Shawano School District had a nearly 2-1 ratio more than a decade ago on students coming into the district through Wisconsin’s open enrollment program versus local children attending school in other districts.
That trend has since flipped, with many more students in the Shawano area attending schools elsewhere than students outside the district boundaries attending the local public schools, according to data revealed at the May 13 Shawano School Board meeting.
Cory Kaisler, the district’s data coordinator, said that the district received 21 new applications during this year’s open enrollment period from February through April, but four of them were denied. With the 17 accepted applications, that brings the student count for open enrollment to 185.
School districts are allowed to deny applications for a variety of reasons, mainly due to previous expulsions from school, habitual truancy and if students require special education services. Three of the denied applications were due to special education needs.
On the flip side, 65 new applications for enrollment have been made by 51 students, with only six being current Shawano students, to attend other school districts. According to Kaisler, that would bring the total of open enrollment students going out to 352 if all the students indeed go to other schools, as families sometimes change their minds.
That number will likely be reduced to 320, according to Kaisler, due to the school district’s recent partnership with Rural Virtual Academy, which serves families preferring an online education. There are 32 local students attending RVA.
“We were on a waiting list. This will be our first year coming up that we’ve partnered with them,” Kaisler said. “Next year, we’ll be able to keep 32 students, which is a huge, huge win for the district.”
Kaisler told the board that most of the students leaving the Shawano School District are applying with the Bonduel School District.
“They’re killing us on the 4K (4-year-old kindergarten) side of the house,” he said. “On the positive side, though, it looks like they’re going to deny most of those students mainly because of the fact that they don’t have space.”
That statement is inaccurate, according to Bonduel School District Superintendent Joe Dawidziak. Although the Bonduel School Board set up that five spots would be available in 4K back in January, the number of interested applicants is prompting the board to revisit the issue, and many who have been denied could get in anyway.
Kaisler added that just because Bonduel denies some open enrollment applications doesn’t mean those students would have to come back to Shawano. He noted there are two types of open enrollment — the regular open enrollment and an alternative open enrollment outside of the February to April time frame where additional criteria have to be met for schools to accept applications. Kaisler said the board did not have to approve applications from the alternative period.
“Once you approve, our office has to send acceptance or denial letters by June 7,” Kaisler said to the board. “Denial letters, parents have the opportunity up to 30 days to appeal that decision by the district.”
Kaisler expects to know final open enrollment numbers this summer, as parents who applied have to notify the district by June 28 about whether they actually plan to attend school in Shawano.
As a suggestion, Kaisler recommended the district look at creating a 3-year-old kindergarten program to compete with the one that Bonduel has.
“The fact is, when you create those bonds at a young age, you usually keep those students in the district,” he said, noting that about 25 of the students being lost are due to better early education programs like 3K. “We could nip some of that in the bud. That trend has been happening the last few years.”
Marketing the district is also something officials have not done well, Kaisler noted.
“I think we need to sell ourselves hard,” he said. “We do a lot of great things, and we have some really awesome programs. It’s just a matter of time before people start noticing.”
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
