A new school year often brings a lot of firsts for students. This year, many area school districts will be grappling with some firsts of their own as they attempt to navigate new Kentucky legislation that effectively nulls school boundaries, allowing parents the option to freely choose where their child attends school despite what school district they may happen to reside in.
Historically, school districts relied on reciprocal agreements with neighboring districts to achieve a similar result. When two school districts would enter such an agreement, a student was free to move between the two with state funding following the student to the district of their choice.
Without an agreement, parents may have still had an option to place their child in an out-of-district school, but would often have to pay a tuition fee to do so.
House Bill 563 removes the need for any reciprocal agreements, allowing state funding to follow a student regardless where they live or attend school and instead allows for the process of open enrollment. However, the bill does require that each school district within the state to either opt-in or opt-out of participating.
