By Lee Reinsch
Correspondent
DE PERE – With the window for applying for open enrollment slated to open soon, the De Pere school board laid out its parameters as far as the number of non-resident students that will be let into the school district.
The board voted to accept up to 25 students in 4K (four-year-old kindergarten) for regular education.
The rest of elementary, intermediate and middle school grades are closed to all open enrollment for regular and special education, mainly due to building capacity and the growth the district has seen.
“The 4K is closed to students in special education just due to the size and number of students we have coming in from Early Childhood programming, which is kindergarten for three-year-olds,” said Jerry Nicholson, director of pupil services for the Unified School District of De Pere, who presented the information to the school board along with Superintendent Ben Villarreal on Monday, Jan. 21.
For grades 9-12 at the high school, there is no cap on open enrollment students for regular education.
However, there is a cap for special education students.
“This year, we’re taking three students in special education at the high school – that’s one up from last year, when we accepted two,” Nicholson said.
Nicholson and Villarreal presented the projections and numbers to the board at a special meeting of the school board Jan. 7, and the board approved those numbers at its most recent meeting this week.
“The way that enrollment projections are done is a pretty consistent process within the district,” Nicholson said. “Because the district’s been doing this for multiple years, it’s figured out their space capacity, numbers and ability in terms of what we can handle in each of the levels.”
The open enrollment period runs from Feb. 4 through April 30.