As an increasing number of students transfer out of the
district, Hollister School District officials will focus on keeping
students and attracting new ones in order to retain every dollar
possible, Superintendent Ron Crates said Monday.
Hollister – As an increasing number of students transfer out of the district, Hollister School District officials will focus on keeping students and attracting new ones in order to retain every dollar possible, Superintendent Ron Crates said Monday.
Over the past three years the district has lost about $4 million as the result of students who live within the district’s boundaries transferring to other school districts. In California, schools are funded based, in large part, on average daily attendance, therefore every student the district loses translates into lost revenue.
Nearly three times as many students transfer out of HSD as transfer in, resulting in a net loss of more than 800 students over the last three years, according to district reports. The number of students transferring out of the district increased from 348 during the 2003-2004 school year to 380 during the 2004-2005 school year. Early estimates show that fewer students, only 314, are transferring out this year.
“I am concerned. We need to reach out to our customers who are not satisfied so that they want their children who live in Hollister to attend Hollister School District schools,” Crates said. “We have to be able to meet their needs or they will leave.”
Most of the parents who choose to transfer their children to other districts cite work and childcare as their primary reasons for leaving, Assistant Superintendent Peter Gutierrez said. He explained that many parents cannot find adequate childcare in Hollister or wish to have their child attend a school close to where they work. Wanting to attend a smaller school is not a legitimate reason for requesting an inter-district transfer, Gutierrez said. All districts lose money as a result of such inter-district transfers, but problems in Hollister are exacerbated by a combination of geographical and economic factors. A large part of the problem, he said, is the building moratorium.
“The word has to get out to community leaders, they have to get that moratorium lifted so people can live here, build homes here and have their children educated here,” he said. “Another reason we don’t have an even flow of students in and out (of the district) is because we do not have many adjacent districts.”
Board of Trustees Member Dee Brown believes that class size is a major factor in many parents’ decisions to transfer their students out of Hollister School District – regardless of what they put on their inter-district transfer application.
“A lot of parents want to send their children to smaller schools with smaller class sizes,” she said. “And every time a child leaves we lose money and that means we have less to spend on teachers, school supplies and other things.”
Although she realizes that inter-district transfers take away funding from the district, she believes that parents should have the opportunity to transfer their children to other schools.
“Having choices is not a bad thing,” she said.
The board has looked at the high number of inter-district transfers in the past and is looking forward to working with Crates to attract and retain more students, Brown said.
Crates promised to have a solution to the problem by the end of next year and said he will unveil several of the steps toward that solution at the next Board of Trustees meeting on Oct. 25.
“Dr. Crates is on the right track by trying to attract students back to Hollister School District,” County Superintendent of Schools Tim Foley said. “After school programs and distinguished schools such as Cerra Vista are the type of things that will make it easier for families to stay there.”
Of the eight schools in the district, Cerra Vista is the only one that has posted significant gains in terms of enrollment each year for the last three years. Brown suggested that many students may be transferring from program improvement schools such as Calaveras School to Cerra Vista, but said she had not seen any reports which detailed such transfers.
Hollister Elementary Schools Teachers Association President Jan Grist agreed with Foley that after school programs are needed.
“The district needs to seriously look into after school childcare, $4 million could mean a lot of childcare,” Grist said. “The district cannot continue to lose students like this and stay solvent, this should be the district’s number one priority.”
Brett Rowland covers education for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or [email protected].
