Open enrollment continues to create challenges for the Oregon-Davis School Corporation. Ron Gifford with the Starke County Economic Development Foundation recently shared some details from the Indiana Department of Education’s fall transfer report with the Hamlet Town Council.
“O-D went from losing 109 [last year] to losing 161, so the trend continues and gotten worse,” Gifford said. He added that 172 students who live in Oregon and Davis townships go to John Glenn. Another 51 are going to Knox, but 74 students from the Knox district attend Oregon-Davis.
Gifford said that when he spoke to the O-D school board about what the economic development foundation is doing to help the school corporation, one of the first things members asked about was housing. “I know you’re certainly talking about the lot you own, what you might do with that,” Gifford told the town council. “I don’t know if you have any ability or thoughts about looking further into that housing development that could take place on the land that was identified for Stellar, but it would be very helpful from the school board’s standpoint. Their concern, obviously, is the loss of students that they continue to see there.”
Council Member Brian Earnest said the town will do all it can to get housing in the community when the school does all it can to keep the kids who are leaving. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘We can build houses, but the kids will probably go to John Glenn anyway,'” Earnest said.
Council President Dave Kesvormas stressed that housing remains a priority for the town. “We’ve got our goal of 22 by ’22,” he said. “We’ve all kind of hit the ground running. We brought people in here, and we even brought the one fellow in here from Culver and he said there’s no draw for them to build just houses. They want to build multi-complexes. If you do look at some of our income in here, some of these people are up and coming, and they don’t want to live in a multi-complex. They want to buy a home. I don’t about any statistics out there; when a home goes on the market that’s decent here, it doesn’t last.”
Gifford also pointed out that when it comes to encouraging students to attend class in their own district, it’s ultimately up to state legislators to adjust the rules on open enrollment.
