Sisters still accepting out-of-district students

The Sisters School Board last week took another look at its policy on students transferring into or out of the district — and decided to maintain the status quo. But several members were careful to explain that the current policy does not represent an “open door.”

The main qualification is that students from other districts are welcome as long as there is room in the affected Sisters classrooms. If a given class is too large already, Sisters reserves the right to say “No.”

School Superintendent Ted Thonstad asked for the review partly because of the recent discussion of overcrowding at Sisters Elementary School. He said some district patrons “have raised concerns about the impact of (out-of-district) students on district facilities and class sizes.

“In addition, there are questions regarding the value of these students due to the perception of limited parent participation in school activities and because these households do not have to pay the local option tax.”

The transfer question first surfaced two years ago when the Redmond School Board eliminated a longstanding rule that it would not permit any student to transfer to another district unless an offsetting student from that district was transferring to Redmond. Crowding in Redmond’s own classrooms forced the change.

Realizing that it might receive a number of requests for transfers from Redmond, the Sisters board agreed that those transferring in would be welcome as long as they didn’t cause overcrowding. That policy was essentially reaffirmed by the discussion last week; no formal action was taken.

Thonstad told the board that Sisters currently has 47 students registered from other districts, 44 from Redmond and three from Bend. Only nine of the total are in the elementary school. Sixteen are in the middle school and 22 attend the high school, neither of which has crowding worries.

“Supervisor and administrator input regarding these students is positive regarding their motivation to learn, academic achievement, behavior, and overall contribution to the student bodies of the respective schools,” the superintendent said in a report to the board. “From a school funding perspective, these students represent approximately $245,000 (or about four teachers) to the Sisters School District.”

The district receives state support of about $4,800 per student for out-of-district students enrolled here, the same amount as for resident students. That’s one reason most districts in the area are relatively willing to accept transfers.

The receiving district usually gains more in state funding than the outside students cost in terms of extra staffing.

Thonstad also told The Nugget that the interdistrict transfer policy “goes both ways. We just had a student yesterday leaving Sisters High School going to Mountain View (Bend) because of the ROTC program. That’s about the third one we’ve had go to Mountain View, all for the same reason.”

Thonstad agreed that school overcrowding in Redmond “is really what’s driving” the influx of students from that district, and he expects that “when they build their new schools it will go away, if they can staff them.”