ANDERSON, Ind. —
The Anderson Community School Corporation may have lost 1,374 students in the past year, but a scan of neighboring school districts shows that the students haven’t gone far.
In the wake of unpopular school consolidation and closings within the Anderson school district, ACS officials expected to lose students.
They even expected to lose 600 students.
When school began on Aug. 23, school officials soon realized that they were 1,374 students short.
Meanwhile, ACS’ neighboring school districts braced for the influx of transfer students.
The most popular destination this fall was to Frankton-Lapel Community Schools.
Frankton-Lapel Superintendent Bobby Fields said the district approved 208 transfer students.
About 82 percent of them were Anderson students, he said.
Glen Nelson, superintendent of Elwood Community Schools, said Elwood received far fewer transfer applications, but still managed to attract a few Anderson defectors. Nelson said the system received three Anderson students this semester.
Alexandria Community Schools Superintendent Alice Mehaffey said the district has accepted 79 transfer students this fall, and 67 of them are Anderson students.
Mehaffey said the district decided not to hire additional teachers.
“We only accepted to the level (of students) we were able to handle with current staff,” she said.
Mehaffey said it seemed that many of the transfers were already close to Alexandria, even if they did live in the Anderson school district.
“For the most part, these are families that border our district that just felt it was going to be much more conducive to their family life,” she said.
Superintendent Tom Warmke said the South Madison Community Schools district received 119 transfers, including 94 from Anderson.
Warmke said the district created 1.5 teaching positions to address the influx of new students.
Paul Garrison, superintendent of Daleville Community Schools, said the district has seen a huge increase in transfers over the past year.
In total, the district accepted 133 transfers students in 2009 and 2010. Total student enrollment is 815 this year.
Eighty of the students transferred in this year alone, he said, and most are from Anderson.
The influx has led to just one staff position, he said.
“We had expanded at the elementary school by one teacher and we increased our staff at the high school by one, but that’s something we wanted to do for curricular purposes.”
ACS Superintendent Felix Chow is aware of the transfer numbers, but maintains hope that the school district will not lose all of the 1,374 students who failed to show up for school this week.
“I always like to be hopeful for the district, so at this time, I’m not going to make any forecasts. I would just hope there would be a huge surge after next Monday.”
Contact Brandi Watters: 640-4847, brandi.watters@heraldbulletin.com
Local Education
Area schools absorb Anderson transfers
Where the students went
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