District Approves Most Student Transfer Requests for Next Year

Ninety-five elementary school children requested transfers to attend a different school in the St. Charles School District next year.

All but four of those requests were approved by  Jeff Marion, assistant superintendent of human resources for the district. Four requests for incoming kindergarten students to attend Lincoln Elementary School had to be denied, said Marion.

"(The school is) so small, a few kids can make a big difference," he said. "I had to deny some so that I didn't have to hire another teacher at that level."

About 450 students were re-assigned to a new district elementary school after the Board of Education a 

Marion said many of the parents wanted their children to stay at a school that he or she had been attending. Although March 2 was the deadline to request a transfer, Marion said he will consider additional requests if there is room in the school.

"Harris, Monroe and Lincoln are pretty full," he said. 

Enrollment is expected to decline at each school, but the largest decreases will be at Null and Coverdell Elementary Schools which will lose 90 and 108 students, respectively.  

Blackhurst is expected to open with enrollment of 231 in August. The school will have  13 classes, including three kindergarten sections, three first-grade sections, three second-grade sections, two third-grade sections and two fourth-grade sections. 

Six of the teachers at Blackhurst will transfer from other schools in the district - five from Null Elementary and one from Coverdell Elementary. Two of those transfers were involuntary. Marion will hire new teachers to fill the remaining five positions, he said. 

What's still unclear is what kindergarten class sizes will be like next fall and how that may force the district to reshuffle plans again.  

"That's always the hardest grade to predict because they're not in school yet," he said.