CSD Reopens Tuition For 2011-2012 School Year
Decatur Metro | April 24, 2011Asst. Superintendent Thomas Van Soelen writes in…
Tuition has been re-opened for the 2011-2012 school year. Families with students considering a regular program for grades 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 12 may submit materials by May 20.
http://www.csdecatur.net/tuition/
CSD uses tuition to fill in classes where we have already paid for a teacher, so this serves as a helpful source of revenue. Folks may be interested in why 3rd grade has tuition openings; that is due to the Board allowing parents of rising third grade students that meet certain eligibility requirements to remain at their home school for one more year as Glennwood Elementary opened. This required the hiring of another teacher, so we now have a few openings.
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What does “regular program” mean? Not needing English as a Second Language services? Not needing exceptional student services for physical disabilities, attention deficit disorder +/- hyperactivity, learning disabilities, Aspberger’s, autism, , etc.? Not needing exceptional student services for gifted? All of the above? None of the above? What if the tuition student comes into CSD with no special learning needs but then is identified with them after enrolled? Would they be eligible for a tuition spot the following year?
What’s up with the rising kindergarteners, first graders, fifth graders? Too big a predicted cohort already?
K, 1, and 5 are considered filled for next school year. That is not to say that residents that move in cannot be accommodated; rather, we have left room for move-ins.
@Karass, Did Thomas address all your posted questions or only those in the last paragraph?
Still am not sure what “regular program” means.
Students in regular program are those who do not need specialized services that cost extra to the school district. Board policy prohibits us from expending extra resources on students we take for tuition, so that the taxpayers do not shoulder the burden.
We have determined that all of our specialized service programs are at capacity for next year, thus we are not accepting any tuition applicants that meet those criteria. That is not to say that if new residents move whose children need those services we wouldn’t provide them – we would meet with the families, assess the children, and create a plan, just like we do with every resident that needs this process.
1) Which are the specialized services that cost extra to the school district? Gifted services? English as a Second Language? ESS? Individual Educational Plans (IEP)s?
2) What if the tuition student comes into CSD with no special learning needs but then is identified with them after enrolled? Would they be eligible for a tuition spot the following year?
@Karass, Once again, you bring up great questions and have a great big picture perspective.
Certainly, CSD has the right to be selective in choosing which children are accepted as tuition students. The policy is clear with no additional resources being needed over what is currently available, from a monetary stand point.
Is CSD on a slippery slope or potential liability by implying certain special needs students would be precluded from attending City of Decatur Schools? How consistent is this policy? Do children of out of zone CSD employees and Decatur City employees also have this limitation?
The application asks: “Special Needs: Diagnosed or suspected/check below. New tuition applicants must attach paperwork for special education and/or special services. If special education documentation is not included the application will be denied. ”
Can a parent hide their suspicions or say there child is no longer an SST student?
One thing that is clear is that certain tuition students are needed to help with the CSD finances. Having over 150 initial applications brings in $15,000 non-refundable income to CSD. The tuition is projected to be over $750,000 this year ( see the budget documents in CSD board docs).
In addition, the state portion of a student follow the tuition student at CSD. Therefore, the tuition money is well over a million dollars per year. That is significant revenue, for not having to add any resources and having the ability to be “selective”. The selected tuition families add to the good performing numbers at CSD in their efforts to be a top 10 urban school district while adding revenue and in theory allowing CSD to not raise property taxes.
Have there been any incidents of tuition students being denied admission the following year because more city students had enrolled? I always wonder about that…
I’ve wondered too. At the time of reconfigurations, I believe tuition students have been moved to different schools but not sure about other points in time and not sure if anyone has ever had to leave just because enrollment increased. But enrollment seems to be by grade cohort. Maybe a large grade cohort never gets tuition students to start with, so no one ever has to be “let go”.
I am one of the folks that helps manage our tuition process. Board policy allows for two reasons to deny returning tuition:
1. attendance, discipline, or academic record is not satisfactory
2. continuing enrollment would require CSD to expend additional money toward resources or staff
CSD does deny and utilize 12-week probation for courtesy (children of employees) and tuition each year.
It may be interesting for readers to see APS’s tuition policy: https://eboard.eboardsolutions.com/ePolicy/policy.aspx?PC=JBCBA&Sch=4004&S=4004&RevNo=1.41&C=J&Z=P
and
from June 14, 2010 board meeting:
THE SUPERINTENDENT REPORTS:
Atlanta Board of Education Policy JBCBA provides that children who are non-residents may attend Atlanta Public Schools upon the payment of tuition provided that a non-resident student does not displace a resident student. The per pupil tuition rates recommended for the 2010-2011 school year are:
General Education: $10,161
Special Education: $14,475, plus costs for additional services based on individual needs
Yes, about 4 years ago at Oakhurst.
@Cfn, Good question. Think that it is very unlikely a current tuition student is not allowed to return the next year unless there is a serious discipline issue. The scenario you mention may begin to come up with the younger grades as there a more and more little ones in Decatur.
The City of Decatur has the highest percentage of students attending private schools in the whole Atlanta Metro area, just over 10%. This 10% may be the reason why tuition spots are available. This is good for Decatur because the additional tuition money, over a million bucks, is additional money without having to add resources.
The improving reputation of Decatur schools and the continued down economy may bring some private schools kids back to public schools in Decatur.
You have access to data on percentage of resident children in private school? I would love to see that data, especially trends over time, especially related to the impact of reconfigurations, economic downturn, etc. It would also be great to see it by grade level and by private vs. public vs. homeschooling. I am surprised that the CSD district has the highest percentage in private school given its popularity but, of course, Decatur has a lot of residents who can afford private school. I suspect that pockets of other school districts have higher percentages, e.g. Druid Hills, Morningside, parts of Buckhead, etc. but most of Metro Atlanta school districts are so large that the effect of those wealthy area are washed out in the aggregate data.
CSD has the information on home schoolers, as they are required to register with the local district.
The state DOE may have the specific private school numbers per grade, etc.
The Metro are percentage numbers of students attending private schools is on the recent APS Demographic Study.
Search the APS web-site and it is in one of the many PDF files.
Also, the APS tuition amounts are relative as most people just use a false address. APS does not take that seriously compared to CSD.
I don’t know specific numbers, but having taught at Morningside for several years, I do know that it and its feeder middle school, Inman, are both very crowded, partly because fewer and fewer parents are sending their children to private school. Parents have made a very deliberate commitment to the public schools in that neighborhood, which is one reason that it was such a wonderful place to work!\. Both schools no longer accept any transfers due to overcrowding, even within district. Certainly there are children in that neighborhood attending private schools, but the numbers have declined even before the economy went south.
Actually, Decatur’s percentage of private schools students is closer to 12%, not 10%.
Here is more detailed information than you’ll ever need.
http://tinyurl.com/3myekdy
On the above link, go to APS Demographic Study – 2010 (Part 1) 10/26/2010
The very last page of this document has the graph showing Decatur having the highest percentage of private school students, about 12%.
Unfortunately, if one is interested in private school enrollment among Decatur residents, only the percentage for that one point in time, 2009-2010, is reported on that URL-11.6% private school and 1.3% home school, because that URL is from an Atlanta Public Schools website which is understandably mostly about APS data.
One can find similar, slightly older school enrollment data, from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (go to Data by topic, People then select “Education”, then “School Enrollment”, and then change the geographic unit to “School District, Unified” and “Georgia”). Unfortunately, this query doesn’t list Decatur City as an option, only the bigger school districts. But if one had time, perhaps one could explore the Public Use Microdata dataset to see if it yields CSD-specific data. Or perhaps one could do the query by DeKalb County and then subtract out DeKalb County School System to get CSD? Or are there other non-county school systems in DeKalb? Subtraction would be a bit dicey because the query gives percentages with margin errors for private schools, not counts. But the error would probably be similar over time and be ok for time trends.
Or perhaps CSD has these data? If so, it would be great to share. At the least, I’d like to see the overall percentage of Decatur students, K-12, enrolled in CSD (vs. private or home-schooled), by school year, from 2001-2001 through 2010-2011. If data could be reported out in a table by grade, or grade grouping (K-3, 4-5, 6-8, 9-12), even better, and it would be fun to see private and home-school percentages as well. This would be similar to what APS has on their website.
Hopefully, CSD teachers and city employees get first dibs on all these slots. I have heard teachers complaining in the past that they waited and waited for slots they never got. I’d much rather these slots go to someone invested in Decatur as an employee.
CSD employees always have access to submit courtesy tuition applications. Pursuant to a recent agreement between the city of Decatur and CSD, Decatur city employees also had an opportunity to submit courtesy tuition applications for the 2011-12 school year.
But are they priortized over other people? I don’t see any reason why they should not be since they help make the city and school function for the residents.
Courtesy tuition for all City of Decatur employees?
Courtesy…. meaning free… for every one of them??? How many city employees are there?
That’s a lot of free students.
I’m no expert.. but is that even legal without some sort of approval by taxpayers? I guess it must be.
No, no, not courtesy, but first access to slots. I think there are a few courtesy slots for employees, but I am not advocating free for all, just right of first refusal over people who don’t actually live or work in Decatur. I think if anyone gets turned down, it should be those folks!
Oh, I see. You are responding to Thomas. I believe the number of CSD and CoD employee free slots are limited. The school board was the approving agency, I think. It is a great employee benefit and allows CSD to somewhat compete with private schools for excellent teachers – where their kids can go free or reduced tuitiion.That’s an administrative decision to offer a benefit to employees not really something that should go to a vote!
I agree as far as CSD (school system) employees, but not City of Decatur employees. My understanding was that the agreement was to offer 10 slots, which seems reasonable. Mr. Thomas’s post makes it look like every City of Decatur employee’s kid would get a free spot. I’d be fine with that if we had unlimited money. However, when we don’t even have enough money to fund playground equipment at 5th Avenue, parapros at our K-3s, or field trips at Renfroe, it seems that we would not have the money to fund free tuition for what might be 100 or more students that don’t pay Decatur taxes.
Again 10 free students seems somewhat reasonable.. it just sounds like it’s many times more that that.
MrFixIt must have already been on holiday when this was announced late last year.
http://www.decaturmetro.com/2010/12/23/csd-to-set-aside-up-to-10-tuition-slots-for-children-of-decatur-employees/
The agreement the City and the CSD Board of Education made was to accept up to 10 city employee’s children.
We know Thomas gets 2 of them
Do you really know that or do you just know how many children he has? I am pretty sure one is still a baby.
Well, this is certainly a fascinating thread…
My children are 6 and 19 months. My oldest attends school in Gwinnett County near where his mother, my wife, teaches.
Do you get extra points for coming up with a smear that’s both anonymous *and* baseless? You stay classy, Decatur.
How many fake kids do you have in the CSD school system? I have 16.
I demand that Mr. Van Soelen release long-form birth certificates for each of these so-called “children.”
And proof of residency! One utility bill and either a rental lease or mortgage statement, originals only!
Reminded of the on-air goof in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy”
No openings for 9th grade? Is that usually the case? We may be considering tuition for a 9th grader in the 2012-13 school year…
I didn’t notice that. Seems unusual. My impression is that there’s lots of new tuition kids in middle school and ninth grade.
I thought 9th grade was an expansion grade, so I was wondering if that grade was commonly full or if there were just a lot of kids that age right now? I had heard that your chances of getting a tuition slot is better in high school (and nearly impossible for elementary). Is that true? We never considered tuition for elementary because it seemed too risky.
Tuition opened on March 1 and we accepted applications K-12. We chose to re-open for certain grades because openings remain at some grade levels. In previous years, for instance last year, we did not advertise any openings in 4th or 5th grade because we knew we didn’t have any openings. That certainly changes with the 4/5 Academy at Fifth Avenue!
Are there typically tuition slots open in 9th?
In the last 6 years that I have seen in CSD, we have had tuition openings in grade 9.