By Glenn Rolfe

GEORGETOWN — Indian River School District’s often contentious issue of school choice is back on the radar.

The district’s board of education Monday opened the door for district-resident students of full-time IRSD employees whose permanent position meets state requirements to be given greater school-choice priority, effective for the 2021-22 year.

The approval precedes discussion of another school-choice policy revision in the works for 2022-23 later this summer.

By a 6-2-2 margin — and following a nearly 40-minute discussion of several options — board members Dr. Heather Statler, Madeline Moses, Rodney Layfield, Connie Pryor, Derek Cathell and Leolga Wright supported Dr. Statler’s motion to approve Priority No. 5.

James Fritz and Gerald Peden opposed. W. Scot Collins, the board’s Policy Committee chair, and Dr. Donald Hattier both abstained.

Some six students at present are impacted by the board’s vote to add Priority 5 to priorities 1-4 in efforts to keep the students at the schools where they have ties.

Then, in pecking order theory, the district would only consider additional choice students (priorities 6, 7 and 8) if the school is projected to remain under 85% capacity.

Priorities 1-4 are partly written by the state.

This past January, IRSD’s board voted to lower its schools’ capacities from 95% to 85% to take into consideration remote learning. With some students learning remotely or having withdrawn during the pandemic, the concern was that accepting a large number of choice students could create immense overcrowding when remote students return.

Priority 5 covers district-residing students of full-time employees holding permanent positions that meet state requirements, so long as they otherwise meet program or school criteria and reside in the state. The sixth priority is district students wishing to attend a school not in their feeder pattern, and priority 7 is non-district students of full-time employees with the same criteria as Priority 5. Priority 8 is non-district students wishing to choice to IRSD.

Priorities would be maintained for all district schools except Southern Delaware School of the Arts, which has its own acceptance system.

A first reading of a policy revision that will combine priorities 5 and 7 also was approved at this week’s meeting. A second reading of the revision that’s relevant to students of district employees regardless of residence is expected at the board’s July meeting. However, that policy would not go into effect until 2022-23.

“My question would be, if this goes into effect in 2022-23, that means we have teachers right now that are going to be very affected by this? How do we help them?” said Dr. Hattier.

Grappling with school choice is nothing new at Indian River. Since January 1997, the district’s school-choice policy has been revised 19 times, most recently in January.

Student acceptance is contingent on building capacity, attendance and discipline history. Building principals review applications and make recommendations to the board.

The vast majority of the district’s schools are near, at or over capacity.

“As a board, we can deviate from a policy that has already been set and voted on?” asked Ms. Wright, the board’s vice president.

“It is not against policy to overpopulate a building,” said Preston “Pep” Lewis, IRSD’s administrator of student services. “We know our buildings are full. That’s why we are building a new Sussex Central High School. It is not against anywhere in state code to overpopulate a building.”

Dr. Hattier added, “My thing is we are basically overcrowded almost everywhere anyway, with all the people moving into this area and all the new houses that are coming. … We’re facing crowds one way or the other. I figure in about three years, we’ll be probably looking at another building somewhere just to deal with all the extra houses that are coming.”

Sixty-nine students designated Priority 6 were up for school choice for 2021-22. Mr. Collins said that included 13 students to East Millsboro Elementary, which is at 95% capacity, 17 to Lord Baltimore Elementary (86%), seven to Millsboro Middle School (100%), eight to Sussex Central (128%) and 15 to Indian River High School (99.4%).

“Our current policy says at 85% over capacity, we can stop school choice, which is what we’ve been doing,” said Mr. Collins.

“My concern is if we do take the 6s, then, like Mr. Collins is saying, moving forward, we really, in my opinion, feel like we’re obligated to continue to take 6s,” Dr. Statler said. “So we are really opening it up that anybody can go anywhere with no regard for capacity? And that’s a concern.”

Mr. Lewis said the district has approved Priority 6 children in the past.

“We tried to get away from that,” said Mr. Collins. “We’re trying to stop taking this little bunch, this little bunch and trying to do it as a district policy to keep us on level, across the district, across every school.”

Mr. Layfield added, “This year, we hit the wall. Years past, we’ve tried to clean it up. We’ve allowed, and we’ve allowed. Students that are within our district, I feel, have the right to go to the next school. If they are from the Georgetown feeder program and they want to go to Selbyville Middle, I think they should be allowed to go to Selbyville Middle. That is just my personal choice.”

Mr. Fritz said the school-choice issue has been a longtime problem.

“This has kind of been the problem all along, is that here we’re going to take a vote on something that is getting ready to be looked at and voted on and changed possibly in policy,” he said. “We’re all over the place. We have a history of being all over the place and making special votes. If an eighth grader at Georgetown Middle School feels as though Indian River High School is their best fit, I’m not opposed to that at all. We’ve done that in the past.”

Dr. Hattier, who lobbied to accept the approximately 80 choice applications in priorities 5, 6 and 7 for year 2021-22 only, said, in most cases, it is not “new” students, just moving students from one full or overcapacity building to another.

“Basically, what I am getting at is these kids are already in our system. So they already have a classroom and a desk somewhere. What we are doing is simply taking kids, in some cases, from one overcrowded school to another overcrowded school because virtually everybody is overcrowded — almost,” he said. “Contrary to our policy — quote-unquote — I think the net effect on the district is not going to be very big. I’m more concerned about the 7s, quite frankly. I think the net effect of accepting those kids into whatever schools they want to go to would be relatively negligible since basically they are already there anyway.”

Six students were listed under Priority 7.

“I know we want to support our teachers, and we had a really robust discussion at the curriculum meeting about that,” said Dr. Statler, who motioned to accept 5s, which would take care of the in-district employees. “Then, perhaps, the compromise would be that we are doing the first reading for collapsing the 7s into the 5s, and that would give, next year, the opportunity for those out-of-district employees to have that same opportunity without causing an … enormous problem with the 6s.”

The Indian River School District utilizes Delaware’s Public and Charter School Choice Application. Families seeking school choice apply between the first Monday in November and the second Wednesday in January.

After that, the choice route is a good-cause application.

Citing the definition of “good cause,” Mr. Fritz said that option looks to be “very restrictive.” Good cause covers a child due to a change in family residence; a change in the state of family residence; a change in a child’s parent’s marital status; a change caused by a guardianship proceeding, foster care placement or adoption; participation by a child in a foreign exchange program; a reported, recorded and substantiated instance of “bullying” against their child as defined in state code; or participation by a child in a substance abuse or mental health treatment program.

“I would safely bet that the majority aren’t any of those (definitions). They simply want their kid to go to a different high school or middle school,” Mr. Fritz said.