Haysville district projects openings, recommends 304 kindergarten seats for 2025-26 open enrollment

Mr. Hirsch briefed the Haysville School Board on a change in state law and the district’s recommendation for open enrollment for 2025-26. The law requires districts to accept and post open-enrollment applications beginning Jan. 1 and to notify families by May 1 how many openings will be available. Mr. Hirsch said 37 families had already applied since Jan. 1.

The presentation traced a six-year decline in enrollment from 5,649 students in fiscal 2021 to an audited 5,076 students in the current year and described how the district used those trends to model openings for next year. Administrators used a 98% retention assumption between grades and a planning formula that assumes 50% of projected available seats would be filled by incoming students to avoid sudden class-size increases.

Based on those assumptions and principals’ facility capacity estimates, district staff recommended opening 304 kindergarten seats systemwide for 2025-26. The packet shown to the board breaks capacity down by school and grade; examples cited in the presentation included recommended openings of 31 at Nelson, 36 at Oak, 34 at Prairie and 48 at Rex (grade-level and school details were shown in the board packet).

Mr. Hirsch said the recommendation treats some specialized programs differently. For example, the International Baccalaureate program could accept up to 10 eleventh-grade transfers; Hayesville High School placements were treated as program-driven rather than general enrollment slots. He said the board would receive a final recommendation in April and that the district may adjust numbers if additional resignations or other staffing changes occur before then.

The presentation noted broader demographic context cited in national reporting and a state study that projects a roughly 9% decline in public school attendance statewide by 2032. Mr. Hirsch emphasized the district’s intent to use attrition where possible when adjusting staffing and to avoid filling nonessential positions while enrollment declines are addressed.

The board did not take a final vote on open-enrollment openings at the March briefing; administrators said they would return with final numbers in April for a formal decision and posting.

Ending

Mr. Hirsch and district staff said they have begun public outreach and social-media notifications about openings and reminded the public of the statutory timelines for application and district notification.