The Lee’s Summit R-7 School District is still awaiting tuition payment for the first Kansas City Public Schools student attempting to transfer here under terms of a statute governing transfers from unaccredited districts like KCPS.
The statute allows KCPS students to transfer to any accredited district in Jackson County or an adjoining county and requires KCPS to pick up the transferring students’ tuition and transportation costs. But the R-7 district, which billed KCPS during the first week of the New Year, has yet to receive any payment, R-7 Superintendent David McGehee said.
To date, the R-7 school district has received inquiries from seven Kansas City families interested in student transfers here. Of those, two have completed the pre-registration process for the 2012-13 school year. And one completed the process for the current semester, prompting the district to invoice KCPS for R-7’s full board-approved cost of a semester’s tuition.
But under a local board policy, the student will not be admitted to an R-7 school until that cost is paid.
“Board of Education policy requires that tuition be paid in full prior to attendance,” McGehee said in his Jan. 19 report to the R-7 school board. “Thus, the pre-registration process essentially places a student in a stay-put status, and the regular enrollment process is not completed (assignment of school, teacher, class schedule, etc.) until appropriate tuition payment is received.”
Meanwhile, KCPS and five surrounding school districts (including R-7) are in Jackson County Circuit Court, arguing over the frequency and levels of transfer compensation demanded by statute.
The case against KCPS originally was filed Dec. 23 by the five districts – R-7, Independence, Raytown, Blue Springs and North Kansas City – plus the Center School District, which has since withdrawn from the case.
On Jan. 20, the case was refiled to include the state, its department of education and its attorney general’s office, McGehee said. The attorney general’s office must be a party to the case in order for the judge to consider arguments relating to the state’s Hancock Amendment.
The Hancock Amendment precludes unfunded mandates, which the plaintiff districts are arguing that their taxpayers would be forced to shoulder under a transfer policy adopted by the KCPS board of education on Dec. 21.
That policy, which spurred the lawsuit, stated that KCPS would not provide transportation and would reimburse only four districts (not including R-7) if they provide transportation for the transferring students.
In addition, the policy calls for the Kansas City schools to pay tuition of only $3,733 per student up front if it and the receiving district cannot agree on the amount of actual tuition owed.
The R-7 district’s tuition, as set by its school board, is $9,339 for kindergarten through eighth grade and $10,869 for high school students.
Allan Hallquist, an attorney representing KCPS, said during a Dec. 30 hearing in the case that the statute calls for the state board of education to settle disputes over tuition in such cases. Once the state board makes its determination, the Kansas City district will make up any differences the receiving districts have been shorted via monthly payments, according to the Kansas City transfer policy.
The plaintiff districts argue that forcing them to cover the Kansas City students’ education without full payment up front would be a violation of the Hancock Amendment.
The lawsuit, which seeks to officially halt the transfer policy until the relevant issues are resolved, is scheduled to proceed to a case management conference on Feb. 10.