Schools may open enrollment

Brenda Woodward, of Sandpoint, spends 1½ hours each day driving to and from her teaching job at Coeur d’Alene High School.

The cost of gas alone cuts into her teaching salary. Now she’s facing the added expense of private kindergarten to enroll her son in a school near her work.

If Coeur d’Alene trustees on Monday don’t approve a policy that would allow students from outside the district to attend Coeur d’Alene schools, Woodward said she won’t be teaching this fall.

“If I’m not going to be making any money, I can not make money at home and sub in Sandpoint or something,” Woodward said.

Trustees are considering a move to an open-enrollment policy. The change would allow Woodward and others who work in Coeur d’Alene, but live elsewhere, the convenience of enrolling their children in Coeur d’Alene schools.

“I figure, I work for the district,” Woodward said. “It would be nice if I had that opportunity to have my child go to school there.”

Coeur d’Alene is one of only eight districts in the state without open enrollment. Lakeland also doesn’t allow open enrollment, though Post Falls does.

Judy Drake, director of staff and community relations for Coeur d’Alene schools, said the state Legislature in 1991 required school districts to declare whether they would be an open or closed district. At the time, the Coeur d’Alene School District was growing by 300 to 400 students each year. To limit overcrowding, the board opted for a closed-enrollment policy.

Now that growth has slowed, Drake said the district has decided to reconsider.

Coeur d’Alene Superintendent Harry Amend compares a district with closed enrollment to an airplane flying with empty seats.

“If an airplane that holds 180 passengers safely flies with 105 or 70 or 150 passengers, it’s not as efficient as one that is operating at its ideal capacity,” Amend said. Open enrollment allows the school district to fill seats that would otherwise go empty, Amend said.

Schools receive funding based on average daily attendance, so having more students would translate to more money for the district, Amend said. The addition of 20 students through open enrollment would add up to $100,000.

Under the proposed policy, anyone who lives in another Idaho district could apply for admission to Coeur d’Alene schools. Parents could request a certain school, but Amend said the district will accept students only if – and where – space is available.

Priority would be given to students who live within the district and then the following, in order: to students enrolled at the requested school the prior year, students with siblings at the school, students whose parents are employed by the district and “students with a unique situation or extraordinary circumstances.”

Most of the budget cuts school districts make are because of lack of enrollment, Amend said. By opening enrollment, Amend said, the district can have increased funding and flexibility.

Because the district can choose where to place students who apply for admission, Amend said, the district has control over class sizes. The extra funding could allow the district to add an extra class in some grades, he said, creating a smaller class size, with money left over.

Some space would be reserved at each grade level for students moving into the district during the school year.

Post Falls Superintendent Jerry Keane said the district has had an open enrollment policy as long as he could remember. Before voters approved funding for the new River City Middle School, though, Keane said the district didn’t allow many students from outside the district to attend the overcrowded middle school.

Open enrollment has increased the district’s population by fewer than 50 students, Keane said.

The Lakeland district has operated as a closed district for the same reason as Coeur d’Alene – a growing population.

“Our growth rates have leveled off in the last couple years, but based on proposed development out on the prairie and throughout our district, we’re anticipating that those growth rates are going to start climbing again very soon,” Assistant Superintendent Ron Schmidt said. “Our elementary schools are pretty much maxed out.”

If parents from outside the district pay tuition, they can enroll their children, but there are no other exceptions to the policy.

Schmidt said the strongest opposition to the enrollment policy comes from families that live just north of the district’s boundaries, near Spirit Lake and Athol.

“Those Bonner County folks can virtually see Lakeland schools,” Schmidt said, “yet their students are facing a bus ride to go to Priest River or wherever up north, 20-plus miles.”