Homeschool student impact on MACS activities
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By Darrell Dodge
Mount Ayr, Iowa – In his report to the school board on September 8, middle/high school principal Josh Vanderflught included eight home-schooled students in his initial enrollment numbers.
In his report, Vanderflught listed one student in grades 6 and 8, two students in grades 7, 10 and 11 and four students in grade 12.
(According to elementary principal Chris Elwood, two homeschool students currently come to his building for a portion of the school day.)
Later, in an email to the Record-News, Vanderflught explained the arrangement between the Mount Ayr school district and home-schooled students.
“Home-schooled students have always been allowed to participate in our activities if they live in our district,” he said. “This includes all sports and clubs we offer. The students that opt to do this are classified as ‘dual enrolled’ students.”
Beyond activities, home-schooled students are also able to partake in academic coursework.
“This year we have home-schooled students taking band in middle school and high school, Ag courses (required to take to participate in FFA per the FFA requirements), industrial tech courses, art, and geometry,” Vanderflught said. “In some cases, we have home-schooled students that take their whole course load here except for one or two classes. In other cases, they take all of their courses outside of our program and only participate in sports.”
The district also provides other assistance for families who choose to home school.
“We added our Homeschool Assistance Program (HSAP) to help provide materials for the families that take part in this program,” Vanderflught said. “We have a number of families that do, and we work to help provide instructional materials to assist them. This is a good program to help keep them engaged with our school community.”
From a financial standpoint, the Mount Ayr district benefits from home-schooled students who participate in district academics and activities.
Currently, state aid to public schools (SSA) stands at nearly $8,000 per full-time student (FTE).
“Students who ‘dual enroll’ do generate a small portion of State SSA funding,” Mount Ayr superintendent Jason Shaffer said. “At the upper grades, the more classes they take in person, the more the portion of SSA increases…A student could also dual enroll for activities.”
Students who dual-enroll only for activities generate the equivalent of 0.1 full-time equivalent (FTE) in state aid. That fraction equals approximately $800.
Students who participate in the Home School Assistance program generate 0.3 FTE in state aid, or approximately $2,400.
Students participating in both activities and the Home School Assistance program are calculated at 0.4 FTE, or $3,200.
District financial officer Stephanie Newton explained that additional funding based on the extent of a student’s participation in classes and activities.
“If they choose to take courses through the district, such as band, Ag, music, math, we get an additional .06 FTE per class per semester on top of the HSAP amount that we get up to a max of 1.0 FTE,” Newton said. “If they choose to dual enroll for activities we can get an additional .1 FTE for them.”
Newton provided two examples based upon a high school student who is part of the Home School Assistance Program and another who is not.
“John Doe is enrolled in our HSAP program and dual enrolls with us for band and math for the entire school year,” she explained. “He also plays in the band and plays basketball. So we would receive .3 FTE for the HSAP program, .12 FTE for the Band class he takes, .12 FTE for the math class he takes, and .1 FTE for being involved in band and basketball. So we would receive .64 FTE for that student.
“Example No. 2: Jane Doe does homeschool on her own (without the HSAP), but wants to dual enroll for a first semester ag class and band for the entire year. Jane also wants to play volleyball and band. So in this case we would receive .06 FTE for the ag class, .12 FTE for the band class, and .1 FTE for the volleyball and band activities. So we would receive .28 FTE for this student to be dual enrolled.”
Newton added that at the elementary level, the district would get similar funding for students to take specific classes but no funding is provided for participation in activities.
Vanderflught summarized the relationship between the Mount Ayr district and home-schooled students.
“These students are an asset to many of our programs, and we are happy to have them participate with us.”
