slip for DD to go to summer school today and it says the following: "It is understood that the student applicant for summer school resides with a parent or legal guardian in the XXXX School District. It is further understood that falsifying this cerification of residency will result in incurred costs for any period of non-residence of this student"

I don't recall ever seing something like that before. I imagine the schools are getting smart to fraud, and we as citizens expect them to do everything they can to detect fraud.

[Deleted]

Interesting. I just checked my school's website where it says you MUST live within the district boundaries to attend. They also have a chart of the last few school years listing the number of students investigated, the number "excluded" or thrown out, and the number of "residency tips" received. There is also a "Tip Line" where you can confidentially report concerns about possible violations of the residency requirements. I guess they're serious, which is fine with me.

[ZaireinHD]

yea this was on the news recently (well maybe a few weeks ago?).
the school is going to sue parents with children that live outside of their district.
sue for the costs it takes for them to have their child attend school.
WOW!

[workpublic]

#17

agree.

[thyme4change]

Not in my suburb - they're trying to attract kids because the money comes with them.

Same with us. They do have a quota - but they love to take kids from other districts.

I've been told it is easier to get into a certain high school if you are out of district than if you are in-district, but belong to another school. They want to take the money from the other district. If they fill the desirable high school with students from lessor-schools of the same district, less money.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Another issue that could be solved by school choice. If parents are fudging it to be in one school over another, true choice would redirect those resources from the school that isn't meeting their needs to the one that is. Oh, but we can't close a school and fire teachers-- no matter how poorly they perform. And yet a restaurant that didn't keep people happy would be gone within months, and an employee at said restaruant wouldn't make it through the day if s/he didn't kee her customers happy.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

I don't know about our local districts ~ but haven't heard anything in the print or broadcast media about any sort of change or crackdown.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Mar 7, 2011 11:07:25 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Not in my suburb - they're trying to attract kids because the money comes with them.

I knew someone would trip over it. This is the real motivation for the "crackdown". It's probably NOT the "overcrowded" schools attracting all the kids, it's really about proping up the failed schools by getting back the headcount they lost, and are losing.

Why can't we just let failing schools fail, and successful schools thrive?

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

My current school district limits the amount of interdistrict transfers - 3 High Schools, will only let a certain percentage switch between the 3 - and doesn't accept transfers from outside the district.

That's baloney. If it's a public school, and a kid moves to the district- they are obliged to accept them.

[thyme4change]

Why can't we just let failing schools fail, and successful schools thrive?

Theoretically, I agree. But in reality, the "failing" schools would be in the parts of town where kids need the most help. I'm all for parents doing their job - but nobody wins if parents suck and the school just closes up shop. It means we have an uneducated criminal in our future. I would rather spend the time and effort to figure out how "we" can compensate for fertile morons.

[973beachbum]

Mar 7, 2011 12:43:54 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

Mar 7, 2011 11:07:25 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Not in my suburb - they're trying to attract kids because the money comes with them.

I knew someone would trip over it. This is the real motivation for the "crackdown". It's probably NOT the "overcrowded" schools attracting all the kids, it's really about proping up the failed schools by getting back the headcount they lost, and are losing.

Why can't we just let failing schools fail, and successful schools thrive?

The worst part about this post is I am not even sure you know what topic this thread is about.

But for what it's worth when a district admits an out of district student or choice student they get the funding that the student's own district had for that student. It doesn't have to pay for it out of it's own budget.

When someone circumvents the system and applies with a bogus address instead of trying to get a choice slot the school district would have to pay for the student out of it's own money. That is what they are trying to stop. The distract that "lost" the student didn't have to pay anything so they don't care. It is the district that got stuck with the bill that is PO'd.


Personally I wold like it if we could enroll our child in any public school we wanted. Then maybe the bad schools would get better.

[Sum Dum Gai]

Personally I wold like it if we could enroll our child in any public school we wanted. Then maybe the bad schools would get better.

You know the biggest determining factor in whether or not a school is good or bad? The average family income of the kids attending. We've been sold this bill of goods that poorly performing schools are overrun with bad teachers. It's not true. They're overrun with students who don't give a crap, being raised by parents (or parent) that don't give a crap, in a community that doesn't give a crap. You really think those kids will magically turn around if you take them out of the inner city public schools and enroll them out in the burbs? They still won't give a crap, their parents still won't give a crap, and the community they go home to every night still won't give a crap.

Choice will solve all of our problems... please. Choice will spread all the problems from the currently "bad" school to the currently "good" ones. You'll be able to see the test scores at the good schools drop year after year, as the incidence of behavioral problems, fights, etc. rise.

[973beachbum]

Mar 7, 2011 14:02:15 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

Personally I wold like it if we could enroll our child in any public school we wanted. Then maybe the bad schools would get better.

You know the biggest determining factor in whether or not a school is good or bad? The average family income of the kids attending. We've been sold this bill of goods that poorly performing schools are overrun with bad teachers. It's not true. They're overrun with students who don't give a crap, being raised by parents (or parent) that don't give a crap, in a community that doesn't give a crap. You really think those kids will magically turn around if you take them out of the inner city public schools and enroll them out in the burbs? They still won't give a crap, their parents still won't give a crap, and the community they go home to every night still won't give a crap.

Choice will solve all of our problems... please. Choice will spread all the problems from the currently "bad" school to the currently "good" ones. You'll be able to see the test scores at the good schools drop year after year, as the incidence of behavioral problems, fights, etc. rise.

Source please? ;D