NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Hutchinson USD 308 Board of Education held the required non-resident students policy hearing Monday evening.
This is the initial step in following a statute passed earlier this year to tell the state how much capacity there is in USD 308 grade levels and buildings so that students can transfer in from other districts, if there is space available.
USD 308 Superintendent Dr. Dawn Johnson went over her responsibility as she understood it.
"The Superintendent or the designee has the responsibility for studying capacity in each school of the school district and at each grade level within each school and making recommendations to the board regarding the district's capacity to accept non-resident students," Johnson said. "That will be done by May 1 of each year. Before May 1 this year rolls around, I'll be meeting with principals and just determining again how many students we think we will project for next year that will be in-resident and what we feel like our capacity can be."
USD 308 will devise a study to determine capacity in the district, and they'll figure for how many students they already have and do the math to determine how many available seats there are.
"Then we will advertise the number of seats that we have available," Johnson said. "On or before June 1, we will publish that, make it available to the public, most likely through our website. Then June 1-June 30 we will accept non-resident student applications."
If the number of students who apply is fewer than the stated capacity in their respective grades for out of resident students, they will be accepted. If there are more applicants than seats, a lottery will be conducted.
"That process must be completed by July 15," Johnson said. "Priority will be given to any sibling of a non-resident student. If we already have a student that is attending, then for the convenience of that family, if they have a sibling already in our school, like a third grader and a kindergartener is coming up, we'll take the kindergartener. Any military students get priority. Students who are in the custody of Department of Children and Families. Priority for parents who are employees or who are affiliated with the district as employees, children who are experiencing homelessness and non-resident students who are already out of district prior to this policy being adopted will be in there."
The USD 308 Board passed the policy on Monday.
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