School district will keep taking transfer students

For some time the Sisters School District has allowed non-resident students to attend Sisters schools. This year some 93 interdistrict transfers attend Sisters schools, adding $575,670 to the district's general fund.

At the Tuesday, April 8, school board meeting, board members, without a formal vote, affirmed superintendent Elaine Drakulich's recommendation to again accept interdistrict transfers for the 2008-09 school year.

Drakulich explained the impact disallowing transfer students would have on the school district. Without transfer students the Sisters School District would lose funds that go directly into its general fund.

"Transfer students are bringing in dollars for us in our general fund. If we did not receive transfers, we would need to find a way to offset those current dollars," said Drakulich.

According to Drakulich, when transfers are evaluated on a grade-by-grade basis, there are not enough transfers in any one class to cut a class or cut a teacher. Without transfer students "...we would have the same staff, but we would have $575,670 less," she said.

Board member Christine Jones pointed out the significance of this factor.

"I think it is important again to reiterate what Elaine (Drakulich) said, especially as we look through the seventh grade. Clearly transfers are not responsible for any kind of overcrowding or excessive class size. They do have more of an impact at the high school," she said.

With regard to the concern that some district stakeholders have voiced that the families of transfer students do not pay dollars toward Sisters bond measures or taxes, Drakulich said: "We do retrieve those dollars from the ODE (Oregon Department of Education) state pool."

According to high school principal Bob Macauley, parents who transfer their children into the Sisters School District come here because they are committed to the quality of education the district offers.

"The parents of these kids coming in are making big sacrifices to bring them in," said Macauley. "They're contributors to the high school. It's really hard to come from Redmond every day and be involved. They're appreciative. I think that even though they're not contributing to the local option in a way they are. They're creating their own local option by showing up.... It's been very positive."

This year, 55 of the district's 93 transfer students are at the high school, and approximately 40 of these high school students are from Redmond. Sisters Middle School has 28 transfer students, and the elementary school has 10.

"We're very fortunate in terms of the way that this is spread out in our school district," said school board vice chairman Glen Lasken. "We're very, very fortunate in that of the three primary buildings, we have the most room to breathe or to move in the high school where we have the most transfers."

According to Lasken, the high school always has more transfer students than the middle and elementary schools because most students do not transfer to the district until they enter high school. Students come "because of different course offering at the high school," he said.

"Parents don't want to send their kindergartener to a school 19 miles away, but they're pretty happy to send their child from a very crowded Redmond High School over here," said board member Jeff Smith.

Looking at the future Sisters may have to address the reality of fewer transfer students and in turn the loss in revenue generated by these students.

"If Redmond passes their bond and two years from now they have a brand new spanking high school, then I think our numbers would go down," said Lasken.