Elk Mound schools head count, open enrollment more than anticipated

By LeAnn R. Ralph

ELK MOUND  —  Instead of the anticipated 1,171 students, the Elk Mound school district has 1,217 students.

Much of the 46-student increase is due to an open enrollment spike, said Dr. Ron Walsh at the Elk Mound Board of Education’s September 21 meeting.

The head count includes all students, even those who only go to school part-time, such as pre-school students, he noted.

Elk Mound was anticipating 137 open enrolled students but instead has 161. Open enrollment out of the district was also less than anticipated with 68 actually leaving district while it was anticipated that 71 students would leave the district, Dr. Walsh said.

The revenue limit worksheet shows no change over the estimate, he said.

Open enrollment, however, is funded through a different mechanism, and Elk Mound can expect to receive an additional $230,000 in revenue associated with students who have open enrolled into the district, Dr. Walsh said.

The deadline for open enrollment was April 30, but a change in state law allowing new open enrollment exceptions has meant that school districts now, for all intents and purposes, have a year-round open enrollment, he said.

The change in state law means school districts quite often have no reason to deny an open enrollment student at any time of the year, but the changes in open enrollment also bring uncertainty to the number of students a school district can expect, Dr. Walsh said.

The surge in open enrollments is beneficial for Elk Mound because of the funding, but at the same time, it hurts the other schools from which the students are leaving, he noted.

Other business

In other business, the Elk Mound Board of Education:

• Approved a snow plow contract with Kurt Schoonover for the 2015-2016 school year. The rate is the same as it has been for the past several years.

• Approved setting the next meeting on October 26.

Following a closed session, the Elk Mound Board of Education:

• Approved hiring Heidi Hintzman-Wallin as a para-professional part-time special education aide.

• Approved hiring two food service workers for the middle school: Donna Price (middle school dishwasher), and Brenda Kroening (middle school cook).