The Blue Valley School District has formed some initial thoughts on how to deal with a new state law requiring Kansas school districts to widen its enrollment scope.
House Bill 2567, which allows students to attend districts whose boundaries they don’t live in, goes into effect in 2024. As such, Blue Valley — along with other local districts — have begun the process of forming plans and standards for determining how many out-of-district students the district can accept each year.
The Blue Valley Board of Education reviewed the district’s initial recommendations at its Oct. 9 meeting. No action was taken, but here’s a summary of the discussion.
The district wants to utilize “restrictive practices”
- Per initial recommendations, the district would accept applications for nonresident transfers between June 1 and June 30 before the upcoming school year.
- Nonresident students would only be approved for transfers into schools or classrooms operating at below 75% capacity. (The district would publish the number of open seats on May 1 before the upcoming school year.)
- First priority for open seats would go toward siblings of nonresident students already enrolled (or children under the custody of the state who live with a nonresident transfer student), military students, children of district employees, and children experiencing homelessness.
- Students could also request in-district transfers for “exceptional circumstances” like documented ongoing bullying or academic decline at their current school.
- The district would only provide transportation for these students if it was required by law — for example, included in a student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) requirements.
The district opposed the new state bill before
- House Bill 2567 passed in the Kansas Legislature last spring, later getting signed into law by Gov. Laura Kelly in May 2022.
- At the time of its proposal, Blue Valley leaders joined other Johnson County districts in opposition of the bill — citing many financial and logistical concerns with meeting its requirements.
- At this month’s meeting, district leaders and members of the board remained troubled about the new bill, but acknowledged the need for a compromise with the state’s new rules.
- “We, this board, have known about this for a long, long time — it’s not something we just heard about today,” said Board President Jodie Dietz. “Honestly, when I first saw the passage of the bill, I didn’t know how to make this work for us. We’ll see what happens, there may be some uncharted waters here.”
The district will take final action later this year
- The board will host public hearing on the proposed new guidelines at its Nov. 13 meeting.
- Following that, the final version of the plan will return to the board for approval on Dec. 11.
- If it passes, it will go into effect in January 2024.
Go deeper: Blue Valley officials oppose open enrollment bill in Kansas House, calling it ‘logistical nightmare’
