The Oregonian article ?Lake Oswego School Board raises
tuition fees for out-of-district transfers? by Molly Harbarger raises two
interesting issues: (1) why do any parents need to pay tuition when transferring
into another school district? And (2) why would any school districts charge
tuition that is less than its per pupil costs?
From Harbarger?s article (here):
Lake Oswego School District is positioning itself closer to elite private and public schools by increasing their tuition for out-of-district students.
The school board voted Monday night to increase tuition from $6,500 to $7,000 for all grades except kindergarten. Half-day kindergarten goes from $3,250 to $3,500. Full-day kindergarten also increases to $3,500, plus a $125 non-refundable deposit and payments of $375 per month.
As of mid-October, Lake Oswego
School District picked up
six elementary school students and 27 middle and high school students on a
tuition-basis. At the same time, they lost 46 students' worth of tuition by
offering "open enrollment" slots to students in nearby districts??.
??.. District Finance Director Stuart Ketzler said the bump is needed to keep pace with state funding and the district's budget constraints. Lake Oswego schools spend more than $9,000 to educate each student??
?.. District Finance Director Stuart Ketzler said the bump is needed to keep pace with state funding and the district's budget constraints. Lake Oswego schools spend more than $9,000 to educate each student??
?. Riverdale starts students at $5,560 in kindergarten and increases per grade level to $12,600 annually.
(1)?? I am
confused by the new law covering transfers between school district. Under the
previous law, both school districts involved needed to approve a students
transfer for the receiving school
district to receive the per pupil state
school fund allocation, otherwise the home school district received the state
school fund allocation and parents of the transferring student had to pay
tuition in the new school district. Now, as I understand it, there is a one
month transfer period, March 1 to April 1, during which ?the home district has
no say in whether a student leaves? (here). ?After April 1, the home district can say no,
keep the state school fund allocation and force the parents to pay tuition in
the new district. So, it seems, that the only reason that parents would need to
pay tuition is that they missed switching districts during this one month
transfer period. It would seem to me that very few parents would knowingly opt
to missed that opportunity. So many fewer parents should be paying tuition to
transfer their children into other school districts. Is this so?
Of course, for every set of parents paying out-of-district tuition, there is a home school district receiving about $6,000 in state school funding for nothing.
(2) Note that Harbarger?s article says ?Lake Oswego schools spend more than $9,000 to educate each student.? For this per pupil costs, Lake Oswego is raising its tuition from $6,500 to $7,000. Does this make any economic sense? For some reason, Lake Oswego is willing, as it does the accounting, to lose $2,000 per year on each tuition paying transfer student it lets in.
Portland Public Schools has a similar differential. Why should PPS charge $6,240 tuition for an educational program that costs at least $13,200 per pupil per year (here).
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