Open Enrollment Helps Greenfield School District Stay Afloat

The Greenfield School District is in the midst of an annual attempt to strike an enrollment balance through Wisconsin's inter-district open enrollment, a popular state-wide school choice program.

Through an application process, open enrollment allows parents to choose the district they want their child to attend. Districts determination the number of open seats it has and selects students through a random process. Those incoming students bring with them a set state funding amount.

"The main reason parents do this is because they feel that another school district can provide their child with a better education than the one that they reside in," said Cindy Winard, the district's open enrollment coordinator.

Like many school districts throughout the area, Greenfield uses open enrollment to fill a budget gap caused by the state revenue cap. Each year, according to Conrad Farner, the district's superintendent, the district faces more costs than revenue it can generate, leaving school officials to decide whether to cut programs and staff or to examine other funding options such as referendum or open enrollment.

"The district can stay in business because of open enrollment," Farner said during an interview last month. "Open enrollment is about the only way districts can overcome the state reneging on its legal responsibility to fund the schools. When the state can change the rules or not follow its own rules, it leaves us with very few options."

Greenfield is not alone, Farner said. He said many area districts face the same tough decisions each year. The key for a school district when determining how many seats to make available is to strike a balance between empty seats and overcrowding in classrooms. Although parents and school administrators frown upon a classroom of more than 20 to 25 students, it is also detrimental for a classroom to have empty seats. Those seats represent potential revenue not realized.

Since most expenses are fixed in a particular classroom, filling those empty seats have little marginal cost associated with them. In addition, open enrolled students bring the state aid per pupil amount with them from their home district. In the 2009-10 school year, for example, each open enrollment student brought with them $6,498 to their new district.

As a result, filling empty seats with open enrollment students can help balance a district's bottom line.

The school district received 814 open enrollment applications this year. According to the district website, it has 26 open seats available. The district, however, has opened 60 seats for grade 9 after it received 239 applicants for the grade level.

"The administration has reviewed the projected enrollment for next year and they have decided to open a few more seats at some of the grade levels," Winard said. "We did the random draw earlier this week and each student has been assigned a (waiting) list number. We will keep waiting lists for each grade level."

Winard will then send letters to parents notifying them of the results no later than April 8. Parents must notify the district if they intend to accept the placement by June 10.

"The waiting lists can be kept until the third week in August, and as people drop out, I will go down the waiting list in the order they were drawn and call parents to see if they are interested in attending Greenfield," Winard said.