(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Board of Education has approved updated rules for school open enrollment to comply with changes made by the Iowa Legislature. Department of Education attorney Thomas Mayes says a fairly large change involves transportation limits.  “Prior to this last legislative session, there were limits about vehicles crossing into sending district and receiving districts sending vehicles for student transportation across boundaries unless the two boards agreed,” Mayes says. He says the change creates what he calls a “skip pattern” to allow the crossing into other districts.

“Small districts being able to send vehicles not more than two miles into contiguous districts if the receiving attendance center is closer than the child’s assigned attendance center in the resident district,” he says. The change allows districts with enrollments of two-thousand or more to send vehicles without a distance requirement if student’s residence district is less than two-thousand students and contiguous to the receiving district. It also outlines who pays for the transportation.

“The sending district shall not be responsible for paying transportation subsidies to a parent If the receiving district is providing the transportation,” Mayes says. Mayes says lawmakers reinstated the deadline for filing open enrollment requests to March for first graders and September, for incoming kindergartners. It also reinstates the exceptions for students that were previously in place if they missed the open enrollment deadline. Mayes says the open enrollment changes also align with the new law encouraging attendance.

“So if a child is truant in the receiving district that puts limitations on their ability to open enroll into a receiving district,” Mayes says. He says the rules also prevent a student who is in trouble from getting out of it by moving to another district. “If I’m suspended…by my resident district or expelled by my resident district. I cannot use open enrollment to avoid the consequences of my suspension or expulsion,” Mayes says.

Mayes presented the rules to the Board of Education during its meeting Thursday, and says their approval now triggers another public comment period before the rules will become final.