Committee discusses transfer policy
Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
BENTONVILLE - Two policy changes approved Tuesday involve who - and who cannot - attend Bentonville schools. The policies were discussed Tuesday during the Bentonville School Board's Policy Committee meeting.
The first policy regards how the board will handle requests for students to transfer out of the district. Until now, the board has given blanket approval to students requesting to attend school in another district, even though they live in Bentonville's district. The district already has a policy of not allowing students living in other school districts to transfer into Bentonville schools except on a case-bycase basis that is decided by the school board.
In recent months, however, a growing number of area school districts have put a halt to allowing students living in their districts to transfer to another district. This trend has come in the face of more and more districts seeing either a rapid slowdown or a complete halt in student population growth. The Bentonville School District is still growing by at least 500 students every year, but the district's growth rate has slowed in the last year or so.
Superintendent Gary Compton presented the proposed policy, which includes suggested criteria that requires "extraordinary circumstances"to apply before a transfer out would be granted to a student.
Just how the board would decide what qualifies was part of Tuesday's discussion.
"How do we truly judge these ? "board member Beth Haney asked.
The proposed policy lists some criteria, but committee members agreed that having specific wording listed in the policy might be too binding to the board and opted instead for the criteria to be placed in the district's procedures manual.
The committee voted on the matter, with Haney being the only "nay"vote. She had said in previous discussions that she does not see a need for the board to hear transfer-out requests during a time when the district is still experiencing such overcrowding.
The committee also discussed a policy regarding residential status of a student's parent or guardian. The policy, which is based on state law, states that students must live with a parent or legal guardian to attend school in a given district. District officials are hearing more and more stories, however, of students who must live with someone who is neither a parent or a legal guardian. Many times there is a difficult family situation, and the student must live with a friend or another family member. Compton said the economy also comes into play because sometimes people have not obtained legal guardianship of a child because they can't afford an attorney.
Brad Reed, the district's director of student services, said he saw about 100 such cases in the last school year, a figure which appeared to shock the committee members. They approved the policy change that would allow students to attend Bentonville schools if they are living with someone in the district, even if that person is not their parent or legal guardian.
The allowance is limited to only those who have extreme circumstances, and students wanting to move in with someone to attend Bentonville schools for reasons pertaining to academic or extracurricular situations will not be approved. Reed told the committee the approved change has been the practice in the district since about April but that district officials wanted the board's policy to match procedures.
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