001Uh by May 1st of each year, as you all are aware, the superintendent must present the recommendations uh concerning capacity and uh studenttoteer ratios to the board for adoption or modification. And the board shall determine uh with the superintendent uh the uh uh the capacity and the number of students that we would open the number of seats that we would open for enrollment to students from beyond the Lawrence public schools boundaries. So I want to begin uh with a set of guiding principles. I've asked our uh team to put that up on uh the the screen. You also have access uh through board docs. Um just to help folks because always at this time of year, it's easy to get confused about transfer request versus out of district enrollment versus in district enrollment. So, I
002always think of April and May and June and July like those minutes before a concert begins where folks are trying to find their seat. They may decide they want a different seat. Uh they may get up and leave the room alto together and then come back in that we're in that time of year. But it's an important time to clarify a few guidelines. First of all, I want to assure everyone in our community that the priority for enrollment will always be reserved for students who live within the attendance zone or the school neighborhood. That will always be the case. And at this time and and not in any foreseeable future would we ever say that there's not room for folks who live in the attendance zone of the school. So sometimes when we talk about
003transfers or we talk about out of district enrollment, folks may become concerned that that might take their seat. I just want to clarify that right at the outset. Everyone who lives in the area gets their seat. They have a ticket. uh to the concert and a seat reserved. Uh secondly, while working to maintain our class sizes within that desired range, and we'll talk about desired ranges in just a minute, the second priority will be given to transfer students from within the district. So students who are Lawrence Public Schools students, but they may choose to apply to attend a different school. We hear all the stories. And I just want to remind folks that there is many scenarios as there are families out there. It may be that grandma is doing the before and after school
004daycare and uh grandma's house is in a little different neighborhood uh from where the child lives. It may be that a parent wants the child closer to their workplace. There are any number of reasons why a family may choose to transfer, but that is the second priority. And then what we're charged to bring to you each year by the 1 of May is that third tier of enrollment which is reserved for those students and families who are non residents of the school district. Now, what we know about Lawrence, um, being a university town and a town surrounded by bedroom communities, is that many, many individuals drive into Lawrence each day to work at the university or at another location in town. Uh, we have business owners who drive in any number of reasons. Uh, but
005they drive in and and hence the term bedroom community. they'd like to have their child nearer their daytime activities. So, uh we are working now with folks who fit that category. Uh we also believe that our students are best served in the Lawrence public schools. If I were a parent somewhere in the vicinity of Lawrence, I promise you I would do everything I could to get my child into Lawrence public schools because we believe that's where they're best served. And we believe that as long as we have room available uh that uh we want to open those seats for students uh from outside the district. What I think of often, and I know you do, members, is that from an equity and an opportunity perspective, there are families who've always had school choice because they
006were able, they had the means to buy a home in the neighborhood of the school where they wanted their child to attend. What the change in state law and what our board policy does is it levels that playing field so that every parent has the opportunity to make that application. Um, Lawrence Public Schools currently serves, I want to put this in perspective, out of more than 10,000 students. We currently serve 97 students, K12, who have been through the transfer process to transfer into our schools from outside our district areas. So, about 97 students. Uh, you can do the math. I see uh member Gordon Ross doing that for us. I hope you will. Um but it uh I want to make sure that when folks think about this, we realize it is a very small
007percentage. Um but our families are accustomed to having choice in every part of their life. And having that choice with school enrollment when there is room uh is a concept that is not only protected in state law but it is a guideline that we follow. Uh these students are non-resident students choosing to attend schools within our school district. I should also mention that a fair number of that 97 are children of employees who do not live in our area. they bring their many times choose to bring their students with them. Now, before we talk about desired class sizes and ranges of class sizes, I've asked our team to bring up the February 24th report. And I just want to show we began to get some email over the weekend as a result of a story
008that ran. Um, and I want to just remind folks that recently, uh, we looked at actual class sizes. Thank you members for doing that. It was a great preparation for tonight. And so, we're going to look at slide 19 from uh, February 24th, uh, school enrollment and class size report. Uh you can see here at elementary schools that well over 90% of our classrooms are currently enrolled at 25 or fewer students. So this is a range that we're very proud of. Uh we'll just move forward one there. These class sizes were accurate as of February 5th. They ch change every day. One more. Oh, it's mine. I see. There we go. Sorry. Uh so the summary of class size at elementary you can see ranges between uh 16 and 30. Uh our average class sizes
009run at elementary between 18 and 23. Um, as you could see in the prior slide, you can see exactly where those 29s and 30, uh, there's only one at 30 where those fall. Um, and as you know, members, we put in extra supports. Uh, children don't batch in neat little batches of 18 or 22 or 25. And so we will occasionally see uh some of that, but we've made great progress. You remember from this that middle school uh there's the picture of middle school current class sizes as of February 5th. And uh there is science and social studies. Um, and here are the minimums, maximums, and averages at middle school. Between 15 and 30 are the wide range and the averages between 23 and 26. That is across all four middle schools. Um, so just
010being real about our current class sizes. Here we are at high school in English language arts and math and then at high school science and social studies. And you recall members uh that the averages at high school uh occurring uh now between 20 and 22. And you can see from the maximums that certainly there are classes at 29 to 31. We know that occurs. But I do want to base our conversation this evening around uh district enrollment and opening non-resident students to saying that we are going to protect our class size. But there are openings just like before a concert. There's some seats open that can be filled in. And the filling in of those seats really strengthens the district uh with diversity, strengthens the district with resources that are represented by building enrollment. Enrollment
011is a rising tide that lifts everyone. And so, uh, I wanted to show you that this evening. If you'll go back to the document to the uh class size guideline, uh we've populated just to help folks. I don't know if there's a way to make that larger. Uh James, we populated just some general class size ranges out of the February 5th report so that our class size range doesn't represent a big departure or change from our current reality. And you can see there it kinder all the way through 9 through 12. Uh this is an informal range. Uh I'm not saying that it's uh written in stone anywhere, but it is based on where we try to keep our class sizes. Um the most important uh declaration that we'll make this evening is that staffing
012will follow student enrollment in order to maintain desirable class sizes. So I just want everyone to know uh first of all we won't open any additional classes for outside the district enrollment. We are just filling in some spots here and there. Secondly, wherever the students land ahead of the concert opening, we will staff accordingly. Now, if a location loses enrollment over the summer, that may mean that we have to make some adjustments because some other areas may gain enrollment over the summer. Now, we will be monitoring that members every month through the summer because we want to be prepared and have no big surprises when we come back to school. Um, so our CA capacity is based on those overall uh district numbers at elementary, at middle, and at high school. You can see them
013there. And so what we are obligated to bring to you this evening is the actual declaration. It will be on our website of the number of uh seats that are open and members. I'm sorry I meant for there to be a page number reference, but it's on page uh four of the chart um that is in the other document. if you can help me. Uh we won't review them school by school, but I want uh James to get them up so that we can show them. Uh we will be posting this on the website, so no secrets. I just want to assure you that elementary director Robersonson has sat with principles to actually look at the number of seats uh at each one of our elementary schools. um filling up a class helps us reserve
014that staffing and that classroom. So, uh really is good if we're able to do that. You can see generally at middle schools, we uh chose the number 15 seats at each grade level across all of our middle schools. Our middle schools have plenty uh of room for this. even one of our middle schools that has been uh rather large, we notice the projection showed a little um downturn. So even at our larger middle schools, there is room for that number of 15 at each grade level. And then you can see at high school uh target targeting the number 25. Um, and then at the senior year, really keeping that to a smaller number. Typically in my past, I've worked superintendent to superintendent when there are special circumstances, a family move or an emancipation or whatever
015might occur for a child that would cause them to need to move for the senior year. we uh handle those with great care to support the student and the family and getting them into the place that will be best for them. So uh these are numbers we will post these along with the uh transfer application. Now um these numbers don't represent what we think we will accept or we will have applications for because typically those numbers have been small. Again, 97 students at this time are here from outside the district. So, we don't anticipate large numbers, but we wanted to open the seats that are open and available and we're ready for questions. The I'll note that the enrollment window last year was June 1 through June 30. So, in defense of journals that reported
016over the weekend, that number five was a correct number, but it was only the number that came in in the June 1 through June 30. We had a whole lot more time to receive student applications. So, uh that bigger number of 97 is our current number. Now, this year, I'm looking over at Ron May uh and JC Robersonson. It's January 1 through June 1. June 1. Uh or June 30 maybe or Okay, I will have it up tomorrow. So that window is wider this year. It's a change that was made at the state level. Um we have typically received students if there's room when they apply during that window. Again, that does not mean they necessarily get in. If there are more applications than seats, then we use a variety of ways uh to uh
017without favor to anyone to see who would get that seat.