Enrollment projections, registration procedures discussed at Hall County School Board work session

New students, new schools and newcomers were the main topic at the Hall County School Board work session Monday night.

The most intense topic was centralizing registration for new students within the next few years.

After reviewing projected student numbers for the next year, the board went over a training presentation and had a roundtable conversation with a committee including school staff, principals and others about what central registration could do for the county.

The basic prinicple is that families new to the county system or with students just beginning school would fill out a form online or at a centralized location with a registration staff member, then have a meeting with appropriate staff members, such as special education, social workers, other liasons or a bilingual representative, to complete registration and put the child in the right place. The goal, the committee said, was to streamline the registration process, ensure proper placement and needs, like free/reduced lunch programs, and have cleaner data.

For reference, Gainesville City Schools have used centralized registration for three years, as well as Dawson, Forsyth, Stephens and Pickens counties in our area.

One item discussed was turning the registration into a one stop shop. If a child was missing an immunization, a partnership with a local doctor's office allows the child to get the immunization and continue with registration at the same location and time. Committee members also said it would be helpful when families were registering multiple students at different schools and prevent getting different information from different schools.

However, Superintendent Schofield was hesitant on the process. "This isn't just a simple 'oh, let's put one in Oakwood and everybody will be happy.' It's going to cost some money, it's going to be an extra step for some folks that are going to have to drive 30, 45 minutes to get there. There's two sides to this thing and I can see both sides of it. I know we are always striving for accuracy and throw in 30 programs of choice, House Bill 251 and Gainesville City Schools in the middle and kids going back and forth and Buford chomping at us from the west end, there's a lot of reasons we should be considering this but if we do, we need to do it deliberately, we need to bring it in over time and make sure we can handle it and make sure to get the message out and do it right.

Over the hour and five minutes of discussion, the board agreed to continue on the path towards central regsitration, with the conversation to resume at the January 8 meeting. Then, superintendent recommendation and board action at a later date. The committee has a goal of an October 2018 soft roll-out date, however Schofield was hesitant due to the new Cherokee Bluff schools rolling out shortly before.

The new middle and high schools were also brought up when it came to enrollment projections. Schofield said there were plenty of high school seniors set on remaining at thier current schools, but also some determined to be the first graduating class at Cherokee Bluff High. 

Schofield said seniors were "a done deal" and they would get to go where they wanted. However juniors were another story and sixth through tenth graders were likely not going to have much of a choice.

"It is no surprise that existing seniors at Flowery Branch and Johnson in fairly large numbers are saying they want to stay with their current school" said Schofield. "What that probably will lead to is much less choice for upcoming sixth through at least tenth graders and we will have to evaluate at the eleventh grade level."

Schofield said numbers are flexible at the start of each year with a new school anyway, however he expected more flip-flop as junior students learned coach and teacher assignments. And, he said even with the numbers as they are now, as long as something drastic doesn't happen, class numbers are expected to remain the same and all classes will be offered as promised, even if, for example, only seven students enroll in AP Calculus.