Story originally printed in the Coulee News or online at www.couleenews.com
Published - Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Open enrollment figures indicate little change
After the dust settled from the latest open enrollment period ending Feb. 22, both the Bangor and West Salem school districts report that the totals of outgoing and incoming students remain close to evenly balanced.
West Salem saw an increase of six students, as 82 have opted to attend school out of the district, while 88 will attend from other school districts. The figures for Bangor are 41 students coming into the school system and 46 going outside it.
These number are not necessarily final, however. “You have to keep in mind that these numbers are only projections. Circumstances change and students and parents do change their minds, so we’ll have to wait and see what the numbers actually are in the fall,” said Bangor school district superintendent Roger Foegen.
The open enrollment program, which allows parents to apply to have their children attend public school districts other than the one they live in, can have major budgetary implications for the schools involved. In the case of Bangor and West Salem the financial implications for next year will be relatively minor.
“If the numbers hold up we would have a net gain of around $36,000 ,” said Nancy Burns, superintendent of the West Salem school district.
“If things go as projected, we would probably lose about $30,00,” said Foegen.
The numbers tend to fluctuate from year to year — last year Bangor had 23 coming in and only 13 going out. “All in all, it’s becoming more even,” Foegen said.
“We used to have more going out, but it’s become pretty balanced. We tend to gain from the east —Sparta is our biggest influx — and lose to the west to schools in West Salem, Onalaska and La Crosse.
“We’ve done surveys on why people decide to enroll out and often it’s related to child care. This year we’ve probably had a few more of those because of the addition of four-year-old kindergarten,” Foegen said.
Bangor’s 4K program, set to start this fall, is for two full days per week. “Because it’s part-time, some parents have child care issues. More and more parents are taking advantage of open enrollment (to solve such issues),” Foegen added.
Burns noted that the numbers for West Salem had swung over to the positive side the last couple of years. In 2006-07 the numbers were 51 out and 49 in. Last year they were 62 in and 56 out.
“One good thing is that the income derived from open enrollment gains allows us to exceed the revenue cap,” Burns said. The revenue cap for West Salem is 15.1 million dollars.
All stories copyright 2006 Coulee News and other attributed sources.