Board to Consider Expanding Schools of Choice to Combat Declining Enrollment

Saline Area Schools is considering a plan to expand its Schools of Choice program to the in an effort to stabilize district enrollment.

Superintendent Scot Graden presented the proposed policy change at Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting held at . Graden said that the district continues to graduate more students than they have enrolling in kindergarten. School districts are funded by a per-pupil basis, so lower enrollment means less funding, and less funding means cuts will be deeper.

“Our intention is not to use Schools of Choice to grow the district, but to stabilize the numbers and soften the declining enrollment caused by the exiting senior classes and incoming kindergarten classes,” said Graden. “The motivation is largely financial.”

Schools of Choice allows students who reside in other districts to attend school in neighboring districts. Today, Saline Area Schools has a limited Schools of Choice plan open mostly to elementary school students and Saline Alternative High School. In all, there are 116 Schools of Choice students in the district, of which 61 enrolled are in kindergarten or first grade. The plan is to open Schools of Choice to Saline Middle School. Graden said the move could add 60 students to the middle school. At more than $7,000-per-pupil, that would bring more than $450,000 in additional revenue to the district.

Adding students can be difficult, but it’s easiest to manage in kindergarten through eighth grade, Graden said.

“It’s very easy to determine where we have availability to make sure that if we accept a student we are not increasing our costs,” Graden said. “At the high school level, with shifting schedules, it’s much more difficult. From a financial standpoint, we can be most efficient with Schools of Choice where we have set schedules for the entire year.”

Board Trustee Amy Cattell said she thought it would be beneficial to add students at the middle school level.

“I think with athletics and other activities, they might stay around longer,” she said.

Graden noted that Schools of Choice kids are sometimes transient, leaving the district after attending for a couple of years.

Trustee Lisa Slawson said that there were howls from some members of the public when the district first talked about Schools of Choice more than a year ago.

“There were parents in tears, worried about what this would to do their schools and to their property values,” she said, before asking Graden if Schools of Choice had resulted in discipline problems.

“No. In fact, our discipline has gone down and our achievement, in a broad sense, has increased,” Graden said.

Slawson also said that Schools of Choice parents she’s known have been active in their schools and worked seamlessly into the “volunteer patchwork.”

“You would never know they are from somewhere else,” she said. “Schools of Choice has not brought our property values down. The sky did not fall. If you can’t sell your house, it’s not because of Schools of Choice.”

Responding to a question from School Board President Chuck Lesch, Graden reported that Chelsea and Dexter are the only districts in the county not participating in some version of Schools of Choice. Saline and Ann Arbor participate in a limited way.

Trustee Todd Carter asked where Saline’s Schools of Choice students come from. Graden said that most of them come from Ann Arbor Public Schools, especially just north of the Saline district, where some subdivisions are split in half by the neighboring districts. Saline also receives a significant amount of students from Milan and Ypsilanti Lincoln. Graden noted that Saline also loses Schools of Choice students, with Milan being the most popular destination.

The board is expected to vote on the policy at its April meeting.