The expanded policy will give the superintendent authority to accept or reject out-of-district transfer requests, subject to policy and administrative regulations, according to district agenda documents.
The overview
Prior to the approval on Feb. 25, the district’s limited open enrollment program allowed students who reside outside of the district’s attendance boundaries to attend CCISD schools if they meet a certain criteria, according to district documents.
However, students needed to meet two sets of criteria, documents show. The first was based on a student’s previous academic history, attendance and discipline, officials said.
If that criteria is met, a student would qualify if their parent or guardian met one of the following requirements:
- Non-resident peace officers who live within 10 miles of the district
- Non-resident military service members who live within 10 miles of the district
- Non-resident federal employees who live within 10 miles of the district
- Non-resident grandchildren of grandparents who live within CCISD’s attendance boundaries
- Students of non-resident CCISD employees
How we got here
On Dec. 4, the board policy committee discussed possible changes to the district’s open limited enrollment policy, in which anybody who would like to enroll in the district would be able to through the superintendent’s discretion, according to district documents.
The board further discussed revising the policy at its Dec. 9 workshop, in which the current qualifications required to enroll in the district’s limited open enrollment program would be removed, as previously reported by Community Impact.
By the Dec. 16 board meeting, the consideration to expand the policy was postponed to the February board meeting due to uncertainty about the policy from a number of board members.
During the February board workshop, officials shared data that showed neighboring school districts have increased their open enrollment options for out of district students.
Officials also shared a demographic report, which showed that there are currently about 400 more students graduating high school than students entering kindergarten, Superintendent Karen Engle said at the meeting. CCISD for a couple years now has seen declining enrollment.
Lastly, officials presented a demo of an online dashboard to track current available openings for pre-K spots at each campus. Officials said the dashboard will be further developed for district and family access to available openings for all grades at each campus. The dashboard is slated to launch in the summer.
Also of note
Although the policy to loosen qualifications required to apply to the limited open enrollment program has been approved, Engle said the district will still prioritize granting interdistrict transfers to students who are currently already eligible to apply for the limited open enrollment program. This includes qualifications that involve peace officers, grandchildren and federal employees, Engle said.
What they said
“The current proposal to expand our limited open enrollment policy would enable us to increase enrollment and maximize revenue by accepting additional interdistrict transfers subject to the availability of space and instructional staff,” Engle said at the meeting.
Board member Jamison Mackay said he believes this is a good decision for the district in order to help increase enrollment.
“This is a part of what we need to address; we have a lot more work to do,” Mackay said. “This is a solid option, and if we don’t do anything, what would come to the option at that point? I think nobody wants to talk about it, but it’s closing schools.”
While board member Jessica Cjeka initially said more thought should be put into the policy change, and had a concern that it could place a larger workload on CCISD staff at previous board meetings, she said she is now in support of the policy change due to the information CCISD staff has relayed.
“I like that it’s a limited enrollment policy but we’re still leaving up at the top priority our grandparents ... peace officers ... service members,” Cjeka said. “The dashboard that our IT department has come up with I think will help on all levels, especially for those parents who want to go but they don’t know where the space is.”
