Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Intra District School Choice topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee advances bill restoring 95% capacity limit for intra-district transfers
Summary
The Senate Education Committee voted to give House Bill 1945 a do-pass recommendation; the bill permits intra-district school choice and reinstates a 95% capacity threshold that allows schools to deny transfers when nearing capacity.
Senator Brianne Davis, State Senate District 25, presented House Bill 1945 as a companion to a previously passed Senate measure that authorizes intra-district school choice and reinserts a 95% maximum capacity threshold for receiving schools.
"This allows intra district choice," Davis said, describing a scenario in which a student zoned for one high school asks to attend another within the same district. The bill requires receiving schools to accept credits from the sending school and restores a capacity cap so districts can deny transfers when a receiving school is at or above 95% of capacity for the grade level.
Committee members sought detail on timing, credit acceptance and funding. One senator asked whether the timeline for choice applications had changed; Davis said the bill retains existing dates in its language but acknowledged other bills amend the application window from May 1 to June 1. The bill text on page 11 (as discussed in committee) references May 1; committee members noted separate legislation that would move the deadline to June 1.
Members also raised whether receiving schools must accept transcripts and tuition or fee agreements. Davis said the provision requiring receiving schools to accept credits is intended to ease intra-district transfers; she described clarifying language on tuition agreements as protecting a student’s ability to participate in a tuition agreement with a nonresident school for any fees that apply.
Department of Education staff discussed how student enrollment affects funding. Courtney Salas Ford of the Department said submission of average daily membership (ADM) data each reporting period determines how funding follows students: "Because districts have to show an enrollment ... when they put that into APSCAN, which is where we collect all the data from for student information, there's an enrollment code that is entered in and a student code that is entered into APSCAN, and that's when we start knowing that that student is enrolled in that district, and they count towards ADM at that point," Salas Ford said.
She added that the funding model effectively allocates money to the district that has the student for the time they are enrolled, and that districts report enrollment each quarter. Committee members noted that the annual statistical report (ASR) and quarterly reports are available to the Legislature and contain enrollment and transfer data.
After discussion, the committee voted to recommend House Bill 1945 do pass. The transcript records a motion to pass, a second and a voice vote approving the bill; no roll-call vote was recorded in the transcript.
