Many Corridor schools restricting open enrollment

Iowa City West High School is closed to open enrollment and transfer requests. This year, half of the Iowa City district's elementary schools were, too.

The school board will determine next month which schools will be closed to such requests during the 2010-11 school year. Meanwhile, the district's redistricting study could have some impact on future open enrollment and transfer requests.

“Some parents may want to make the decision now if they want their child to attend kindergarten at the new school they'll attend at a later date,” said Associate Superintendent Jim Behle.

Most Iowa City transfer requests are at the kindergarten level for this very reason. The district serves about 1,000 transfer students within the district and 149 open-enrolled students.

When it comes to school residency, the law is clear. A resident is a person who is physically present in a district, whose home has not been established in another district and who meets any of the following conditions:

• Is in the district for the purpose of making a home and not solely for school purposes.
• Meets the definitional requirements of the term “homeless individual.”
• Lives in a juvenile detention center, foster care facility, residential correctional facility or residential facility in the district.

School districts will allow families to open enroll from other districts or request school transfers from within the district - if space allows.

In Cedar Rapids, “Due to budget cuts and staff reductions, class sizes for next year will be larger at many schools,” said Sandy Stephen, executive administrator of secondary education for the Cedar Rapids school district. “Most classes are at capacity based on students residing in the school's attendance area.”

Stephen said requests for open enrollment or an in-district permit are reviewed individually. If the class sizes in a school are at capacity, open enrollment and in-district permits are denied.

Space constraints have meant College Community hasn't accepted open enrollment requests for more than 10 years.

“We started running out of classroom space in the late '90s,” said Jim Rotter, the district's executive director of business services.

The continued increase in resident enrollment will keep the district closed to requests for the foreseeable future. The only exception is if a family enrolled in the district moves to another district but wants its children to remain at Prairie. Younger siblings not yet enrolled in the district can attend Prairie schools when they are of age, too.

School officials said they try to work with parent requests, but occasionally they find students in their district who aren't residents and didn't open enroll.

“We have run into that,” said Dirk Halupnik, executive director of instructional services for the Linn-Mar school district. “We ask for proof of residency beyond their word.”

Such proof can be a utility bill, a copy of a lease or a magazine subscription - physical evidence that the address a family lists on its enrollment forms is the house in which it resides. Home visits also have been made.

If the family can't produce this information, or is found to be lying about the home address, administrators take steps to resolve the issue.

Sometimes it's a matter of misunderstanding. Perhaps a family moved out of the district, but failed to fill out a form alerting the district to the change of address. Legally, the children can still attend school in the first district - as long as the parents fill out a form.

“Most of the time, they forgot to alert the district,” Halupnik said. “It's not malicious.”

But there are instances when it is intentional. A family might have followed the rules, submitting an open enrollment or transfer request that was denied. Or the preferred school could be closed to transfers.

Another reason is location: Parents may wish to have their children attend schools closer to their employers or child care providers.

It happens, Behle said, but not often.

“In my 11 years, I've probably had less than five that have been reported,” he said.