OKC school board set to consider revising its transfer policy
The Oklahoma City School Board is considering a revised transfer policy that would give all students access to their neighborhood school while limiting transfers once the district closes or consolidates buildings and redraws boundary lines.
Superintendent Sean McDaniel said new attendance zones will be created through the district’s Pathway to Greatness project.
“That is a given,” he told the school board Dec. 10. “As boundaries change, we must ensure that schools can accommodate all students that fall within the new attendance zones.”
McDaniel has said an unknown number of schools will be either closed or used for other purposes to better serve students by aligning facilities and resources with instructional needs.
“We need a standard, equitable transfer policy that incorporates input from principals so that we can make accurate enrollment projections from year to year,” he said.
Under the proposed revision students would not have to reapply to remain at a school after transferring.
School board member Carrie Coppernoll Jacobs said the overhaul is about doing things fairly.
“Right now you have to reapply for transfer every year and there’s no guarantee,” she said. “Families deserve more stability than that.”
High numbers of student transfers have contributed to low enrollment numbers at several schools, according to data released earlier this month by the district.
That figures to change when schools are closed or consolidated and resources are equitably reinvested among remaining schools, officials said.
“With the Pathway to Greatness Plan, once we add those additional supports and opportunities, parents very likely won’t have the need to transfer their kids to an another school,” said school board member Mark Mann.
At the same time, the new attendance zones will likely limit the number of open spots for transfers in the coming school year, school board member Rebecca Budd said.
“If we want to do the best thing for the longterm health of the district we won’t be able to guarantee that every single student who has transferred to a school outside their attendance zone will be able to continue at that school next year,” she said.
Mann said the updated policy will provide consistency in how the district processes transfers and still include input from principals.
“While I don’t think the existing policy is necessarily unfair, a principal at one school may handle and process transfers differently than a principal at a school two miles away,” Mann said Friday.
Jacobs said the existing transfer policy is being implemented “differently across the board.”
“Right now you have transfer decisions being made by principals,” she said. “Some principals are fair and some principals are not.”
The panel is still reviewing the document and is expected to take action on it Jan. 14. About a week later, McDaniel will present the three “best options” related to closures and consolidations at the first of several community meetings.