Saint Louis, Mo. — The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released new guidelines for transfer students this week that appear to fly in the face of state law.
In a document titled “Guidance for Student Transfers from Unaccredited Districts to Accredited Districts,” DESE advises that no student should be allowed to newly transfer out of his failed school in 2014-2015 unless they attended that school for at least one semester in 2013-2014. Current state law places no such restrictions on eligibility, and DESE appears to be encouraging new guidelines for accepting transfer students in direct conflict with the Missouri Outstanding Schools Act.
“These are non-regulatory guidelines,” DESE spokeswoman, Sarah Potter, told The Missouri Times. “It’s up to districts to decide what to do.”
Potter said districts were not bound to the guidelines, but refused to answer whether or not following them would be a violation of the law. When asked directly whether a district following DESE’s guidelines would be breaking Missouri laws, Potter repeated that it was “up to districts to decide what to do.”
Kit Crancer, state director of StudentsFirst — a school choice organization — says the guidelines clearly advise districts to violate the law.
“I don’t know where they are getting their legal basis for this,” Crancer said. “Because state law, it is currently written, says that if you live in an unaccredited district and the state deems it a failing education, you have a right to go to an accredited district of your choice.
The new guidelines come on the heels of the State Board of Education’s decision earlier this week to dissolve the Normandy School District and waive their accreditation status, effectively placing Normandy in uncharted territory. With the move on accreditation status, children currently living in Normandy will not be eligible to transfer to a better school in 2014-2015 because, technically, they no longer reside in an “unaccredited” district.
While the Board expressed strong desire during their Monday meeting that 2013-2014 transfer students be allowed to continue in their new schools, Francis Howell School District announced Friday that they would not be accepting any transfer students from Normandy. Because of the Board’s decision to dissolve Normandy and remove it’s accreditation status, Francis Howell’s decision does not technically violate state law.
Potter said that DESE’s was not happy about Francis Howell’s decision, and that their energy would be focused now not on continuing to transfer 2013-2014 transfer students, but instead to improve Normandy from within.
But the guidelines sent out by DESE address changing guidelines for all transfer students, not just the shifting Normandy situation.
School boards are not required to follow the guidelines, although using DESE guidelines as a basis for action is common throughout the state.
Ironically, guidelines for transfer eligibility and tuition costs were both included in Senate Bill 493, the school transfer bill that Gov. Jay Nixon has announced he plans to veto. The dissolution of Normandy will evaporate any change students have in the district to transfer, and DESE’s new guidelines suggest school boards can essentially skirt the law requiring they accept transferring students. As school boards and administrators scramble to figure out how they will navigate the environment, some parents are considering legal action.
“DESE’s new transfer guidelines are very similar to SB 493,” Rep. Vicki Englund, a Democrat and Lindbergh School Board member, said. “If Senate Bill 493 had been enacted we could have had some good public policy portions of the bill in place without all the rash decisions being made by local school boards to longer accept students. Because of the announced veto of 493 and no alternative solutions presented by the governor, there are hundreds of Normandy kids who lose out.”
Englund, one of the Democrats that voted for 493, said she was saddened by the situation and that “several students lives are being destroyed,” during the process to fix Missouri’s broken transfer system.
“This is the second summer in a row we’ve seen complete and utter chaos within our school system,” Crancer said. “And that’s not sustainable, and [Gov. Jay Nixon] isn’t leading on this.”
Collin Reischman was the Managing Editor for The Missouri Times, and a graduate of Webster University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.
