Kansas’ Open Enrollment law allows K-12 students wishing to transfer to another district to do so, depending on the capacity of the receiving district. But as we have reported, some school districts erect artificial barriers in order to avoid accepting out-of-district students.
A study by Kennesaw State University of five Kansas districts (Andover, Auburn-Washburn, Blue Valley, Shawnee Mission, and Olathe) found only Andover offered more capacity to accept those students than its declines in enrollments reported to the state Department of Education. Wichita did not report any capacity on its website, although KSN-TV reported the district once listed 455 slots on its website. The others showed significantly higher decreases in student numbers than their self-reported capacities. The 2025 Kansas Open Enrollment Report covered Academic Years (AY) 2020 to 2025.
Dr. Ben Scafidi, author of How Much Capacity Do Public Schools in Kansas REALLY Have?, drew these conclusions from his study.
- Enrollments in many Kansas public schools have fallen significantly since the fall of 2019, giving those schools a large amount of capacity in their buildings to enroll out-of-district transfer students.
- Collectively, the five Kansas districts analyzed in this brief (Andover, Auburn-Washburn USD, Shawnee Mission, Blue Valley, and Olathe) have experienced an enrollment decline of 5,063 students between fall 2019 and fall 2024, yet these districts self-reported that they had only had the capacity to serve 2,063 out-of-district transfer students for the 2024-25 academic year.
- States like Kansas could better enforce open enrollment laws at an extremely low cost by (a) using the change in enrollment method presented here as a baseline for comparison with districts’ self-reports of capacity to serve transfer students who reside outside of district lines; (b) employing a part-time state auditor who would visit individual public schools to make an independent assessment of building capacity, especially public schools that have a large number of requests for interdistrict transfers relative to their self-reported capacity and public schools that self-report capacity at much lower levels compared to their recent enrollment declines.
- States could also better enforce open enrollment laws-which would allow thousands more students to have the ability to attend public schools their families deem better for them by putting monetary penalties in law for districts that underreport building capacity and by defining capacity as “capacity in the building” to serve more students (and not as capacity based on whatever staffing levels districts have, as some districts are currently defining capacity).
- Wichita Public Schools experienced an enrollment decline of 2,636 students over the past five years, but the district does not have information about their capacity to serve out-of-district students on their website. Inquiries to obtain this information were not successful.
We asked each district in the report to respond to its conclusions.
Scott McWilliams is Superintendent of the Auburn-Washburn District:
“During our strategic planning listening tour in 2019, two key themes emerged prominently from feedback gathered across our school community, including students, staff, parents, and patrons.
“First, overcrowding in our schools was a concern. To address this, we are making two major adjustments to our K-8 model: transitioning sixth-grade students from elementary to middle school and building a second middle school to ease the current strain on our existing middle school, which is currently serving nearly 1,000 seventh- and eighth-grade students. These changes will allow us to better meet the needs of students at both the elementary and middle school levels.
“Second, there was a strong call from staff, parents, and patrons regarding the lack of capacity to meet early childhood education needs. In response, we are expanding our enrollment to serve more three- and four-year-old students, ensuring that we can better support the early learning stage.
“Lastly, it is worth noting that elementary school enrollment is lower in comparison to before the pandemic, and as a result, the number of elementary teachers has been adjusted accordingly.”
Kristi McNerlin is Chief Communication Officer for Blue Valley:
“Any implication or suggestion that Blue Valley misreports or artificially manipulates capacity numbers to create barriers to enrollment is inaccurate. As outlined in our publicly available policy, each school district in Kansas is responsible for developing its own guidelines to determine school capacity and set limits for nonresident student transfers. Our policy clearly defines the annual process through which school capacity numbers are determined, taking into account critical factors such as classroom student-to-teacher ratios, projected enrollment shifts, anticipated demand for courses and programming, and maximum capacities of classrooms and shared spaces. This process is followed to ensure fairness and accuracy.”
Becky Grubaugh, Communications Director for Olathe Public Schools, also took issue with the report’s conclusions:
“To suggest that Olathe Public Schools misreports capacity numbers to place an artificial barrier to Open Enrollment is, quite frankly, absurd. In fact, in the first year of Open Enrollment implementation, Olathe Public Schools welcomed more nonresident students to our district than any other district in Johonson County.
“As is clearly outlined in state statute, as well as our own publicly accessible policy, each school district in Kansas is responsible for developing its own guidelines to determine school capacity and establish limits for nonresident students to transfer via Open Enrollment. Our policy explicitly details the transparent annual process through which school capacity numbers are determined, incorporating key factors such as optimal student-to-teacher ratios, projected enrollment trends, anticipated demand for courses, and the maximum capacities of classrooms and spaces.
“In its inaugural year, our district took a responsible approach to Open Enrollment capacity to ensure the increase in enrollment would not overextend our systems, staff, resources and overall ability to maintain the high standards of education we provide. After a year of experience and a strong understanding of Open Enrollment’s impact on our system, we plan to expand Open Enrollment capacity. As you will see listed as a future action item for the April Board of Education meeting on BoardDocs, our district plans to recommend nearly 3,000 available seats for 2025-26 Open Enrollment.
“To imply that our school district is manipulating data or doing anything other than supporting the public education of all Kansas students is asinine and offensive. Olathe Public Schools will continue to make decisions with careful consideration to strike a balance of providing individualized instruction in the classroom for all students while responsibly managing our building resources and staff capacity.”
Terry Rombeck is spokesman for the Andover School District, the only one in the study that had greater capacity for out-of-district students than they had declines in enrollment during the five-year-period. But he also disagreed that reductions in enrollment equals capacity:
“This paper is based on the flawed premise that, for the districts included, a decrease in enrollment between 2020 and 2025 must equal the capacity determined by their local Boards of Education. This conclusion is based on misunderstandings both in the Kansas out-of-district enrollment law and how school districts operate. Physical building capacity is only one piece of the puzzle. In practicality, districts “right-size” their staffing each year, often by attrition, based on enrollment predictions. In our district’s case, we have predicted the next year’s enrollment, and combined that information with class size guidelines from district policy and building capacity. We allowed for a 10 percent buffer to accommodate potential new students who move into the district, whom we are required to serve.
“For the 2024-25 school year, we posted online that we had 344 seats open, but we only filled approximately 119 seats (unaudited by KSDE at this point). We welcome out-of-district students in the buildings and grades where our staffing, building capacity and class size guidelines allow. We also offered spots to 60 students who, after applying in our district, later declined their spots for various reasons. We would have gladly accepted more than 200 more students this year if they applied or accepted.
“While we can’t speak for other districts, the notion that any district artificially inflated enrollment for years prior to the out-of-district enrollment law going into effect is head-scratching.”
Rombeck’s statement about “right-sizing” isn’t reflected in the district’s employment history. Over the last five years, Andover enrollment increased by 2.5%, but teacher employment is 7% higher, and total staff jumped by 12%.
