Assistant Superintendent of Operations Jared Rosing presented the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District's open enrollment policy and preliminary enrollment projections at the Jan. 12 board meeting.

Rosing said the district's open enrollment window will run from February through April and emphasized that current students who move out of the district retain guaranteed placement without reapplying. "Our siblings are given preference. They're not guaranteed," Rosing said, describing a policy change made last year to address classroom capacity.

Using multiple projection models and data from the UW Applied Population Lab, district staff use a two- and four-year enrollment modeling system and work with building principals to convert projections into the number of sections the district will open. On preliminary numbers, Rosing reported the district is "projecting that we could have up to a maximum of 324 new seats." He also said the administration recommended opening 25 seats at the freshman level because the incoming eighth-grade class is smaller than the graduating class.

Board members asked about grade-level treatment (the district generally does not open 12th grade because of credit and graduation scheduling) and whether some open-enrolled students later require special-education services. Rosing said the district had not opened special-education open-enrollment seats in recent years because resident special-education needs constrain capacity. On funding, Rosing said the budget currently estimates roughly $10,000 per regular-education open-enrolled student and a bit more (about $12,000) for other students, and explained that new students generate immediate revenue under open enrollment rather than the phased revenue-limit calculation used for resident students.

Board members requested additional historical grade-level data and year-by-year breakdowns before finalizing open enrollment numbers; the board's decision on exact seat counts will occur when formal approval is taken later in the approval cycle.