By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

At its regular meeting on Jan. 26, the Lake Orion Community Schools Board of Education unanimously re-authorized School of Choice (SOC) slots for the 2022-23 school year. The capacity for non-resident students is not to exceed 10 percent of building population for Kindergarten through eighth grade and Learning Options for the 2022-23 school year, where there is space for the SOC students.

Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Rick Arnett presented the board with enrollment numbers and projections back in December 2021.

According to that presentation, as of Dec. 1, 2021, LOCS enrollment was 6,748 students in grades Developmental Kindergarten (DK) through 12. In-person enrollment made up the majority, with 6,586 students while Dragon Virtual had 162 students.

The 2021-22 school year is the district’s eighth year accepting SOC students.

District data shows that SOC students make up 9.45 percent of students districtwide. Carpenter Elementary has the highest percentage of SOC students (aside from Learning Options) with 13.08 percent of its students being SOC, while Lake Orion High School has the least with just 6.53 percent.

“Our focus has always been, and will continue to be, bringing in those students at the younger grade levels,” Arnett said. “Our main focus each year is to bring in the Ks (Kindergarteners) and the ones (first graders). We feel very adamant that if we get them at a younger (age), we have greater success with those students.”

While SOC does bring money into the district, the district has refrained from adding additional sections to grade levels above Kindergarten and first grade in order to house SOC students, Arnett said. SOC students in those grades fill vacant seats; new seats are not created for them.

“Every year we try to manage and guesstimate how many seats we’re going to have available. I work with Kerri (Anderson, Director of Curriculum at the Elementary level) from Teaching and Learning and we talk through it also,” said Arnett.

School board Treasurer Jake Singer noted that both Blanche Sims (10.34 percent) and Carpenter (13.08 percent) are the only Title 1 elementary schools in the district and are also the only LOCS elementary buildings that exceed 10 percent SOC.

The Title 1 program, according to the Michigan Legislature, is a program “designed to help disadvantaged children meet high academic standards by participating in either a Schoolwide or a Targeted Assistance Program.”

“That was one of the issues we had before we went to all neighborhood schools. That there was an imbalance of SOC (students) between our buildings, and it just happened that one of our Title 1 buildings had the highest percentage,” Singer said. “I just want to be very conscious of how we allocate those spots to the different buildings, so we don’t have any perceived imbalances amongst our schools again.”

Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Heidi Mercer assured the board that Title 1 buildings are taken into consideration and added that schools that qualify as Title 1 buildings one year are not necessarily guaranteed to qualify as Title 1 the next year.

Another thing to keep in mind is the fluidity of enrollment at some schools within the district, Arnett added.