Cheney schools seeing end of year growth spurt

At a time when enrollment tends to decline, full time equivalent student counts in the Cheney School District continue to grow.

In a report presented to the Cheney school board at its regular meeting last Wednesday, Kassidy Probert, the district’s executive director of finance, said enrollment numbers for May were the second highest this school year, coming in at 4,180 full time equivalent students. Normally, the enrollment trend at this point in the school year is more down than up.

“In the last two months we’ve actually grown,” Probert said.

Full-time equivalent numbers have averaged 4,173 students over the course of the year, peaking at 4,188 in January but sliding down to a yearly low of 4,162 in March. Those numbers jumped to 4,173 in April, and May’s figures are higher.

The board had budgeted for an average of 4,130 full-time equivalent students for the year, so even the average figure exceeds these expectations. The number of full-time equivalent students determines the amount of funding the district receives from the state.

Probert also told the board that the district had passed audits of its federal grant program and accountability by the Washington State Auditor’s Office. The federal grant program audit looked at nutrition and Title 1 programs while the accountability audit reviewed internal controls, financial processes and safeguards.

In new business, the board held the first reading of revisions to its policies on releasing resident students to attend other school districts, and sexual harassment.

The changes to the release policy come mainly in the area of conditions for release. Those include where the financial, educational, safety or health condition of the student requesting the release would be improved, better accessibility to the parent’s workplace or child care, a special hardship or detrimental condition affecting the student or their immediate family and the student is a child of a full-time certified or classified school employee in the other district.

Associate Superintendent Sean Dotson said the changes, which come at the recommendation of the Washington State School Directors Association, are pretty much in line with the district’s current practices. Cheney is usually accommodating to student transfer requests, Dotson added, whereas other districts have been known to be less so.

“If someone wants to attend another district, we tend to sign off,” he said.

While the change to the sexual harassment policy was minor in terms of language, it was legally significant Dotson said. The change inserted the phrase “and the procedure, which includes the complaint process” and eliminated the next word “shall” and inserted “will” into the policy regarding where it is to be posted.

The policy requires this information to be displayed “in each District building in a place available to staff, students, parents, volunteers and visitors.

District Director Rick Mount asked how the administration intended to meet the new requirement. Dotson said the policy and procedures would be displayed in places such as the district buildings offices as well as on its website.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].