Howland board weighs open-enrollment plan

Board members aren't particularly fond of open enrollment.
By HOLLY A. TAYLOR
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
HOWLAND -- The school board is seriously considering starting an open-enrollment policy to help bolster the district's revenues.
"We want to focus on the needs of local students," declared Superintendent John Rubesich at the regular meeting of the Howland Board of Education's session Monday night.
Last year, voters passed a 5-mill levy for Howland schools to help boost the district's sagging finances.
The district, however, suffered a blow with the dwindling tax contributions by three large corporations.
Delphi Packard Electric Systems decreased its contribution to local education by about $1 million; the MCI call center is closing; and WCI, the steelmaking company, is in bankruptcy.
The loss of funding from those three alone comes to almost $2 million.
The board wants to help offset those losses by instituting an open-enrollment program.
Rubesich opened the discussion stating that none of the board members were pleased with establishing the proposed open-enrollment plan, but that they had a responsibility to the pupils to find alternative ways to generate funds.
The board then put together a draft to keep the proposed plan on its terms.
Priority basis
The board proposed that pupils will be accepted to the school district on a priority basis as follows:
USiblings of pupils already enrolled under the open-enrollment program starting in the second year of the sibling's open enrollment.
UPupils who have parents employed by the Howland schools.
UPupils who have grandparents or relatives residing in the Howland school district.
UPupils with the earliest completed application.
The funding for each new pupil will come from the school district where the open-enrollment pupil resides. The cost for open enrollment is $5,000 for the school district losing one of its pupils. For example, if a Warren G. Harding pupil were to enroll in the Howland district, Warren schools would have $5,000 taken out of its funding, and that money would go directly to the Howland district.
Limiting class size
Open enrollment will be permitted in all grades. For grades one and two, classes will not exceed 21 pupils; for grades three through five, individual classes will not exceed 23 pupils; and for grades six through 12, no transfers will occur when the pupil population reaches 275 pupils per grade level.
The board would tentatively approve no more than 100 new spaces for open-enrollment applicants for the entire school district, but it assumes the numbers will be much lower than that.
The board will have a final vote on the proposed open-enrollment policy later this spring.