Kansas schools can now claim current enrollment after addressing shrinking districts fears

Gov. Laura Kelly signed a bill that allows school districts to use one of three methods to establish enrollment: using the current year, the past year or the average of the past two years.

Currently, school district enrollment is tallied using the number of students enrolled during the previous year — and allows districts to go to the second preceding school year if they had experienced a decrease in enrollment. Growing districts said this didn’t give them the funds they needed to support their current student population.

Many of the growing districts are in fast-growing cities, but some rural districts also face issues with enrollment. Jackson Heights USD 335 absorbed more than 110 students from a district that closed a school, a 25% increase in total enrollment, but couldn’t get the funding for those students until a full school year passed.

“We bear the cost of this increased enrollment without corresponding funding, which has strained our financial resources,” Jim Howard, superintendent of Jackson Heights USD 335, said in support of the bill.

But the issue isn’t limited to rural districts. Wichita Public Schools, the largest district in the state, has seen enrollment decline since 2016 and is considering closing up to seven schools in the district. It didn’t object to making current-year enrollment available but warned that limiting it to current or past-year enrollment makes budgeting for future school years more challenging.

“One of the reasons the Legislature adopted the lookback enrollment model was so that the state could better plan its budget and not have to adjust for unforeseen enrollment fluctuations occurring after the start of the state’s fiscal year,” Susan Willis, chief financial officer at Wichita Public Schools, told legislators.

The initial bill limited enrollment to just current or last year’s enrollment. Kelly vetoed a similar provision in last year’s Senate Bill 113 saying that it would put rural districts at risk.

“For districts experiencing declining enrollment, this change precipitates immediate funding adjustments that districts would be required to make in the upcoming school year rather than over the next few years as is dictated by current law,” Kelly said in her veto message at the time.

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The final product of the bill, however, added the option of using the average of the past two years enrollment to address cutting budgets too quickly. The Kansas Association of School Boards, a statewide agency that represents every district in the state, was neutral on the original bill but celebrated the passage of the final compromise bill.

“Kansans can be proud of the bipartisan work by lawmakers and public education advocates who sought common ground,” said Brian Jordan, executive director of the Kansas Association of School Boards. “It’s a win for Kansas kids when school districts have a responsible path to plan effectively and efficiently. We applaud Republicans and Democrats for reaching this agreement.”

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas schools can now claim current enrollment after addressing shrinking districts fears