“This is an initiative that we’re putting in place where we can help provide families who have reached out to us for an opportunity now that we have space.”
SAN ANTONIO — Open Enrollment is now coming to Northside ISD.
The district this week took to Facebook to make the announcement, letting families outside the district know they could apply to some of its campuses.
Since the 2020-2021 school year, the district has seen declining enrollment. Barry Perez, the assistant superintendent for communications and marketing, believes this school year will have less than 100,000 students in the district.
“That has allowed us to have additional instructional capacity in many of our schools, and so we are offering this opportunity for open enrollment to the greater San Antonio area,” he said.
This comes at a time when districts across the region are facing deficits, including Northside ISD, which has an estimated $100 million dollar deficit they’re trying to handle. It’s combined with a lack of funding coming from the state, and now school vouchers, which Perez explained may have played a role.
That saying Perez said that the funding challenges did not necessarily prompt the district for open enrollment.
“This is not a solution, if you will,” he said. “This is an initiative that we’re putting in place where we can help provide families who have reached out to us for an opportunity now that we have space.”
Northside ISD has piloted a smaller open enrollment program in the past, and has made exceptions for students who enroll into the district. Perez hopes working parents in the district’s vicinity take advantage of this option.
“One of the things that drove this decision, and one of the reasons why we really wanted to build some energy and excitement, which we’re already seeing, is that because of geographically where we’re located as a school district, we have some major employers and employee employment hubs in, in our district that we want to, capitalize on,” Perez explained. “The medical center is one that I can think of.”
Not every school in the district is available. For example, Harlan High School and Sotomayor High School will not be options due to the area in which they’re located being densely populated.
“We have other geographic areas of our district as large as we are, where enrollment has slowed and has begun to decline,” Perez explained. “The intention is to provide space where we can, recognizing that our priority is always going to be addressing the students, the families that live in Northside.”
The options of campuses in the district are evolving, so Perez encourages parents who want to enroll their student in the district to apply sooner rather than later. Acceptance of the application is dependent on attendance and disciplinary history.
“We certainly understand that there is the potential for mitigating situations and mitigating factors where if a child is ill or there’s been a particular situation that has caused some other absences,” Perez said. “Those types of scenarios are going to be reviewed on a case by cases, by the campus principal on the campus at which this family is applying.”
Some frequently asked questions we asked Perez:
What do I need to know about the application?
“It is actually the pretty typical registration process that any student would follow. So we have embedded in the registration process that anyone would use to enroll, and we’ve embedded some measures in there that if you are coming from out of district, the system will actually guide you through a couple of additional steps. For example, the uploading of disciplinary records, the uploading of attendance records, those types of things. Here’s the other thing is that we’re going to help any family through that. So once you have begun that online registration process, that school that you’re requesting will certainly walk you through any areas where, you might have some trouble or some questions.”
What do I need for the application?
“We know that there could be some time constraints on them [parents]. They are going to have to get disciplinary information and attendance information and other pieces of information like proof of residency, where they do live. And so we want to stress to them that, don’t wait too long.”
What do students who play sports or participate about extracurriculars need to know about transferring to a different district?
“We want to be very, very clear that in some cases, there may be some UIL (University Interscholastic League) requirements that we have to adhere to in terms of students moving into the district. We want to be very, very clear in the application process that families know this is not an opportunity where we’re going to bypass any of the UIL rules that are in place. We understand the significance and the importance of families choosing options that perhaps are in another school district. But we also want them to know that there could be some ramifications on the UIL side for UIL competition, whether that’s athletics, whether that’s in other extracurricular areas such as band, and the list goes on. So we’re going to adhere to all UIL rules, relative to UIL participation.”
How do you respond to parents who feel it’s unfair that they pay higher Northside ISD taxes while others from outside the district can pay less and still send their kids to the same schools?
“What I would say to that is that a homeowner in any district pays taxes to their taxing entity, whether that’s in Bexar County, whether that’s in Medina County. The taxing entity is the organization or the institution that determines property values and assesses tax rates and then also collects that tax money. That money doesn’t go to directly to Northside ISD or any other school district. The state provides to us funding based on the average daily attendance of the students who are enrolled in our district. And so, I think it’s a very, very key point to recognize that this initiative is not costing, if you will, the taxpayers of Northside anything.”