Open Enrollment in Portage County
One out of 12 Portage County school districts do not allow students to open enroll.
The district is Aurora City Schools and Superintendent Russ Bennett said there is no reason for them to have open enrollment. “Financially, if we did, as would any other district, they would collect the state share of dollars for that student which equates to about $5800.00. Since we don’t have open enrollment, we have never collected this money, so we don’t realize any gains or losses. Accepting these students can benefit a district by bringing in additional revenue, but in reality, it typically costs districts more than $5800 each to educate. If a child is special ed, it costs more. Aurora is fine with its enrollment size and it’s beginning to grow again, so I don’t expect any changes to present stance,” said Bennett.
On the other side, Kent City Schools does allow open enrollment. Treasurer Deborah Krutz said open enrollment actually helps their district financially. “A school district can choose on its own whether to accept open enrollment students coming in from other districts. The Board of Education has no control over those students, resident students, leaving its school district to attend other schools under what is now an Ohio School Choice. So the list of other choice opportunities that I mentioned, we actually net out more resident students leaving the district for these other school choice options than students choosing to enroll. That does impact our revenue so this open enrollment is an opportunity to recover so that lost revenue with students that follows them out to other options,” said Krutz.
Back in October at the Kent City School Board of Education meeting, one person argued that students from other districts should not be allowed to open enroll in Kent City Schools, but as stated already, it actually helps the Kent City School District.
School Choice Ohio:
http://www.scohio.org/
Portage County Open Enrollment
| Portage County School District | No Open Enrollment | Open to Any District |
| Aurora City | X | |
| Crestwood Local | X | |
| Field Local | X | |
| Garfield Local | X | |
| Kent City | X | |
| Maplewood Career Center | X | |
| Ravenna City | X | |
| Rootstown Local | X | |
| Southeast Local | X | |
| Streetsboro City | X | |
| Waterloo Local | X | |
| Windham Exempted Village | X |
Full Ohio Open Enrollment Report:
http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/School-Choice/Open-Enrollment
Aurora School District:
http://www.aurora-schools.org/
Kent School District:
