Request By:
Mr. Wandel D. Strange
Superintendent
Williamstown Independent Schools
P.O. Box 152
Williamstown, Kentucky 41097
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Robert L. Chenoweth, Deputy Attorney General
As the Superintendent of the Williamstown Independent Schools you have asked the Office of the Attorney General for an advisory opinion relating to the attending in your schools of nonresident school children. You stated there existed a policy agreement between your independent school district and the county school district which provides in essence that when a student enrolls in a school in either district, the student must remain in that district for the remainder of the school year unless the student's parents move to the other district. The questions you desire our opinion on were stated in your letter as follows:
1. A student living in District A, which is an independent district, enrolls at the beginning of the year in District B, which is a county district, and wanting to return to District A during the year. Can the independent district, which is where the student resides, deny the student admittance in a school in the independent school district during the year on the basis that he has been enrolled in a school in the county district?
2. A student who resides in District B, which is a county district, enrolls in a school in District B and wants to change his enrollment during the school year to a school in District A, which is in the independent district. Can District A, the independent district, refuse to enroll this student based on the above described policy?
Your questions are not suited to a simple "yes" or "no" answer. Thus, we will develop our response to your questions below.
We begin our consideration of the issues presented in your questions by referring you to prior opinions of this office wherein we analyzed the relevant school laws. In OAG 79-327, copy attached, we stated that in our Kentucky school laws, KRS 158.120 and KRS 158.130, there is granted each local board of education the discretion as to whether they will permit nonresident children to attend school in the district. See also OAG 66-550, copy attached. In that same opinion we pointed out that written agreements between school districts may be effected when a student is to be educated in a school district other than in the school district in which the child resides. KRS 157.350(4) and 703 KAR 2:050, Section 8. Such an agreement is necessary for a school district to be eligible to participate in the Foundation Program and to be able to count the nonresident students for its average daily attendance calculation.
This office principally considered the type of issue you have presented in OAG 75-602, copy attached. However, we did not really answer the questions you have presented. We believe in response to your first question, that the school districts may designate by policy the times when a student can transfer from one school to another, such as at the end of a semester, but could not preclude a resident student from returning to attend the schools in a district in which the child resides. In regard to this point, it is important to note in the State Board for Elementary and Secondary Education regulations that:
"Changes may be made in the original non-resident pupil agreement, up to the close of the school year, to include only the non-resident pupils enrolling after the close of the second school month. A copy of the amended agreement shall be on file in the office of the local board of education and a copy of the amendment(s) submitted to the State Department of Education along with the local superintendent's annual statistical report, no later than June 30 of the current school year. " 703 KAR 2:050, Sect. 8 (2).
We read this regulation provision to contemplate changes in nonresident pupil agreements during the course of the school year.
Your second question presents only a somewhat different situation. We believe that while the above statutory and regulatory provisions must be applied, the answer to the question revolves on policy strictures adopted by the "receiving" school district, that is, the independent school district in your example. As we noted above, whether a school district permits nonresident children to enroll in school is up to the local board of education. Any policy adopted by a board of education along these lines must be fair and reasonable. We believe a board could adopt a policy of only enrolling non-resident students at the commencement of a semester or other grading period. It would, of course, be of considerable administrative assistance if the county school district adopted a reciprocal agreement of not accepting independent school district children other than at these times.