Bay Area schools tweak transfer limits

Published 5:00 pm Wednesday, July 23, 2014

COOS BAY — Coos Bay school officials are holding off on transfer requests since class sizes are already pushing the limit.

“At this point, we have no room in K-7 … because our numbers are high,” said Coos Bay schools superintendent Dawn Granger. “We do have some families, unfortunately, waiting on word from us for K-7 placement because of our numbers.”

Class projections are already pushing 23 to 28 students in the lower grades, even approaching 30 in seventh grade at Sunset Middle School. These classes include students from this spring, nonresident students who have been grandfathered in and families who moved here this summer.

But students are always coming and going; what if a family moved to the district with third grade triplets? Granger said at the July 14 school board meeting.

“I would hate to roll the dice when it comes to class size,” she said. “Do we want to do that to our teachers?”

Any nonresident families who apply for a transfer to grades K-7 in Coos Bay will be put on a waiting list until further notice. The board will have a better idea of fall enrollment following registration Aug. 20-22.

Board members did open up 25 seats in each grade 8-12 for interdistrict transfers.

North Bend, on the other hand, is accepting interdistrict transfer requests to grades 6-12 through Aug. 1. Elementary interdistrict transfer requests will have to wait until after registration Aug. 13-15, said North Bend school board chair Megan Jacquot.

There are several openings in grades 6-8, and 19 to 25 openings each in grades 9-12.

The North Bend school board will have a special meeting Aug. 18 to finalize enrollment numbers for its elementary schools.

In both districts, existing interdistrict transfers have been grandfathered in for the upcoming school year.

In North Bend, though, no matter which elementary school an interdistrict transfer student attended before, he or she will automatically go to North Bay Elementary this fall, unless class sizes allow him or her to remain at Hillcrest Elementary.

North Bend is also in the midst of determining intradistrict transfers (students moving to a new school within the same district).

On the heels of a new K-5 grade configuration this fall, 84 families applied for intradistrict transfers for their 128 students. Of those, 44 students were placed in their school of choice during a lottery on June 30.

More could be approved, superintendent Bill Yester said, but that won’t happen until class numbers are finalized during registration.

In Coos Bay, these are called out-of-zone transfers, and they’re not changing, Granger said. Principals will keep an eye on openings and class sizes and process transfer requests at the school level.