SOUTHERN INDIANA — Melissa Weissinger was homeschooled through high school, but her husband was the son of two public school teachers. Their schooling “came from two extremes,” she said, but “obviously … we had agreements about what life should be like.”
Here homeschooling experience gave Weissinger an awareness of alternative education. That played a role in the couple deciding to send their daughter, Claire, to Community Montessori.
“Things he saw as strengths and weaknesses of being in public schools and what I saw as strengths and weaknesses of being homeschooled, Montessori [method] is like the perfect blend of those things,” said Weissinger, who also works for the school. “You get the community and being involved in a school, all the things he loved about the school, but for me there’s the flexibility and just freedom and enjoyment of learning.”
Weissinger is one of thousands of parents and guardians in Clark and Floyd counties who have decided to look outside the public school districts in which they live for educating their children. From charter schools to out-of-district transfers, state vouchers are making other schools accessible. Families have more choice than ever, and districts are competing for students — and the state funding that comes with them.
For the first time, a report from the Indiana Department of Education gives a detailed look at where those families who take their child elsewhere are going.
WEST CLARK
In northwest Clark County, approximately 4,768 students are attending West Clark Community Schools for the 2017-18 school year. Around 372 of those students transferred in from a different district; at the same time, 720 families living in the district opted to send their students elsewhere, including New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. (169), private schools (146) and Rock Creek Academy (137).
Accepting those out-of-district transfers, and transfers in general, has been debated in the West Clark community, especially last fall when the school board proposed a referendum to repair buildings in the district. The Silver Creek campus was in line to receive the majority of the work, and therefore funds, from the project. Overcrowding at the high school, paired with a forecast that shows more families to come, were noted by the board as reasons for the project.
During public meetings leading up to the vote, community members repeatedly voiced their disdain for paying to solve an overpopulation problem while students from other districts were allowed to pick their school of choice and those who lived in the district were not given the chance. The board passed a resolution ahead of the November vote, stipulating that if the referendum were to pass, intra-district transfers would have been allowed and given priority over out-of-district transfers. In the end, it mattered not, as the referendum was soundly rejected.
CLARKSVILLE
Nestled between Jeffersonville and New Albany, Clarksville boasts a public school system with nearly 1,400 students this year. Around 260 of those students live in a different school district and used the open-enrollment system to join Clarksville Community School Corp. At the same time, the district lost 340 students to other schools, primarily NA-FC School Corp.(165), followed by private schools (83) and Greater Clark (69).
“The educational environment certainly has changed over the years in that parents can choose the school that is the best fit for their children,” district Superintendent Tina Bennett said. “We work hard to make sure Clarksville Community Schools has something for every child, whether it be a project-based learning environment, competitive athletics, strong academics, extensive extra-curricular activities and much more, so that they will choose us. Seeing this report helps to show us that a large percentage of the students in our district are indeed choosing Clarksville.
“We know we're doing great things here at Clarksville Community Schools,” she said, “but it’s up to us to communicate who we are, what we do, and the benefits of attending a smaller school community…”
GREATER CLARK
Greater Clark County Schools enrolled 10,324 students last fall, 229 of them out-of-district transfers. At the same time, the district lost nearly 1,500 students, some of whom are attending private schools (305), followed by West Clark (214) and Rock Creek Academy (213).
Superintendent Andrew Melin says he thinks it’s important to remember that while the IDOE report shows the 2017-18 school year, there has been school choice and open-enrollment for years, something reflected in the report.
“The bigger picture is that over time, Greater Clark has had a number of its families make decisions to attend school in another district. Obviously, we’ve had more leave us than come in, though we’ve had some come to us.” The statistic that most concerns Melin is the over 300 students whose families sent them to private school by using vouchers, part of the funding for which comes from the state. The district has lost $1.6 million in revenue to vouchers since the program began, he said.
“It’s obviously something that opens your eyes to the whole overall situation within the district,” Melin said. “We feel like we’re making some great inroads over the past couple of years in terms of corporation letter grade. It’s greatly increased to “B,” where we used to be a “C” for many years.”
He also pointed to the implementation of district's academy model as a progressive step. “We are the first district in the state to do this kind of work and connect to our business partners, which is progressive. I feel like we are trying to move the needle in the right direction…”
NEW ALBANY–FLOYD COUNTY
Floyd County’s public school system enrolled nearly 11,459 students this school year, 720 of whom are out-of-district-transfers. At the same time, just over 1,000 students living in the district are being educated elsewhere. Of those students, most are attending private schools (302), followed by Community Montessori (275) and Lanesville Community Schools (118).
Superintendent Brad Snyder said, “We take [the data] as an affirmation that we are doing things well and people are voting with their feet, and we take pride in that.” At the same time, though, he is unconvinced that the forced competition among the school systems is in anyone’s best interest.
“At the core, I’m not sure those policies are great policies for kids or communities, he said. “They’re all predicated upon the idea of competing with each other, but everyone is trying to compete on extremely unequal basis. Obviously, the parochials operate on the basis of faith-based, publics operate on ‘take any student who walks through the door.’ It’s hard to say those things are the same thing.”
The superintendent said if he had his way, “we would not have competition, we would have a whole lot more cooperation to the degree that like-school districts can cooperate and do more and more for kids. Prosser [Career Education Center] is the best example … We could do a lot more for a lot more kids in a cooperative environment than a competitive environment.”