Rant- School District!

[Aggie_Ama]

I don't even have a kiddo but we moved to our town because they have the best schools in the area that has houses we can afford. The only better area is a very wealthy enclave of Austin. We pay a lot in property taxes to the school district, I believe it is 50% of the total property tax.

I was reading the local paper and was floored to discover that our mid-size district (it is classified as 3A) will let anyone transfer in. That isn't the kicker, the kicker is they charge them nothing! No tuition or nominal fee for the extra kid in our district. Yet our district has to make room for them in the class rooms my taxes help fund. The paper reported the number of transfers last year was 170 students.

Now I understand they are paying school taxes in their district, but they made the choice to use ours. They could have bought a house in our district and paid for the schools they are using. In fact we chose to move 6 miles further out not to be in that district. The district they are in is barely rated lower than mine, making it the best large district (it is a 5A) in the area. It isn't like they live in a poor quality district. I just can't come up with a good reason not to charge them some fee??

[Veronica]

I don't know about TX but in CA we receive money based on attendance. The more kids you have in school, the more money you get. A lot of districts won't allow kids to transfer out of their home district for this reason.


Oh and we can't charge fees because it's public school.


V.

[salsabike]

Usually---at least here---one district will receive the other's public funding when a student transfers in; that is, the money moves with the student. I have no idea if that's done where you live but I'd be surprised if it wasn't, since something has to pay for the teachers and materials that the transfer kids consume.

[Aggie_Ama]

I don't know about TX but in CA we receive money based on attendance. The more kids you have in school, the more money you get. A lot of districts won't allow kids to transfer out of their home district for this reason.


Oh and we can't charge fees because it's public school.


V.

You know, now that I think about it Texas works the same way on attendance. I don't know about not being able to charge a fee. I would assume since the district voted not to it would be allowed but who knows?

Salsa- I don't know if that is the case here. I should find out so I am not nearly as annoyed.

[Irulan]

I live in WA state, and kids routinely transfer from district to district, for whatever reason.(better music, diversity, etc) It's a public school thing. As long as there is room, a kid can't be denied.

Everyone's paying taxes. It's not like these other kids parents are off the hook. I'm no expert on school funding but I'm pretty sure some of the school money goes into statewide funds that are redistributed, plus of course there are local funds. At least that is how it works around here.

It looks like Texas public schools are funded by a mix of local, state and federals funds, just like the ones in my state
http://www.idra.org/Education_Policy.htm/Fair_Funding_for_the_Common_Good/How_your_schools_are_funded/

[KSH]

You know, now that I think about it Texas works the same way on attendance. I don't know about not being able to charge a fee. I would assume since the district voted not to it would be allowed but who knows?

Salsa- I don't know if that is the case here. I should find out so I am not nearly as annoyed.

Well, I also think the TAKS test scores play into how much money a school gets as well.

I THINK. Maybe someone knows differently?

[Aggie_Ama]

Everyone's paying taxes. It's not like these other kids parents are off the hook.


You know you have probably hit the nail on the head, I shouldn't care that they are coming. This neighborhood they are all coming from has lower property taxes due to a slightly lower school tax and not being in a MUD like mine. Probably why people buy there and transfer into our district. But I chose to buy where I did because I can cycle right out my front door and I couldn't there. Plus the parents are responsible for taking their own children to school, no bus service for transfers.

Honestly, I just didn't know they could do that. I think the district I grew up in required a fee to transfer but I have been out of public schools for many years. And I was shocked at the number- 170 is a lot of kiddos for a district the size of mine.

[makbike]

Are they being allowed to transfer in due to test scores? Could it be their home score is not "performing" adequately and thus the students have a right to transfer to a school that is "performing" adequately?

[DDH]

Amanda, here where I live, they aren't even allowed to transfer within or own school district. That is to say that I cannot take my child to a elementary school outside of my zone area.
I think it really stinks because there are a few schools in this area that are terrible as far as the some of the kids that go to them that cause many problems.

I think the town next to me does charge for a kids to transfer out of their district to them. At least my step sister told me that they do, cause she wanted to put her kids there until she found out how much they were going to charge her.

[Irulan]

honestly, why do you care so much? Unless somehow the students themselves are being affected in a negative manner isn't it really none of your business where they live or how they get there? If it's a case of you paying more taxes than their parents do, and therefore their kids don't deserve to be there... that smacks of elistism I am sorry to say.

[Aggie_Ama]

Mak- In all honesty I cannot figure out why they would want to come to our district. Maybe because the schools are smaller? The districts are ranked within one point of each other. It is pretty much apples to apples on quality.



honestly, why do you care so much? Unless somehow the students themselves are being affected in a negative manner isn't it really none of your business where they live or how they get there? If it's a case of you paying more taxes than their parents do, and therefore their kids don't deserve to be there... that smacks of elistism I am sorry to say.


Couldn't tell you why I care, I don't have kids, can't do a flipping thing about my taxes. I guess it really is no different if all their parents pay to my district or not, I am still at this point in my life paying for other people's kids since I have none of my own. The only negative thing I can think of is 170 kids is a lot to accomodate in our district and therefore it could in theory negatively affect student-teacher ratios.

But I wouldn't say it is elitism, my house is less expensive than the cheapest house in the neighborhood. So if it were percentage based, yeah I pay more but I chose to live here. We could have afforded a house in that neighborhood but I couldn't ride out my door and that is worth more than gold to us. So jealousy that they have nicer homes isn't it either.

Truly I could care less where the kids come from but I was surprised there is no fee involved and our district would allow so many transfers. My district I went to high school in charged $500 for out of district transfers and $100 for in district transfers. I thought this was the norm and wondered why on earth our schools didn't do that as well.

[Crankin]

This is probably part of a "School Choice" program. In MA, if districts declare themselves to be a "choice" district, students can apply and come to school there. The receiving town gets the per pupil expenditure $ from the sending district. Needless to say, the sending districts do not like this. However, the receiving district can limit or deny entrance when the space is full or anything in any way disturbs the students who actually live in the district.
This has helped some schools in ways that no one really thought about, yet it is not really fair to poor districts that have no "draw" and are constantly losing kids to other places that have choice. How about funding all schools equally, not based on property taxes? Don't get me started...
The district where I work was pretty low ranked about 12-13 years ago. After major change and several award winning academic and social-emotional learning programs were instituted, along with a lot of new teachers, the district started taking choice kids. They used to lose a lot to other choice schools and parochial schools and the trend totally reversed itself. We get a lot of money from the sending districts, which enable us to keep these programs going. The district where my kids went also had a choice program. It has a super academic and athletic reputation, so people were on waiting lists. At times, they had to shut the program off because there were so many kids, it was pushing the student-teacher ratio up. Of course, kids who were there, stayed until graduation. My older son's best friend went to school there from grade 4 on through this program. He lived in a neighboring town with schools that had few resources. He was being beaten up all of the time because he was smart!
I have mixed feelings about this, not because of the taxes, but because it takes money away from districts who really need it. When my exchange student from Germany wanted to come here and go to school, he paid $8,000 for one semester at my kid's high school (it wasn't a true exchange-- he just wanted to come and live in the US, but he needed to find a family that could meet his cycling needs. This couldn't be done through a regular exchange program). We had to beg them to accept him!

[Melalvai]

I wanted to transfer to a nearby school when I was in high school. We lived right on the border of the school districts. The charge would have been $120, and the bus would have picked me up if I could have gotten myself to the stop (3/4 miles away). My parents refused to allow it because they were scared to let me walk 3/4 mile.

I would say I haven't yet forgiven them, but actually my mom apologized years later. Still, I wouldn't be her daughter if I didn't carry a good grudge to my deathbed.

I remember hearing of a school in a rich county that couldn't hold bake sales to raise money for their schools because the donations would have to be distributed throughout the state to the poorest schools. I can see how frustrating that would be, but on the other hand, it leads to the rich voting down taxes that would fairly benefit all schools because their kids get the full benefit of their money if they can donate it directly to their kids' school.

[Tuckervill]

You do get a benefit from having good schools in your area, even if you don't have kids.

Society benefits from having an educated populace, and your property values are higher if the schools are better.

I don't use the public school system (my youngest child has been homeschooled his whole 14 years). Yet, on Tuesday I'm voting for a millage increase to build a new high school in my town. Good schools make a good community, and I don't resent paying the taxes for it at all. (I resented it a little when I lived in Memphis and the taxes were 1000% more than here, and the schools were horrible! But I didn't use them, either.)

Karen

[salsabike]

I think Aggie_Ama was just trying to figure out how this was getting paid for.

[Aggie_Ama]

I think Aggie_Ama was just trying to figure out how this was getting paid for.

Thanks Salsa, I was trying to figure out how districts can afford to do this and if this was normal.

I don't really mind now that I have considered some the points here. My father also told me the reason he thinks they are doing it is the Texas Robin Hood plan. In Texas if you are an affluent district you are required to send some of your tax revenue to help fund poorer districts. On paper it is a wonderful law but for the past 15 or so years since it has been a very controversial law. I am honestly not sure what all the problems are with it, if it just the rich not wanting to share or if there is more to it. If districts allow children in without the tax base, they can up the number of kids they have without upping the yearly tax revenue, plus the state does pay based on attendance. I am not sure if this is true or why my district is doing it, but it made sense.