HARBOR SPRINGS — At Monday night’s meeting, the Harbor Springs school board voted to switch entirely to a tuition-based enrollment process for the 2023-24 school year.
Prior to the change, students from kindergarten through fourth grade could opt for school of choice into the district for free, while students starting in the district from fifth through 12th grade would be under a tuition-based enrollment system. Now, the district will be switching to tuition-based enrollment from K-12, requiring all out-of-district students to pay.
Families that are already a part of Harbor Springs Public Schools will be grandfathered in. For example, a student entering kindergarten with an older sibling already in the district will be exempt from paying tuition. The only way those grandfathered-in students would have to pay tuition would be if enrollment was broken and then they returned to the district, according to the Harbor Springs Public Schools website.
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Exemptions will also be offered for children of teachers, coaches and district employees, allowing those students to be school of choice without cost.
In Michigan, districts can opt into school of choice options. Typically, opting into school of choice allows non-resident students to enroll in the district.
According to the district website, the tuition-based enrollment model allows students outside of the Harbor Springs Public Schools district lines but within the Charlevoix-Emmet ISD to enroll. For 2022-23, the annual tuition is $5,000 a student. The plan is to keep that rate for 2023-24, Superintendent Brad Plackemeier said.
“It’s a year-to-year decision, I think it also helps us to more easily predict our enrollment,” Plackemeier said.
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Those participating in the school of choice are required to complete and submit a tuition agreement form. The forms are only valid for one year and must be renewed annually.
Students enrolled under school of choice have no tuition, unlike those enrolled as tuition-based enrolled students.
The changes come after Harbor Springs saw a slight increase in enrollment for the 2022-23 school year. This increase followed three back-to-back years of enrollment decreases.
There are 737 students currently enrolled in the district, according to MI School Data.
— Contact education reporter Karly Graham at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @KarlyGrahamJRN.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Harbor Springs to switch to tuition-based enrollment for next year