Lee Pulaski, lpulaski@wolfrivermedia.com
Shawano School District continues to have more students coming in through open enrollment than going out.
On Monday, the School Board unanimously approved 65 applications for students living outside the district to attend Shawano schools next school year. There were 71 applications in the latest cycle, which ran from Feb. 1 to April 30, but six were rejected due to special needs that district officials felt they could not adequately provide.
The applications approved will bring the number of open enrollment students coming into Shawano to 176. Students who have applied for open enrollment in prior years are not required to reapply every year, although the district has the option each semester to terminate the arrangement for a variety of issues.
In the 2015-16 school year, 52 students living within the school district boundaries will attend school in other districts. Of those, 33 never attended Shawano schools, Superintendent Gary Cumberland said, and 13 are currently enrolled in the district. Two students seeking to go to school elsewhere are from private schools, and four are home-schooled.
School Board member Derek Johnson urged district officials to keep a close eye on whether the students coming into Shawano schools next year attend on a regular basis. A report earlier in the meeting revealed the truancy rate at Hillcrest Primary School had increased from 8 percent to 9 percent, despite school officials’ efforts to bring the rate down.
“If they’re showing they don’t care enough to come to our district, then fine. Go to another district; they obviously don’t care about ours,” Johnson said. “There are other kids who want to come to our district. We waste time, energy and resources to help kids get to school and get through whatever.”
Cumberland explained that the board could not use attendance rates from a student’s prior districts as a determining factor whether to approve an application, but attendance in Shawano could be used as cause to terminate the open enrollment arrangement if the student is habitually truant.
“We will definitely look at that in the future,” Cumberland said.
Of the 176 students who will attend Shawano schools from outside the district, 71 are high school students. Shawano Community Middle School will have 38 open-enrollment students when the new school year begins in September. The remaining 67 students will attend the district’s two elementary schools, Hillcrest and Olga Brener.
Previously, the district noted reasons for attending or leaving Shawano schools have been convenience for parents who commute, as well as specific programs the school district offers, such as the high school’s technical education program.