Open enrollment legislation working its way through the state General Assembly would enable K-12 students to attend school in a nonresident district.

This may appeal to parents for a variety of reasons including specialized academic offerings, class sizes, friendships, facilities, sports, location, convenience and the overall feeling/atmosphere of a district. Each family may have a specific motivation.

I encourage you to pay attention to HB 253, as it is a much different piece of legislation. If open enrollment should pass it would immediately affect multiple students in rural Missouri, including Barry County. Nobody knows exactly how it would affect students in our area, but I will attempt to offer my thoughts on what may happen. Some parents in Cassville or Monett who want their children to experience a smaller school environment may elect to send their children to Exeter, Purdy, or Wheaton.

Some parents in the smaller schools who do not offer wrestling and football may choose to send their children to Cassville or Monett. Monett has state-of-the-art facilities including a tech school, a turf football field and a performing arts center; and Cassville has an equally aesthetic turf softball field and will introduce a turf baseball field this spring; additionally, Cassville could have a performing arts center in the near future based on this April’s ballot results.

Maybe parents in other communities would want their children to utilize these alluring facilities. Maybe an Exeter parent feels that Southwest has a superior special education program and would want their child to transfer midyear. Southwest is the only district in the area to have a Trap Shooting program. Some parents excited about Trap may decide to send their children south to Washburn.

Purdy has been known for strong boys and girls basketball programs over the years. Cassville, Monett, and Wheaton parents with championship hopes may want their children to become Eagles. Cassville’s Agriculture Program recently started the Wild C Research Farm for students to get hands-on experience learning how to manage and operate a farm. Maybe parents in the other area schools would like their children to benefit from this exciting program.

Each district in Barry County has special attributes to offer their students academically, socially and with extracurriculars. Individual perceptions among parents would create a variety of reasons to justify the need to move a child from one district to another. But, it would not stop just within Barry County. Students in our area may end up attending Neosho, Branson Reeds Spring, and Republic, just to name a few. Districts may become compelled to spend time and resources on radio/TV/internet/newspaper advertisements to out-promote neighboring schools in hopes of attracting more students to their programs.

According to the bill language, every open enrollment plan would allow school districts to limit the number of incoming students they will accept. There is no way to make this process equitable. By the very nature of an open enrollment system, not every child will have the means to leave a school.

What happens to their school when only some get to go, and others are left behind? Will the school get better? Will it get more funding, more community support and more access to resources that will bring better teachers?

More than likely, those schools will fall further behind, as will their students. It is likely that students from low income homes and/or who have challenging disabilities will be the ones who other school districts suddenly determine they no longer have room to educate.

Open enrollment will eventually lead to the consolidation of many schools across the state and will inevitably lead to a further stratification of haves and have nots.

Many might think Exeter, Purdy, Shell Knob, and Wheaton are the districts most in danger. However all districts in our area could be forced to consolidate at some point. If HB 253 passes, we are not living too far from a future in which Barry County parents will have the ability to choose any school they want their child to attend: one at the end of an hourlong bus ride, or one based in Kansas City that they can attend on their iPad.

This school education shopping process will place families into the position of potentially being left behind by schools that can pick and choose who gets a seat and who does not.

It could also be argued that competition can be a good thing. However, competition is not always the best approach when it comes to public education. Rooting for a particular school can grow a community and bolster educational efforts within a school district.

Those competitions among athletes and scholars can become bright spots in their educational experiences. But when it comes to policies as to how education is administered, competition can have a darker side. According to HB 253, students would be able to apply to transfer to another public school district in hopes of learning in a “greener pasture.”

Parents could apply to have their child leave a district without needing permission. The receiving district could choose to opt into the program, as well as to set limits on how many students it would take and at what grade level and in what building. But the sending district has no say in the transfer and stands to suffer from it. This bill sets a cap of 4 percent to the number of students that can transfer out of a district for the first three years and would create a public school choice fund of $80 million.

The parent would be responsible for transportation, but the fund could supplement the costs of transportation incurred by a district or the parents.

Students whose parents are financially stable are more likely to benefit from HB 253, as are districts that already have a more established financial environment. For instance, a school district with a higher population of students on free and reduced lunches, a reflection of family income, could easily lose higher- achieving students to a neighboring district.

All of the districts in Barry County could be described as “have-not” districts due to our low tax rates and assessed valuations as compared to districts across Missouri.

If HB 253 passes, hundreds of Barry County students could transfer to and from our area schools, with others transferring to Ozark, Carthage, Joplin, or other schools in the state; while others may choose to be educated virtually through a St. Louis school.

While the concept of public school choice may sound enticing, the state’s reliability at consistently funding education is, at best, historically sporadic. And this fund’s goal is only to help the receiving district. Nothing would be done to help the sending district which would lose state funding based on student population and could face an even higher hill to climb to succeed academically.

Our statewide focus should be on improving the quality of education for all Missouri students instead of allowing some to profit from their ability to choose a different school district, while potentially making other students pay the price. To adapt, some of the more than 500 school districts in the state would have to consolidate.

That would mean fewer buildings and longer student commute times, among other impacts. For a lot of small communities, the rule often is, as goes the school district, so goes the community.

I ask that you research the pros and cons of open enrollment beyond this article. It is an easy internet search. Once you have enough information, I encourage you to contact our state representatives and senators and let them know how you feel. Calling or writing an email to our legislators would be highly beneficial at this time.

Legislators who represent a portion of Cassville R-IV School District include:

• Senator Mike Moon: 573-751-1480, mike. moon@senate.mo.gov

• Senator Karla Eslinger: 573-751-1882, karla.eslinger@senate. mo.gov

• Representative Travis Smith: 573-7512042, travis.smith@house.mo.gov

• Representative, Scott Cupps: 573-751-1488, scott.cupps@house. mo.gov.

Merlyn Johnson is the superintendent of the Cassville school district. He may be reached at mjohnson@ cassville.k12.mo.us.