Union-North United School Corp. Superintendent Mitchell Mawhorter said that he wishes he didn’t have to ratchet up efforts to recruit students who live outside the district.
But for the small, rural school corporation that’s lost nearly a third of its enrollment since 2007, it’s a matter of survival, he said.
In a move that South Bend Community School Corp.’s superintendent fears could chip away at partnerships between area school districts, Union-North will begin sending a bus inside South Bend’s boundaries to transport students who are willing to transfer out.
“Nobody wants to do this,” Mawhorter said. “We don’t want to go to another superintendent and say ‘hey, we want to steal your kids.’ I understand that.”
But, he said, “You have to reverse that (declining enrollment) trend somehow. And unfortunately, this is the sort of the game we’re forced to play.”
Since 2007, Union-North has lost 300 students. It currently has about 1,050 students, 150 of whom are from other districts, primarily South Bend.
South Bend Superintendent Carole Schmidt said putting a bus into the city schools’ boundaries ramps up the competition for students in a way that’s never been done in St. Joseph County. “It pits a district against another district,” she said.
Schmidt worries such a move could damage the "collaborative spirit" that exists among area districts, many of which work together on initiatives like Head Start.