Des Moines, Iowa – The Iowa Board of Education has approved updated rules for school open enrollment to comply with changes made by the Iowa Legislature. Department of Education attorney Thomas Mayes says a fairly large change involves transportation limits.
He says the change creates what he calls a “skip pattern” to allow the crossing into other districts.
The change allows districts with enrollments of two-thousand or more to send vehicles without a distance requirement if student’s residence district is less than two-thousand students and contiguous to the receiving district. It also outlines who pays for the transportation.
Mayes says lawmakers reinstated the deadline for filing open enrollment requests to March for first graders and September, for incoming kindergarteners. It also reinstates the exceptions for students that were previously in place if they missed the open enrollment deadline. Mayes says the open enrollment changes also align with the new law encouraging attendance.
He says the rules also prevent a student who is in trouble from getting out of it by moving to another district.
Mayes presented the rules to the Board of Education during its meeting Thursday, and says their approval now triggers another public comment period before the rules will become final.
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