Lowellville Local Schools now open for year-round open enrollment registration

September 8, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

By SARAH LEHR

LOWELLVILLE

This school year marks the first in which students who live outside the district will be able to register year-round for open enrollment at Lowellville Local Schools.

The Lowellville Board of Education voted in April to make open enrollment available all year rather than within a specific window of time.

“The board took a very progressive stance,” Superintendant Eugene Thomas said. “We want to make sure every kid has the opportunity to come get a great education. Why turn away great kids who want to come to a great school because of a window of time?”

Lowellville was one of the first school districts in Ohio to pursue open enrollment when it authorized open-enrollment registration within a specific time frame more than two decades ago.

In recent years, about half of the district’s 600 students came from open enrollment.

“We rely on open enrollment,” Thomas said. State funding per student adds to open-enrollment districts’ bottom line.

During the 2014-15 school year, 172 of Lowellville’s 299 open-enrollment students came from Youngstown. There were 80 students from Campbell, 28 from Struthers, 15 from Poland, two from Springfield, one from Austintown and one from Boardman, according to the district’s administrative office.

Students still are trickling in for the 2015-16 school year, but as of August, junior/senior high-school Principal Christine Sawicki said about 30 new open-enrollment students had registered in the district.

The district does not have a set cap on the number of open-enrollment students it will accept, Thomas said, but it may hire additional teachers if necessary.

“We’re watching the numbers very closely,” Thomas said.

A 10-year study of Lowellville schools submitted by a Youngstown State University education professor shows that, in some years, open- enrollment students slightly outperformed students who resided in the district. Test scores of both resident and open-enrollment students displayed a gradual upward trend.