TOPEKA — Kansas school districts showed caution in allowing transfers through a new open enrollment option that lets students attend school outside their home district, data presented Wednesday to the Kansas State Board of Education showed.
About 1,500 students transferred out of their home district under the new law for the 2024-2025 school year, making up just 6% of all district transfers, according to data from the Kansas State Department of Education.
Transferring between districts has been permitted for years under different methods, and even with the new law, the total number of students who transferred to a district outside their own declined overall this school year.
The new “school choice” open enrollment option was wrapped into an education funding bill in 2022, and it mandated schools accept students who don’t live in the district if they can accommodate them. Students have a right to stay at their chosen school until graduation if they remain in good standing, and districts must set limits ahead of enrollment deadlines on how many students it can accept.
Skeptics have said the option works against public schools by making it easier for families who have the means to access better-performing schools and widening an already large gap in public education.
Frank Harwood, deputy education commissioner, said districts appeared to conservatively estimate how many students they could accept in the new option’s first year.
“I think the idea of cautiousness in something new is reasonable,” he said.
Midsized school districts, especially those surrounding Wichita, saw an influx of students because of the new open enrollment policy. Districts like Andover, Derby and Emporia recorded the highest numbers with more than 100 out-of-district students attending each of those districts through the new open enrollment option.
Several districts surrounding Wichita saw overall net growth because of out-of-district transfers. The Wichita school district, along with Topeka Public Schools, lost the most amount of students to transfers, which include open enrollment and other circumstances. More than 1,200 students transferred out of the Wichita district and more than 600 transferred out of Topeka Public Schools this school year, according to enrollment data.
Fluctuating district numbers aren’t new, but they point to underlying problems, such as declining birth rates, rural out-migration, and teacher recruitment and retention troubles in school districts with waning enrollment.
Ten public school districts in Kansas have just 100 students or fewer. More than 30 districts have fewer than 200 students.
The state’s 50 largest public school districts educate more than 70% of K-12 students while the 50 smallest districts educate about 2% of students.
Healy Public Schools in west-central Kansas will dissolve at the end of the 2024-2025 school year because of low enrollment. Two students are enrolled in the district this year. It will be the first Kansas school district to close since the 2010-2011 school year.
“It’s more than just numbers,” said Ann Mah, a board member representing parts of northeast Kansas. “It’s social. It’s community. It’s all that stuff.”
The current school finance formula didn’t anticipate school districts with fewer than 100 students, said Randy Watkins, the state’s education commissioner, at Wednesday’s board meeting.
“You hit a hundred, you’re one event away from probably not operating,” he said.
Public officials have a few options to address the issue. The state board could add school district size rules within the education department’s accreditation process, Harwood said, or the Legislature could modify the funding formula based on district size and provide incentives for districts to consolidate. However, he said, the process for school district reorganization and dissolution has remained largely unchanged for the past 50 years.
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.
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