Area public schools are increasingly in competition with one another to attract transfer students in order to offset declining enrollment caused by broader population trends in Wabash County and the surrounding area.
That competition has been heightened following news that the Metropolitan School District of Wabash County (MSD) will reconfigure its school district to establish a singular high school and middle school, as well as close Sharp Creek Elementary School, which has reportedly caused some parents to consider sending their kids to school elsewhere.;
“I have no doubt we’re going to lose some students on this (reconfiguration) just because somebody’s going to be upset and they’re not going to change their emotional stance,” MSD School Board Member John Gouveia said. “But conversely, I think having that more-robust senior high school environment…we will have other people look at this district who want to send their kids here.”
The superintendents of Wabash City Schools and Manchester Community Schools both advised the Plain Dealer that they anticipate some transfers as a result of MSD’s decision to reconfigure, although there is no current estimate on the number of students expected to leave MSD.
“I’ve had several families call me or reach out to one of our school buildings and express some interest (in transfering),” MCS Superintendent Dr. Bill Reichhart said on Friday.
Reichhart estimates that nearly 120 students currently enrolled at MCS are transfers, while WCS Superintendent Jason Callahan said around 6 percent of his student population is made up of transfers.
“That is an important piece to our enrollment,” Callahan said, “and we’re going to continue to view that until we can maybe restructure or figure out how to do this funding formula.”
Indiana schools are funded in part by local property taxes and State funding, which is based on the size of the student population. Students are allowed to attend other school districts for academic purposes as Indiana operates a so-called “school choice” model intended to encourage competition between districts and, presumably, better academics.
“That probably serves families well because it improves customer service, but it also has on the flip side that danger, that potential for divisiveness in a small community such as ours,” Callahan said.
Some MSD school board members have said that while they expect some students to leave MSD, they also hope to attract new students based on the number of advanced courses they intend to offer as a result of the reconfiguration.
“We have districts all around us that are struggling (with enrollment) as well and people are looking around regardless of where you’re at,” MSD School Board Member Troy Baer said. “What you have to do is find a way to entice them to come to our district.”
Some members of the MSD school board have also come out against a proposed consolidation of MSD and City Schools as an inadequate solution to declining enrollment and promoted the reconfiguration as a better solution.
At last week’s school board meeting, Gouveia said he continues to oppose consolidation because of the negative impact he feels it would have on taxpayers in his district, noting that property values in the MSD corporation are higher than in WCS.
Meanwhile, Callahan said he would like to see the school corporations study consolidation together.
“We don’t want it to become this divisive situation where we point fingers and lose trust,” he said. “We would like it to be a collaborative investigation into how best to create an educational system for the Wabash community. It’s a unique situation where you have one district with two high schools circling another district and in a lot of ways, that just doesn’t make sense, especially as we’ve lost population in the county.
“I think it’s time to heal some wounds and try to think how we can do this to provide the best education for our kids in this community.”