By Jason Arndt
Open enrollment parents at Raymond School District responded Monday night with criticism regarding the Board of Education’s decision in January to place a preliminary freeze on new open enrollment admissions entering the 2014-15 school year.
Superintendent Joe Dawidziak explained the decision was made after consideration by the school board of several factors.
“District resident enrollment has been declining and will continue to, and at the same time we are losing 15 percent of our state aid,” Dawidziak said, speaking at the school board’s Feb. 24 meeting.
School Board President Dawn Peterson told attendees the decision is preliminary due to required state mandates in submitting student rates to the Department of Public Instruction.
“Annually in January, School Board members are required by state law to determine open enrollment numbers for the next school year,” Peterson stated.
However, two parents told Board Members they are concerned with how the decision will affect their families.
“For my family we are left with two options: enrolling my children at two different schools or removing my oldest child from Raymond School and relocating,” open enrollment parent Julie Nurse told Board Members.
Nurse has a child enrolled in the school’s kindergarten class and had hoped to enroll her younger child at the school in the future.
Another deciding factor in making the decision was the results of a community survey sent out to residents in November, indicating there is a misconception abpit open enrolled students at the school.
“While open enrollment was not part of the survey, there were comments made regarding open enrollment numbers,” Peterson dsid.
“As a result of the community survey, we decided not to take on any new open enrollment students at the January meeting for next fall,” Peterson said.
Open enrollment parent Morgan Andrews expressed dissatisfaction with how the information was conveyed when it was sent by e-mail to parents at the end of the school day in January.
Andrews also responded to community concern regarding the demographics of open enrollment students.
“Raymond citizens and school board members do not educate themselves on who is going to open enroll,” Andrews said.
“Families who open enroll have taken pride in research and visited multiple schools before making the decision.”
In addition, Andrews wanted to make it known families “are not to be confused with inner city Racine stereotypes.”
Board Members indicated open enrollment numbers can be adjusted as the year progresses and will not leave children already enrolled out of options.
“Every year we have to provide a number and right now that minimum number is, unfortunately, zero,” Peterson said. “We can still take on more students in the future.”
Early projections indicate the school will have 24 percent of students in the open enrollment program entering the following school year.
In addition, the district opted to keep three spots open at each grade level for potential new residents in the Town of Raymond throughout the year.
Dawidziak told attendees the new deadline can put most school districts in a difficult situation in regards to projected numbers.
“In a more personal side of it, I think it puts school districts in a tough position,” Dawidziak said. “It used to be that open enrollment used to be open one month in February but now it is open until April.”
Dawidziak and Peterson declined to comment regarding the potential layoff of one teacher when the Administrator noted there could be a reduction in number of kindergarten sections in 2014-15.
“This year we have three sections of kindergarten, we could have had two sections of kindergarten,” Dawidziak said. “We already had the person hired because we had the parents stating they wanted their kids to go there.”
At Monday night’s meeting, the Board was asked to consider implementing a “grandfather clause” to allow open enrollment siblings to remain in the same school.
Peterson told attendees it “costs more to educate a child” than what is receives in state aid from open enrollment.
It was explained that for every open enrollment student, $6,485 is paid in, but that it costs $11,000 to educate each child inside and outside the district.
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