Students in G-E, Northwood allowed to pick their school
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, April 17, 2002
GLENVILLE – Starting next year, families in the Glenville-Emmons and Northwood-Kensett school districts will be able to attend school in either district.
At Monday night’s Glenville-Emmons school board meeting, a tuition sharing agreement with Northwood-Kensett was approved. The agreement will allow students who live in the G-E district to attend school in Northwood, and also allow students in the N-K district to enroll at G-E.
The agreement will mainly benefit families who live in one district but are actually closer geographically to schools in the other. This would include a small number of families that live in the far eastern portion of the G-E district.
The total number of families in either district expected to exercise their option to open-enroll is small, according to school officials.
“We don’t see it having a great impact on either district,” said Superintendent C. Todd Chessmore. “It’s a way of giving our district and the Northwood district, our kids and parents an alternative.”
The tuition agreement may also end up leading to other kinds of cooperation and sharing between the districts, including staff and programs, said Chessmore, although that probably would not be happening anytime soon, he added.
The high schools in Northwood and Glenville are only seven miles apart, making sharing between the two districts practical, Chessmore said.
Under the leadership of Superintendent Arnie Snook, the N-K district has been involved in discussions with all of its neighbors, in both Iowa and Minnesota, as it comes up with options to deal with financial difficulties related to declining enrollment. The district has been operating with deficits for the past five years.