Clover Park Schools Continue to See Requests for Releases of Attendance

What goes out does not always come back in.

That was the reality of a presentation by Holly Shaffer, the Clover Park School District’s director of student services, at Monday night’s School Board meeting. The report focused on the district’s release of attendance and inter-district transfers.

State law and district board policy provide families with the options of nonresident release of attendance and inter-district transfer, meaning that they are not legally bound to attend Clover Park schools just because they live within district boundaries.

“It really did take the whole village,” Shaffer said of the review process, which looked at releasing and receiving districts and schools, grade level and reasons for entering and leaving CPSD.

Through Dec. 31, 1,183 students had been released from CPSD schools during this academic year, and 618 students were admitted from other districts including Bethel, Franklin Pierce, Puyallup and Steilacoom.

Among the reasons why families ask for release of attendance and inter-district transfer are access (work, location or childcare), employment, education (other programs or rigor), safety, hardship (financial or residential) and health issues.

Board President Carole Jacobs didn’t seem too surprised about one of the reasons – CPSD has more stringent graduation requirements than some neighboring districts.

“As we asked for more rigor, and got more rigor, this may be the outcome of our request,” she said. “We want more from our kids.”

While the largest number of students leaving the district was in 2007-08 (1,710), this year marks the fewest number of those enrolling from other districts.

“Our reputation is still not our reality,” Jacobs said, adding that the district should be proud of its graduation and dropout rates. “But the minute we rest on our laurels with (those) rates, we stop fighting.”

Board Vice President Marty Schafer agreed.

“We want to be more aggressive in showing the successes,” he said.

In 2010-11, the most recent school year with complete data, 1,022 of the students released from CPSD went to other districts – 421 to Tacoma; 236 to University Place and 131 to Franklin Pierce – while 449 enrolled in online schools and 177 at community or technical colleges.

The most students left Clover Park High School that year, 554 in all, and at the elementary level, 104 were released from Southgate. Seventeen percent of students released from the district were high-school seniors, which drew concerns from board members.

“I think you can see dramatically where it changes,” Schafer said of the 277 seniors who left last year. “My initial response is that the community does not trust our middle and high schools to prepare our students.”

The highest number of acceptances coming into the district in 2010-11 was first-graders, with 127 enrollments, or 14 percent of the total. Carter Lake Elementary, on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, accepted 125 new students last year, while Evergreen Elementary, also on base, enrolled another 123.

When a student leaves CPSD, the state money allocated for his or her education is turned over to the accepting district.

“There are a lot of funds at stake,” Schafer said. “So for me, it’s worth understanding why they’re leaving. Is there a major reason that we are losing children to other schools?

"If we’re a solid district, why would you want to transfer out?”

Board member Paul Wagemann questioned whether CPSD officials have a goal in mind for releases and enrollments.

“Do we want to see parity?” he asked. “Certainly, I think the concern in this day and age is dollars … So what should the targets be?”

But Superintendent Debbie LeBeau said that it is not feasible to just produce a number.

“Other districts don’t even track this (data),” she said. “We don’t really have a frame of reference to say how good we are … It’s hard to gauge.”

LeBeau said that she was “surprised and disappointed” when she saw the data because she expected to see a decline in the releases of attendance.

“We want to see improvement there,” she said, “and we’re not.”

Still, there are a number of students who obtain a release of attendance but remain enrolled in CPSD. Student Services has identified 34 students as having done so this year, and another 20 students are unaccounted for.

Families can pick up transfer forms from Student Services, which oversees the process, or from their designated schools. All transfers must be renewed annually.