Posted: 3/2/06
Princeton school district back to open enrollment
By Joel Stottrup
The Princeton School Board sent a valentine of sorts on Valentine's Day to potential students who live outside the school district and have not been able to enroll for school in the Princeton district.
The valentine was the board's action on Feb. 14 of reinstating open enrollment, something the board terminated Jan. 8, 2002.
Open enrollment allows students living in one district to attend in another. Princeton, during the four years of closed enrollment, was letting students living in the district attend elsewhere, without the reverse, with the exception of the one- percent rule.
Districts with closed enrollment must allow students who live outside the district enroll equivalent to one percent of each grade.
The Union-Eagle hasn't caught up with the right people to find out if there were some people waiting at the boundary line to get in. But it was apparent that Superintendent Mark Sleeper and the School Board were ready to welcome more than one percent in from outside the district.
The action to reinstate open enrollment took effect Feb. 15, the day after the motion was passed.
Sleeper explained last Thursday why he recommended the board reinstate open enrollment. The district's peak enrollment increase was during the 2001-02 school year when it saw a rise of 147 students, or 4.8 percent, to bring the enrollment then to 3,217, said Sleeper.
What has changed since then is that the increase has dropped to an average of 30 students, he said. As of last month, the increase over the previous year was 32. Total enrollment in the district is 3,419.
The average increase during the peak years was 80 to 150, compared to 25 to 50 now, said Sleeper. Last school year the increase in enrollment was 50.
As long as the district continued at the pace of an increase of 100 to 150, the district wasn't able to handle those kinds of numbers, Sleeper continued.
How will facilities
be affected ?
Sleeper seemed ready for the question last Thursday of whether there is still a need for expanded school facilities considering what he said about the enrollment changes and now reinstating open enrollment.
"These changes in enrollment increases doesn't change the need for facilities," Sleeper answered, indicating that he expected the question.
He went on to mention the School Board's recent action on portable classrooms, which was to increase them next school year (see separate story).
"Even if we didn't bring in one additional student, we still have three of the four buildings in the district (the two elementary schools and the high school) over capacity," Sleeper said.
The only thing that might change is how many students the board will plan for in the next 5 to 10 years, Sleeper added.
A lot of the enrollment projection is "speculation," Sleeper said. The cost of gasoline and the economy will have an effect on how many people continue to move out from the metro area and still commute to work, he said.
Part of the plan that goes with reinstating open enrollment, according to Sleeper, is the board's plan to add more teachers in the next school year as the funds kick in from the operating levy that voters passed last November.
(The number of teachers to be added has not yet been determined, according to Sleeper.)
As long as the enrollment increases are small, the district can handle it, Sleeper said.
"We're making an effort," Sleeper said, "to accommodate students as much as we can [who want to enroll in the district]."
One benefit with more students is more state aid, Sleeper noted.
Sleeper said the hope is that growth in the number of students in the district will be slow to give time to make needed changes, and that Princeton will not be like places like Elk River which grew too much too fast.
Another fact Sleeper mentioned is that the number of students leaving the district is larger than the numbers coming in. Board chairperson Karen Metcalf said the same when she was reached Monday.
It does sound confusing, she admitted, when considering that the enrollment is still increasing. The reason for the net increase, she explained, is because of the number of students moving into the district.
One of the big reasons for shutting down open enrollment in 2002, said Metcalf, is that school officials "wanted to get a handle on" where the students were coming from that were swelling the number of students enrolling so fast.
After watching the effect of not having open enrollment, it was clear that the students were coming from families moving into the district, rather ones enrolling who lived outside, she said.
A survey was done on where a lot of students were enrolling who live inside the Princeton district, Metcalf noted. It was found, she said, that some were home schooling, some were being dropped off at another school district when the parent commuted to work, and some even decided to study on-line.
She explained that the study found some students were taking classes on-line at a school in southeastern Minnesota that was recruiting such enrollment, Metcalf said.
If any of the school buildings experience too great an increase in students in a given year, the School Board has the right to shut down open enrollment at a particular building or even per grade, Sleeper and Metcalf noted.
One technical advantage of open enrollment is doing away with the problem that administrators had during closed enrollment of keeping track of which students actually lived in the district, said Sleeper.
"It's very difficult to manage the closed system," said Sleeper, adding that because of the different family circumstances it was difficult "applying the [closed enrollment] rule evenly across the board."
Princeton Union-Eagle
P.O. Box 278
Princeton, MN 55371
Telephone: 763-389-1222
Fax: 763-389-1728