Known as “open enrollment,” a Buckeye State student can attend school in a district other than the district where his or her parents reside, no strings attached. Open enrollment has been approved by the Ohio General Assembly and is not regulated by the state Department of Education, a spokesperson for the agency said. Instead, it is regulated on the local level.
As a result, some local schools are gaining students while others are losing because of open enrollment — and the districts on the losing end are suffering financially, as the state’s funding model is based on a school district’s student population.
The situation came to light locally about a month ago when Buckeye Local School District Superintendent Mark Miller informed board of education members there that his district had lost 100 students to open enrollment. He said that loss equates into about $500,000 less annually from the state of Ohio.
To make matters worse, Miller is dealing with a school district to his south — Martins Ferry — that has new schools opening in January, including a top-notch athletic facility. Martins Ferry has been advertising for students to transfer to its school through the open enrollment process.
Now, other superintendents in the local area are offering their thoughts on the matter, and on dropping enrollment levels in general.
Specific numbers of students who utilize open enrollment were not available from all of the superintendents. The state department of education also did not have information on the matter.
Superintendents in the Switzerland of Ohio, Edison Local, Steubenville City and St. Clairsville-Richland city school districts did not return repeated phone messages seeking comment.
? Barnesville Exempted Village Schools
Superintendent Randy Lucas said the school system lost students this year a familiar trend.
“Every year typically we have been losing 30-50 kids,” Lucas said. “Typically our graduating classes are large and kindergarten classes are much smaller. I think that’s just contributed to a lot of things and there’s a lot more options for parents these days with home schooling, online courses and private school.”
Lucas also said open enrollment figures are good for Barnesville and generate extra money for the district. Last year’s overall enrollment was 1,157 and is currently 1,139.
“We lose 40 or so students a year, but we gain 80 or 90,” Lucas said. “That’s a profit of almost $300,000 a year. We are happy with that and it definitely keeps us afloat when more are coming in, and it shows parents must be happy with what we are doing here.”
? Bellaire Local Schools
Superintendent John Stinoski said the school system is up in enrollment by 28 students compared to the numbers at the start of last year’s fall semester.
“I really can’t attribute that to anything,” he said. “We usually have more students go out on open enrollment than come in. We have students go to neighboring school districts because of convenience, especially those who live on the border line.”
At the start of the 2007-08 school year, Stinoski said 109 students came into the district, however, 144 students opted to attend school elsewhere. Stinoski said this happened for many different reasons including the convenience of families to send their children to a different school system.
While the majority of students who choose to leave transfer to Shadyside Local Schools, ironically many who transfer in come from Shadyside or other school systems located in close proximity.
“It’s strange, the biggest number come from Shadyside and the biggest that go out go to Shadyside,” Stinoski said. “As for Martins Ferry, we have four more going out than coming in since the beginning of the year.”
Stinoski believes most of the other surrounding school districts also have experienced a decline in enrollment.
“We have a lot of transients, too,” Stinoski said. “People move. They go across the (Ohio) river and come back, it’s the nature of this area. We always hope to increase, and we are happy attendance hasn’t gone down drastically. We are always improving our schools to get students to come and stay here.”
? Bridgeport Exempted Village Schools
Superintendent Mark Matz said the school district gained almost 30 students this year a rise he attributes to the district’s new, state-of-the-art school facility.
“We have a lot to offer, and we have had some good publicity over the new technology in this facility,” Matz said. “In terms of open enrollment, we are down, but in overall population we are up with 30. I am very pleased because our numbers have been down in the past and enrollment means money in Ohio and that definitely helps us.”
Matz said open enrollment is simply a type of mechanism were students can attend the school of their choice.
“For that type of enrollment, more students go to other schools than come to Bridgeport,” he said. “But, overall, we have more kids this year than we did last year. We have 744 students. I think the word is spreading about what kind of state-of-the-art facility we have here, and I think our numbers will continue to grow and students will want to come here.”
? Buckeye Local Schools
The situation at Buckeye Local is different, however, as Superintendent Miller is attributing his district’s 100-student drop in attendance to open enrollment.
Miller declined to blame any one school district for taking students from Buckeye Local, but he did say he plans to find out where the students have gone.
“We really lost a lot of students,” Miller told board members. “We are down 96 students from last year. If this happens again next year and we lose another 100 students. ... The loss of 200 students to Buckeye Local is like losing a whole building.”
Miller’s goal for determining the district’s declining enrollment picture is straight forward: find out why people are leaving; where they are going; and what it would take to get them back.
One board member asked if it was known, or could be learned, what impact the advertising campaign done by the Martins Ferry City School District had on the loss of students through open enrollment. Miller could not answer the question.
? Harrison Hills City School District:
Superintendent Jim Drexler said student enrollment for the 2006-07 school year compared to the 2007-08 school year is down by16 students.
“We lost some during the period of the strike,” he said of a recent labor dispute involving teachers. “We lost just under 40 kids.”
Additionally, Drexler said the school system always had a large open enrollment.
“We’ve always had huge open enrollment numbers that go out of our district,” Drexler said. “It’s a large district and we have areas on the fringe of others districts, and students tend to go where they live closer.”
Currently, there are 2,000 students enrolled in Harrison Hills.
“We’d like it to be more, and we would like to have open enrollment students back,” Drexler said. “In1975, we had 3,400 students in the district.”
? Indian Creek Schools
Superintendent Jene Watkins said enrollment numbers are at best up and at worse stable.
“We are in a market that appears to be shrinking because of what’s going on in the valley the population is deteriorating,” he said.
According to Watkins, as of Dec. 5 there were 2,400 students enrolled in Indian Creek schools. But despite whether the numbers are satisfactory, Watkins said the district is facing another problem — available space.
“With open enrollment, we take who we can take,” he said. “Again, there’s a problem with numbers. I’m not going to put 32 kids in a classroom to take care of open enrollment.”
Watkins said two of three elementary school buildings are reaching the point where there is not enough space. He also said the question becomes how many kids do you want in classroom and how many kids you want to have enrolled in the school system?
? Martins Ferry City Schools
Superintendent Nick Stankovich said the school system has been gaining students for the last eight or nine years — and this is the first year the district “has lost a few.”
However, Stankovich doesn’t attribute the small loss to open enrollment. Instead, he said it stems from a unusually large 2006-07 graduating class that was made up of 154 students.
“Our classes are not 154, that was an exceptionally large graduating class. With kindergarten being around 100 that’s consistent each year,” Stankovich said. “We have lost 20 students this year. We have been gaining and gaining and gaining, and I just thought it was time we would lose a few. Our enrollment numbers are pretty much the same, so open enrollment is not an impact.”
With 1,566 students enrolled in classes in Martins Ferry, Stankovich said he is very pleased with open enrollment. He also said the district has been picking up more students than it loses.
“We pick up kids from all of the areas,” he said. “I don’t think there is one school more than the other — but we do well. Things are good in Martins Ferry, and we hope they stay that way.”
Aside from enrollment figures, Stankovich looks forward to January when the district will open doors to its new school facility, which will be located 1 mile from the current high school.
“We will open our new school this January, and we are hoping to pick up some additional students,” Stankovich said. “We will have brand new buildings, new playing fields, a track, tennis courts, basketball courts, picnicking areas and our office and our bus garage — everything is up there.”
? Shadyside Local Schools
Superintendent Terry Brinker said enrollment in his district has lessened by six or seven students this year — “a pretty typical trend of the last eight to 10 years,” he said.
However, Brinker does not attribute the loss in students to open enrollment.
“It’s a trend of the valley right now,” Brinker said. “I think there are families with less and less job opportunities, and so families are faced with decisions of leaving the area.”
Brinker said with open enrollment, Shadyside has more students coming into the schools than leaving another trend Brinker said is pretty consistent.
“We always have more coming in than out with open enrollment,” Brinker said. “Our open enrollment has always been pretty high. I am disappointed enrollment is still dropping, but we are satisfied with what we are keeping here at the district. Overall, there are 844 students enrolled in classes at each school in the district.”
? Union Local Schools
Superintendent Kirk Glasgow said his school system did experience “a dip in enrollment” this year — however, the decline is “nothing significant.”
“It looks like 21 students left in the last year in grades pre-school to12,” Glasgow said. “I think the biggest indicator that made our numbers go down was we had a large senior class graduate and that’s what it was. This year’s senior class is fairly small.”
While overall enrollment is down, Glasgow said open enrollment is up slightly from last year. The total number of students enrolled in Union Local schools is 1,451.
“Open enrollment varies, but we have more come in on open enrollment than going out,” he said. “I wish the numbers in enrollment were a little bit higher, but at least they didn’t take a nose dive on us. I’m OK with choice and open enrollment — as long as you are winning the battle there, you must be doing something right in the school as far as the service you offer to students. They must like what we are doing or they wouldn’t be coming our way.”
Recently, Union Local had an enrollment projection completed, and Glasgow said the study indicated enrollment will go up in 2012.
“But until then it’s going to be stagnant,” Glasgow said.
Ohio Rep. John Domenick, D-Smithfield, said the idea of open enrollment likely came as a sidebar to the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision in the early 1990s that not all school districts were receiving adequate funding.
“It was one way for parents to go to enjoining school district in areas where they live if they believed their child would receive a superior education there,” he said. “But intent is one thing, reality is another.”
Domenick added that it seems that it is most often football players who are transferring for the purpose of athletics.
“I have my doubts about it,” he said. “People will argue the merits of open enrollment, just as they argue about home schooling.”
Ohio Sen. Jason Wilson, D-Columbiana, supports both public schools the idea of open enrollment. He believes open enrollment nullifies the need for parents to send their children to a private school.
“I have seen multiple schools do well with it — Bridgeport being one of them,” Wilson said. “Enrollment is up, and the tone is that students want to go to a new school.
“It has changed the feel and mentality of both the staff and the students.”
He added that he has never heard a negative statement about open enrollment.
“When people make a statement that a school is bad, their only alternatives is for them to want to get out or to want to use vouchers.
“Open enrollment nulls the issue of vouchers. Anyone can go to any school where there is open enrollment, and no one is locked into a school district. In general, public school need our support, and open enrollment emphasizes those schools that are doing the right thing, and those that aren’t .
Staff Writer Joselyn King contributed to this article.
Article Photos
Photo by Bethany A. Romanek
Bridgeport Schools Superintendent Mark Matz said the school district gained almost 30 students this year a rise he attributes to the new state-of-the-art school facility. The grade school, middle school, high school, gymnasium and administrative buildings are all located on the same property.