State Funding for Out-of-State Rural Students

By Rural School Blogger (AKA Stephen Bohrer)

I understand from talking to Paula Stephenson, director of the Colorado Rural Schools Caucus, that an amendment to the Colorado school finance bill that passed out of the Colorado House of Representatives may have begun as a way to close a charter school in northwest Colorado that was predominately composed of students from Utah. One thing led to another, and we have a bill that if passed would make districts ineligible to receive state aid for students from adjoining states.

I understand there are 172 students from adjoining states attending Colorado schools. Colorado probably has as many students attending schools across the state line as come into the state. Does anyone know how many Colorado kids attend out of state? Does the legislature want to start a school finance war with other states that are educating Colorado students? School districts touching Colorado borders are all rural and small. Would we even have to talk about this if Denver touched a border of another state?

Rural schools throughout the country are experiencing declining enrollment and now someone has decided it is not fair for Colorado taxpayers to educate students from other states, regardless of how close they may live to our schools or perceive the quality of our programs. I thought we were here to educate all Americans. Many of our most ardent bashers talk of choice as if that alone were sufficient to provide an adequate education. Now the same party talking choice wants to deny students from Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas from expressing their choice by enrolling in Colorado schools.

For a specific example, Peetz is 2.5 miles south of the Nebraska border. The school there enrolls 32 Nebraska students out of a total student count of 120. My district, Holyoke, has nine Nebraska students attending our district of 600 students. We could survive the loss of $56,000 that the students represent, but what will Peetz do by August when they stand to lose 26% of their students, and budget?

How might this apply to students living in an adjoining state, but in a district that does not adjoin the Colorado district? How would this apply to foreign exchange students? How would this apply to dual home families (Celebrities or CEOs) whose child spends part of the year (October 1 “count day” for instance) in Colorado, but the rest of the year in another state, adjoining or not?

On March 3, 2006, Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colorado) gave the Keynote Address at the National Farmers Union Convention in Colorado. It was a good speech in that the Senator talked candidly about the challenges facing rural America, the obstacles to addressing them, and how the federal government should respond. It does not appear the state legislators are hearing his message. This anti-rural school amendment to the school finance act is mean spirited and tasteless. Perhaps the senator can bring his bully pulpit to the Colorado State Capital and teach those elected to represent us that rural schools count too.