Lawton Public Schools knows it has lost about 1,200 students since the 2016 school year, but this year’s exact loss still is being calculated.
Superintendent Kevin Hime said district officials are working to track down students who were enrolled in Lawton Public Schools during the 2019-2020 school year but haven’t shown up this school year, as in-person attendees at district facilities or virtual students in Lawton Virtual Academy. That online academy already was established by the district for students who wanted or needed to attend classes online, but what had been an attendance of 105 surged to 5,300 students when the 2020-2021 school year began as parents/guardians made plans for life in the time of COVID-19.
Those virtual attendees still are considered LPS students, each assigned to a school and virtual teacher, Hime said.
What the district is trying to determine is the location of students who were enrolled in Lawton Public Schools last school year, but aren’t here this school year.
Hime said the cited-loss of 1,200 students is from current enrollment, versus the enrollment reported for Lawton Public Schools in 2016. With today’s rough estimate of 13,500 students in the district, that means Lawton has lost about 1,200 students in five years. District officials said there are a variety of reasons that number has decreased, including being a military community where families transfer and composition of the troops assigned to Fort Sill change, as well as homeschooling and departures to attend other school districts, including virtual ones.
LPS Chief Operating Officer Jason James said the district knows it has lost students to virtual for-profit schools. Hime said officials aren’t certain of the exact number, explaining the district still is compiling its membership number for the Oklahoma State Department of Education. The target date for that data is Oct. 1, so district personnel are trying to track down students who are not attending Lawton Public Schools this semester, but also haven’t requested their transcripts (needed for transfer to another school).
“We’re working hard,” Hime said, of efforts to identify approximately 300-400 students who are gone from Lawton Public Schools without explanation. “We want to find you.”
It’s about more than state aid numbers, Hime said, explaining district personnel want to ensure the children are safe.
But, attendance is an important factor for the district is terms of state and federal funding, received for each student to help fund education efforts.
James said the lost dollar value of those 1,200 fewer students in five years is $7.5 million. Hime said that represents the full value of state and federal funding allocated to the district based on each child, which includes state funding designated for average daily membership (about $6,000 per student), but also includes additional funding the district would receive because of special categories students may fall into (such as gifted and talented, or special needs).
Oct. 1 is when the date when the first set of “membership” numbers are due from districts, meaning the count that day is the determining factor for state funding. Students who are and have been in attendance on Oct. 1 as part of Lawton Public Schools will bring the district credit for a full school year, in terms of base-level funding. But, Hime said students also have assigned “weights,” the definition of special categories (such as gifted/talented) that bring additional funding. The process is part of a complex funding formula based on the actual number of students who attend a specific school district.
The good news: virtual students count as LPS students, even if they are not sitting in traditional classrooms. At Lawton Public Schools, virtual students are assigned to a specific school and have a specific “homeroom” teacher, even secondary students who typically have multiple teachers during a normal school day. That’s why the district created virtual teaching pods, three designated areas across the district where teachers educating students virtually are grouped together based on age level (elementary, middle and high school). There also is a “night academy,” teachers who work from with students between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Hime said administrators know some Lawton parents have placed their children in for-profit virtual schools, such as Epic Charter Schools. Epic, operating as a charter school before the pandemic, has become the largest school district in the state, based on the recent increase in enrollment.
Hime said he and his administrators believe they can lure some virtual students back to Lawton Virtual Academy, on-line classes the district already had in place for secondary students, but dramatically expanded this school year to accommodate all grade levels. The district has about 3,500 students enrolled in its virtual academy, but those numbers continue to fluctuate as more parents become comfortable with moving their children back to in-person classrooms, or in-person students move to a virtual setting.
“We’re pretty open,” he said, of the flexibility given to parents.
The fluctuation wasn’t unexpected: Hime has said his key word this school year is “flexibility.” And, because the district knew parents would want the option of moving children from one teaching method to another, teachers are working hard to create a seamless curriculum that keeps students at every grade level at the same learning level. That means students can move from one learning option to another without losing any class days.
Hime said the virtual academy has been so successful, it won’t end when the COVID-19 pandemic does.
“We’ll keep going,” he said, adding that he doesn’t expect the virtual component to be as big as it is now because the district already is seeing fluctuations.
And, he said the district doesn’t want to put parents “in a choke hold,” as far as forcing them to select only one education option.
“There are different factors,” he said, noting, for example, the approach of cold and flu season.
