Eastern Pulaski School Superintendent Dr. Robert Klitzman stated that the corporation has to accept every student with very little restrictions.
“You cannot discriminate on who you accept,” explained Klitzman. “If you are going to accept transfers, you have to accept anybody – any student – that wants to transfer to your school with very few exceptions. You don’t have to take a student that’s gotten in trouble in another school with drugs, alcohol or weapons. It’s a very narrow focus that you don’t have to accept a student. Otherwise you do.”
Klitzman said the board adopted the policy following the state guidelines.
“Number one, yes, we are going to accept transfers from other schools and, number two, as the new law indicates you have to set the number that you will accept. I said and offered to the board a really high number because we have the capacity, in terms of facilities, to accept quite a few students,” said Klitzman.
There’s a twist in this policy.
“If any school that sets their numbers and for whatever reason the requests for kids to transfer in exceeds that number – say ours is 150 and there are 200 kids that want to come to our school – we get to have a lottery. It would be a blind draw at one of our public meetings and the first 150 names we pull out of the barrel they will come to our school. The rest of them don’t get to come,” said Klitzman.
The board members also had to set a date as a deadline to accept transfer students and the board chose the state suggested date of Sept. 13.
The Knox Community School Board approved a similar policy, but will only accept transfer students until Aug. 9.
If a student transfers into a school corporation after the student count date, the school corporation gets no funding for that student.
The building principal and superintendent shall deny transfer if a student has been suspended or expelled for more than 10 school days in the 12 months preceding the request for transfer; if the student was suspended or expelled for possessing a firearm, deadly weapon, or destructive device in a year; if the student was suspended or expelled for causing physical injury to a student, school employee or visitor to the school; if the student was suspended or expelled for violating a drug or alcohol rule.
