The Eanes ISD board of trustees on April 4 discussed the district’s student transfer policy and the impact transfer students have on campuses.

“We are trying to have a better understanding of the number of out-of-district transfer students who are in the district as well as all the implications regarding their attendance in the school district,” Associate Superintendent Jeff Arnett said. “Transfer students come to Eanes for many reasons, such as the quality of academics, college preparation, special services and extracurricular activities.”

A student is considered a transfer student if he or she applies to attend an EISD school, resides outside of EISD borders and is not a child of an EISD employee, Arnett said.

There are currently 433 transfer students in EISD, making up about 5 percent of the student population, he said. A transfer student’s status is reviewed annually, and transfers are not automatically granted re-enrollment.

“Re-enrollment dependents on a number of factors like academic standing, behavior, available space and class sizes,” he said. “School principals can close some grades to transfers depending on size.”

Overall, most of the district’s transfer students enter later in their educational careers, Arnett said. Nearly two-thirds of the transfer students in the district entered EISD during high school, he said.

Arnett also presented transfer student information regarding district funding and total enrollment at Westlake High School over the next six school years.

Based on EISD’s projected enrollment trends, assuming the number of transfer applications remains constant, Westlake High School will exceed its optimal enrollment by the 2019-20 school year if the district’s policies about transfer students stay the same, he said.

However, the district can push that date back three years if it puts a moratorium on transfer students in place, Arnett said.

If the district were to put an immediate moratorium on transfer students at the high school level—meaning the school would no longer accept new students while those currently in the system would be able to re-enroll until they graduate—the campus would not exceed its optimal enrollment until the 2022-23 school year, he said.

The district could also push the date back to 2022-23 if it imposes a gradual moratorium in which the school would accept 25 transfer students in 2017-18, 10 transfer students in 2018-19 and would no longer accept transfer students after that, Arnett said.

Limiting the amount of transfer students allowed at the high school level would reduce potential revenue for the district, he said. The district receives the same tax revenue for transfer and resident students, he said.

“If we were to impose an immediate moratorium over the next four years, the result would be a decline of $730,000,” Arnett said. “A gradual moratorium would still see a decline, but one not as significant, at $510,000.”