CRESTVIEW District opens to other pupils

The district will accept open enrollment pupils beginning in the 2002-03 school year.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
COLUMBIANA -- Crestview school officials apparently have decided there's now room in the inn.
Superintendent John Dilling said staff members' desire for their children to be educated in the district, coupled with the loss of Crestview pupils to other districts, prompted the school board to vote to accept pupils through open enrollment.
Beginning with the 2002-03 school year, Crestview schools will accept open enrollment pupils for the first time since the state permitted the option in 1993.
Dilling said since the board of education voted last month to allow open enrollment, he has received about a dozen calls from interested parents.
School boards can choose not to accept open enrollment pupils, but they can't prevent the parents of their own pupils from using the option, he said.
Child care: Dilling said school officials meet with parents who choose to enroll their children in other districts, and they must fill out withdrawal forms. Most often their reason for withdrawing their children from Crestview is the logistics of child care, he said.
When both parents work, and caregivers -- in most cases grandparents -- live outside the Crestview district, parents often opt to enroll their children in that district, he said.
Crestview has lost nearly 50 pupils over the past two years, mostly in the elementary grades, because of such child-care concerns, Dilling said.
He said Crestview could take in some pupils from other districts for the same reason.
Dilling said accepting pupils into the district through open enrollment also will allow the children of staff members who do not live in the district to attend Crestview schools.
He said school officials are developing an open-enrollment policy with input from the board's policy committee.
If the board adopts the policy by its February meeting, Dilling said school officials can then begin the application process.
Acceptance: He said there will be a cap on the number of pupils accepted for each grade. Most of the openings will be in the kindergarten through fourth grades, but some pupils will be accepted for the middle school and the high school, he said.
Acceptance will be on a first-come, first-served basis, and pupils accepted will be notified by the end of May so scheduling can occur in June, Dilling said.
He said school officials previously chose not to participate in open enrollment because they didn't want school facilities expanded for the 1996-1997 school year to fill up too quickly.
The district vacated the New Waterford Elementary and Fairfield Middle School buildings after building a new elementary, converting the high school to a middle school and adding a high school wing and administrative offices to the former high school.
The buildings can house about 1,300 pupils, and the 1996-97 enrollment was 1,256.
The board received funding for the new schools soon after the Ohio School Facilities Commission established its state building assistance fund.
Dilling said the OSFC uses a number of formulas based on pupil population, projected enrollment and other factors to determine how much square footage will be funded.
Crestview received about $95 million from the state building assistance fund after voters approved a $3 million bond issue in 1992.
tullis@vindy.com