•August 3, 2016•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

My friend Jennie is an attorney and mother of a youngster entering elementary school this fall. Jennie and her husband live in a central Illinois city, but Jennie travels 30 miles each day to her law office in another town.

Jennie thinks it would be marvelous if her child could ride along each morning, be dropped off at the elementary school near her law office; the two could then return home together after work and school each day.

Oh, Jennie could do this, but it would cost her $10,000 a year in out-of-district tuition, which the young family cannot afford.

Across the Big River, over in Iowa, Jennie and her daughter could do this—at no out of pocket cost.

The “sending” Iowa school district in which another Jennie and family might live would send its property tax support for Jennie’s child to the “receiving” district; after all, Jennie and husband pay taxes. And the state would also send its per pupil support to the receiving district as well.

This is called open enrollment, and it has been available to parents and children in Iowa since the late 1980s. The last time I looked nearly 30,000 pupils (six percent of Iowa’s total K-12 enrollment) attended a school district other than the one in which the family resides.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.