Approval marks first time district has set caps
By Kellen Olshefski
Correspondent
The Elkhorn Area School District Board of Education voted in favor of setting caps for open enrollment Monday night for the majority of most grade levels district-wide, something the board hasn’t done in previous years.
With approval from the board, open enrollment would be capped at the following levels district-wide: no cap in 4K; 51 seats in kindergarten; 76 seats in first grade; 72 seats in second grade; 27 seats in third grade; 94 seats in fourth grade; 34 seats in fifth grade; 67 seats in sixth grade; 47 seats in seventh grade; 41 seats in eighth grade; 63 seats in ninth grade; 82 seats in 10th grade; 117 seats in 11th grade, and; 88 seats in 12th grade.
Zero open enrollment seats will be available in early childhood and at the Achievement Center of Elkhorn, and there would be no cap for 4K and all grade levels in the OPtions Virtual Charter School.
Elkhorn Area School District Superintendent Jason Tadlock said Monday night that in prior years the district has not put a cap on open enrollment. This year, however, Tadlock said, a couple of the district’s programs are facing a point where they could be “maxed out.”
“In a couple of our programs we are at that point where it could be very costly from the district to add seats,” Tadlock said, noting that if the district were to add seats to these programs, it would also need to add additional staff.
In addition, Tadlock said the state law has changed since last year. Under changes to legislation, he said the school district would not be allowed to bill an open-enrolled student’s resident district for the actual costs incurred by Elkhorn schools as a result of accepting a student.
“For example, in prior years if we had a student with high special needs come into the school district and we needed to hire a one-on-one aide to fulfill that students (Individualized Education Program), we could bill back to that student’s home district for that student’s cost,” Tadlock said.
“We can no longer do that. We receive a flat amount in revenue for that student,” he added.
Tadlock said for special education students, the district would receive $12,000, which is more than what the district would receive for non-special needs students, though for some high-need program areas that amount wouldn’t come close to covering the cost to the district.
After School Board President Susan Leibsle noted the “huge disparity” between the cap numbers lined out for each grade level, Tadlock said the numbers presented to the board Monday night reflected current enrollment numbers of the district. However, Tadlock said, in each of the grade levels, he doesn’t anticipate the district hitting the proposed open-enrollment caps.
“More than likely we’ll be able to accept 90-99 percent of the students who apply for open enrollment,” he said.
Leibsle said setting individual caps for each grade level is confusing, specifically at the high school level where a ninth-grade student might take ninth-grade classes, but might also be taking 12th-grade classes for example.
“When you read this, it’s just kind of confusing, and to me, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense knowing that some of our ninth-graders are taking senior classes,” Leibsle said. “It isn’t that they just take ninth-grade classes.”
Tadlock said the district has to determine how many open-enrollment slots are available by grade, and to come up with those numbers, he took an average of the staff available at the high school and divided it by the size of each grade level.
In the future, Tadlock said, if the district so wished, they could set the same cap level for multiple grades, averaging it out at the high school and setting the same number for each of the four grade levels.
A motion to approve open-enrollment caps for the 2017-2018 academic year was approved by the School Board unanimously. It’s important to note Tadlock said the caps set by the district would have no effect on students who are residents of the Elkhorn Area School District.
