More than 7,500 West Virginia public school students transferred from their zoned schools to other schools within and outside their district during the 2023-24 school year.
In recent years, state legislators have expanded students’ opportunities to transfer schools for educational and athletic reasons, giving schools few reasons to deny requests.
West Virginia Department of Education Data showed that 6,135 students transferred to a school in their district (known as intra-district transfers) and 1,425 students transferred to a public school outside their district.
According to the state Department of Education, parental employ of child care and after-school care services was a major reason for school changes in elementary school, where the majority of changes occurred.
“The vast majority of this is due to the parents and where they work and what daycare and similar things are available at the primary school level,” Sonya White, Deputy Director of The West Virginia Department of Education told lawmakers last month while the data is shared.
High school transfers are less common, White said, and many of them are due to sports. A West Virginia 2023 Law allows student athletes to change schools once during their high school career without having to change their place of residence. The law was linked To one-sided football results and sports injuries.
In the 2023/24 school year, 432 athletes transmitted at high schools in West Virginia – that’s three times as many transfers as in the last year and a half. The West Virginia Secondary Schools and Activities Commission did not respond to a request for updated figures for the current school year.
According to WVDE, transferring students within the district has no impact on state funding unless the student is transferring from a district school district to a public charter school.
Cabell County Schools, one of the state’s largest school districts, had the state’s highest transfer rate: 788 students were approved to transfer within the district and 136 students transferred to other districts.
Keith Thomas, Cabell County Schools’ Director of Health, Wellness and Student Services, explained that in his district, the reasons for school transfers were often so that parents could take advantage of afternoon care or a school close to their place of work.
“Not all schools have afternoon programs and many of our parents work until five or six,” Thomas said, adding that only some programs meet the state Payments for child care allowance.
He added: “Many of our transfers are based on parents who are teachers and want their children to go to school with them,” he said.
Access to special education services has also led to transfers, Thomas said. And some schools are better equipped and certified to teach students with autism.
In Lewis County, Samantha Ribeiro Matos sent her six- and seven-year-old boys, who need special education, to three schools within three years in search of the right academic education.
One of the transfers came after Matos learned three days before school started that the elementary school she attended in her district did not offer an enclosed classroom that one of her sons needed. School administrators asked her to transfer to the district’s largest elementary school, she said.
“We thought it was a good option as it was presented to us, but we had no other choice,” she said.
The state may refuse transfer for constrained reasons
West Virginia lawmakers expanded transfer eligibility for students in 2023 amid Republican-led legislature Promoting free school choice. The legislationenacted by Governor Jim Justice, was an extension of the 2019 Open enrollment legislation. It allows a county council to permit any eligible student to apply for enrollment in any school in the county, so long as the school has the capacity required for that grade level and offers certain programs and services not available in the student’s catchment area.
The law also allows open enrollment of public school students between counties without requiring approval from the county in which the student resides before transferring.
Denials are permitted for certain reasons, including constrained class size and the student’s disciplinary history.
State Department of Education data shows that 483 students were denied transfers last school year. The majority of denials involved students who wanted to transfer to a different school within their district.
White said lack of classroom space was the main reason for the rejection.
“The rejections mainly affect primary schools because we have an upper limit for class sizes in [kindergarten] up to fifth grade, and not in seventh grade and beyond,” she said.
Jason Huffman, national director of the conservative grassroots organization Americans For Prosperity, reviewed the county-level rejections using information he obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
He said districts were refusing to transfer students for reasons not permitted by law, including academic performance, tardiness and parental behavior.
“I think, particularly with things like absences or tardiness, it may be because the child is being bullied or is unhappy with their learning situation,” Huffman said. “I don’t think that’s a valid reason to refuse a transfer. It kind of ignores the individuality of the student.”
Huffman also noted that only five of the state’s county school districts published their open enrollment data on their websites, as required by the 2023 law.
He raised these concerns in a letter to the chairs of the House Education Committee and called on the West Virginia Department of Education to remind districts of the legitimate reasons for denying school transfers and releasing open enrollment data.
Senator Patricia Rucker, chair of the Senate School Elections Committee, said she had heard from some parents whose transfers were denied. “When they appealed to the superintendent, the transfers were approved,” she said in an email.
“I was really pleased when I saw the letter from AFP. The numbers show that there are hundreds of parents who are seeking and getting the education they need for their children. And who are staying in the public education system,” continued Rucker, R-Berkeley.
Christy Day, spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said the department will continue to work with county school systems to facilitate them comply with the resident-nonresident transfer law.
Huffman said his organization plans to continue implementing the law.
“We want to make sure that the intent that the legislature wanted to give parents – freedom of choice – is fully implemented through the law,” he said. “It’s about the future of the children in our state.”
