NEW PALESTINE — During the most recent school board meeting earlier this week, officials with the Community School Corporation of Southern Hancock County noted their school transfer packet for parents is ready to go for the 2024-25 school year.
District officials hope to have the packet ready online as soon as February with reviews starting in March, according to the transfer documents. That will allow families interested in transferring into Southern Hancock to do so as quickly as possible, officials say.
School districts across the county and state mostly rely on students within their own district to fund operations, but opening doors to transfer students can help bolster a district’s budget in a massive way.
This year alone, Southern Hancock school took in 703 transfer students, some 18% of the over 3,800 students attending the district. That equates to $4.78 million in funding for the district this year. Each student has $6,800 earmarked for their education each year, meaning when a student goes to a district, the money set aside by the state follows them.
Craig Smith, director of communication and community outreach for Southern Hancock schools, noted all districts lose students to other districts each year, which is why when that happens it’s important for a school board to have a policy of allowing transfer students to come in.
“If you lose kids, you lose money,” Smith said. “Obviously the number of students you lose, you want that balance of students to come back in, so we constantly monitor that metric looking for consistency and growth.”
The district has come a long way in allowing transfer students to come in after decades of having a closed campus policy. Due to a slow economy and lack of funding and students, the district was forced to close one of their schools in 2010 — the old Doe Creek Middle School. However, it was then district officials started allowing transfer students to come in. In 2013 the district had 204 transfer students which has grown to 703 transfer students this 2023-24 school year.
The 703 transfer number attending Southern Hancock schools is the district’s highest transfer total in the past 10 years. The previous high was 667 transfer students in 2022.
Smith noted that is why it was important for the school board to approve their transfer packets so early so he can get the information out into the community and available on line to remind parents now is the time to start preparing for the upcoming 2024-25 school year.
“It helps us to know what kids are coming here so we can plan accordingly with hiring new staff if we need to,” Smith said. “We’re open transfer, so anyone can come in.”
Southern Hancock officials are not the only ones in the county who rely on transfer students to help bolster the education budget.
Eastern Hancock Superintendent George Philhower noted attendance is around 1,200 and some 35% of their students are transfer students, increasing their enrollment this year from previous attendance numbers.
Officials with the Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation say they continue to welcome transfer students and have several hundred this year with each student bringing $6,991. Superintendent Harold Olin says this year they brought in 257 transfer students helping them secure $1.79 million to go toward education.
Maria Bond, director of community relations for the Mt. Vernon School District, noted that the Mt. Vernon Board of Trustees instituted a transfer policy in the fall of 2019 to manage the growth of transfer students while considering building capacity and growth of in-district students.
Of 4,660 students in 2023-24, Bond noted 534 are transfer students. That’s 11.46%. The transfer number is down from 2018 when they had 4,238 students with 680 transfer students, or 16% transfer students.
