Early numbers suggest fewer leaving city schools

The Columbus Dispatch

9/24/2007  

Early reports suggest the district has lost about 840 students since last September, a trend district officials expect to carry into this school year.

In May, district budget officials predicted 3,000 students would leave the district for charter and private schools this school year, costing the district an additional $18 million.

District Treasurer Michael Kinneer said it’s too early to predict what the numbers will look like because official enrollment figures for the district and charter schools won’t be available for weeks.

Still, Columbus school officials and charter-school experts give various reasons for the sudden drop.

District administrators point to improved test scores, expanded academic programs and newly constructed schools.

“We’ve been trying to help parents to know what we have to offer and match their needs,” said Superintendent Gene Harris. “We’re focusing on the culture and atmosphere in our buildings, and we’re having some success.”

But Matthew Carr, education policy director for the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, said the trend could simply be a result of charter-schools saturation.

Existing charters might have reached maximum enrollment and the state limits the number of new charters, he said.

“It doesn’t matter how many want to attend charters,” he said. “When the seats are filled, the seats are filled.”

Students who live in the district have several alternatives: They can go to charter schools, which are free because they are publicly funded. Or those assigned to perpetually struggling district schools can apply for state vouchers that pay for private-school tuition.

The district has lost an average of 1,500 students to charter schools each year since the 2002-03 school year. As of June 2007, more than 8,000 students who lived in the Columbus district attended 63 charter schools, according to financial reports from the Ohio Department of Education. Updated figures were not available.

About 54,000 students attend schools in the Columbus district.

Some former charter-school students and parents who returned to the district said their reasons had nothing to do with new schools or full charters.

The benefits of their district school — athletic opportunities, a better academic reputation or more classroom resources — outweighed the benefits of their former charter school, they say.

For former charter-school student Kayla Marshall, the need for more social interaction drew her back this year.

After attending public schools in Columbus and Westerville during elementary and middle school, Kayla, 14, enrolled in the e-school Ohio Virtual Academy for eighth grade.

When she decided to return to the district for ninth grade, her mother, Sandra Marshall, was concerned.

“I was a little leery with putting her back in Columbus public schools,” Marshall said. “The time she was there, it never seemed like she got the help she needed.”

Kayla now attends Beechcroft High School. Her mother says the experience has been a lot better this time.

“So far, it seems like they are on top of things,” Marshall said.

District officials stressed that they are not in the clear yet.

And there is a lot at stake.

When students leave a district school for a charter, state funds follow them. As a result, the Columbus district paid more than $55 million to charters last school year.

With numbers still being calculated, it’s unclear what the district will have to pay this school year.

ssebastian@dispatch.com