By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
The number of students coming into the Burlington Area School District under the state’s open enrollment program is nowhere near the numbers going out.
And with no way to deny general students the opt-out, the BASD School Board Curriculum Committee looked at options to reduce the disparity in the future.
Fifty students have applied to enroll into BASD under the program for the 2014-15 school year, but 127 have applied to enroll at schools out of the district. Students can apply to up to three different school districts, which means the numbers on both sides of the equation could decrease.
However, while 39 of the outbound students are enrolling in virtual schools, BASD Open Enrollment Coordinator Keith Nerby wants to explore the reasons why students are choosing to leave.
“Obviously, we’ve got more people going out than coming in,” said Nerby. “I think it’s worth finding out (why).”
Nerby also added that many of the open enrollment out students have never set foot in a Burlington classroom. Those students are often on the edge of one district or another, such as Rochester, Waterford or Wheatland.
Also a future possibility is setting up a virtual school.
“…We see that trend go up,” Nerby said.
School Board member Rosanne Hahn cautioned that she wanted to make sure those schools are monitored and that students are spending enough time on their studies.
Special education
With special education cases accepted or denied on a case-by-case basis, BASD Special Education Director Gail Spitzenberger outlined the 11 applicants to come into the district, and the 26 looking to enroll elsewhere.
Spitzenberger recommended – and the committee voted unanimously – to deny all but two open-enroll in requests and also deny two open-enroll out.
The one of the two accepted enrollments involved a student who was already in the district and didn’t need to reapply. The others were denied for a variety of reasons – many of them tied to that fact that programs are already at capacity.
“For the most part, we are denying these students because our services are full,” Spitzenberger said.
Spitzenberger’s two recommended denials for special education students leaving the district involved one high-cost student (a $99,000 transportation cost alone to the district) and another that lacked a required individual education program plan.
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…and you are not considering the students who choose private schools as well. Burlington schools are definitely bottom-of-the-barrel and throwing money at them it’s not the answer. BACK TO THE BASICS and things might change. With school board members like Hahn, it will only get worse.
I wouldn’t say BASD is the bottom of the barrel. Do you have kids there? Just curious why you have that opinion.
I do agree with one thing you said. They always seem to want more money to solve problems rather than actually trying to figure out the cause or solution to the short comings. Easier to throw money I guess but then again that has always been their mindset.
“Bottom of the barrel” compared to what? Racine? Kenosha? Union Grove? West Allis? Test scores are slightly above the state average which is pretty normal for a smaller town. We are not an affluent suburb, but we are not ghetto with a 30-40% drop out rate either.
Compared to What?
DPI District report for 2013-2014, comparing the BASD conference schools (8) and the (29) feeder schools for each High School
BASD is 7th of 8 for grade 10 and 21 of 29 for grade 8 and 16 of 29 for grade 4.Reading 7 of 8 for grade 10, and 23rd of 29 for grade 8, and 14 of 29 for grade 4 in Language arts..AS for Math, BASD is 6th of 8 ranked schools for grade 10 and 25th of 29 for grade 8 and 18th of 29 for grade 4. Under the science program Grade 10 is 7th of 8 schools while grade 8 is 26th of 29 schools and the 4th grade is 23rd of 29 schools.
Phil Ketterhagen
Curriculum committee member
Phil, please provide a link to the data you spew. Where do you find these rankings/comparisons. I for one would never trust it straight from you. Just looking at a rank is asinine. What is the spread of the data? How far apart are each of the scores for each of the schools? How far apart are the 8 conference schools? How far apart are the 29 feeder schools?
Do they each have 30% of their student population that is economically disadvantaged like Burlington? Amazing how you can always spin the 2012-2013 report card negatively when it says that BASD/BHS is in the category of ‘Exceeds Expectations’ even in spite of the tough socioeconomic situation that Burlington has.
https://apps2.dpi.wi.gov/sdpr/district-report.action Unless you verify your regurgitation of the talking points you hear,you will never hear the truth.Make your own judgements when you view all the data comparisons put out by DPI
By the way why are you afraid to put your name on the reply?
Phil Ketterhagen
I followed your link and from what I see all of the BASD scores are above the state average in all categories. It is all a matter of how you want to spin it Phil.
Why do I avoid using my name? Because you can hide from the bullies of this website. Kudos to you and Mervin Langley for using your real names. Other of us are not as comfortable with putting our name on these posts as our jobs might be on the line.
To be honest, I wish that a real name would be required of all users. It used to be that you had to sign your name when you wrote a letter to the editor. Now you can editorialize without having to give one.
I highly doubt this is actually Phil Ketterhagen making these posts.
Why would a school board member come onto a newspaper message board to ridicule the school district he has committed to trying to help?
It makes no sense. It only makes the real Phil look foolish.
Voice of Reason
One of the legacies of Scott Walker’s scorched earth policies in Wisconsin is that public education is now the enemy. This absurd notion seems to be appealing to those who want to blame someone else but it’s not helpful. May I suggest inviting a teacher over for coffee and listening to them describe their day, their love for the children of this community, and their goals before you take cheap shots.
Teachers don’t drink coffee they drink the tears of their failing students. Except right now they are relaxing in their sun porch on a Wednesday while we’re at work.
Phil,
Using your logic, I have now analyzed the DPI data of the following school districts: Mequon, Elmbrook, Nicolet/Fox Point, Whitefish Bay, Wauwatosa, Brown Deer, Kettle Moraine and Mukwonago and Muskego. DPI rates all of these districts and high schools as Exceeds Expectations and considers them high performing districts. It appears that overall Brown Deer has the lowest overall ranking of the nine so therefore they must be the “bottom of the barrel”?
Jerry,
This makes sense to me, and fortunately this makes sense to the majority of people in Burlington. We know the schools are good schools.
It is unfortunate that some on the school board seem intent to destroy the schools to fulfill their own personal political agenda.