Related articles:

Mesa may join TUSD in closing of schools 42 schools fail fed assessment TUSD to brief new leader on challenges Four TUSD elementary schools may be shuttered 4 targeted TUSD schools stay open, for now at leastThe more things change ... TUSD history repeats TUSD's fate now up to parents, legislators Schools promote students despite widespread failure TUSD must show how it is serving students Tucson school 'best in nation'

Other articles by Nathan Olivarez-giles:

Activist exhorts kids to stay in school 2 schools headed to Science Olympiad Lack of permanent math teacher decried MathCounts competition today in Vail Temen sentimiento anti-hispano El cambio demográfico podría causar los cambios políticos Tucson's first baby of 2008 lacks a name but has love in abundance One suspect in 'road rage' rollover dies TUSD's first black high school principal dies 2 brothers sought in abduction-torture-robbery case

Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President Construction
West-Press
Printing Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Finance and Accounting
Charles E. Gillman Company
Accounting Specialist Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic Health Care
Dependable Health Services
Physical Therapists Health Care
CENTRAL ARIZONA COLLEGE
DIRECTOR OF HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

The Tucson Unified School District stands to lose hundreds of students next year — and the millions of dollars in funding that go with them — the result of enrollment policy changes and attendance trends.

The district's budget planning for next year projects a loss of only about 200 students and about $760,000 in funding, said Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer, but that doesn't factor in how many students will be lost to other districts now that students can transfer out of TUSD.

Since fall, the Catalina Foothills and Tanque Verde school districts have been actively courting TUSD students. Their efforts have worked.

More than 400 TUSD students will be in classrooms outside the district next fall, which only complicates the district's future as it faces a $7.8 million budget shortfall, possible school closures and an increasingly downward enrollment trend.

That means TUSD could lose around another $1.5 million in per-pupil funds from the state.

But TUSD won't officially know how many students it will lose to other districts until registration in late August, said David Scott, TUSD director of accountability and research.

"The reality is, every year we don't know how many kids are going to show up on the first day," he said. "That's how we start every year, and that's how we'll start next year."

TUSD hopes to curb the losses by allocating $25,000 for an "awareness campaign" that it will launch in mid-May. The campaign is aimed at keeping students from going to other districts, as well as winning back parents of students in private and charter schools, said Joe Bidwell, a TUSD marketing specialist. The campaign is set to include mailed fliers along with magazine, TV and radio ads.

But some say the proposed marketing plan might be too little, too late.

"We're already competing with charter schools. Now we have to compete with neighboring districts. And at the same time as all this, we're talking about closing schools and cutting programs," said Ann-Eve Pedersen, founder of the Tucson Unified School Supporters, an advocacy group formed earlier this year. She is a former Arizona Daily Star metro editor.

"We have to give parents incentive to stay within the district, and we need to do a better job of letting families know about all the good things that are here."

Enrollment numbers could drop even further if the TUSD Governing Board votes to close four schools at the end of this month, Pedersen said.

TUSD has said closing the four schools could save an estimated $1.8 million.

However, a survey conducted by Pedersen's group at three of the four elementary schools up for closure — Corbett, Rogers and Wrightstown — says nearly 300 students will leave TUSD if the schools close, a loss of more than $1 million in funding.

"If we keep losing more kids, we're going to be closing more schools, and it will just continue to aggravate the problems within the district," Pedersen said.

The problems will make it even harder for TUSD to remain competitive, she said.

The Catalina Foothills School District launched its $10,000 marketing program in December, and Tanque Verde started in January, though both were receiving applications last fall.

Catalina sent out around 45,000 fliers, mostly in TUSD, said Mary Kamerzell, Catalina superintendent.

Tanque Verde also sent out fliers and went a step further with TV ads that ran on "Super Tuesday," March 4.

Kelly Coleman and her husband, Greg, are among those leaving. They have three sons in TUSD's schools. Hunter is in sixth grade at Townsend Middle School, while twins Harrison and Karsten are in fifth grade at Fruchthendler Elementary School, 7470 E. Cloud Road.

Harrison and Karsten will attend Esperero Canyon Middle School, 5801 N. Sabino Canyon Road, in Catalina Foothills next year. The couple are deciding between keeping Hunter at Townsend or moving him to Esperero Canyon too.

"They don't have the resources to challenge my son," Kelly Coleman said. "Hunter would stay at Townsend if it were up to him, but it's not, and we need to do what's best."

Coleman cites Esperero Canyon's recognition as a Blue Ribbon School, a national title recognizing excellence in public and private schools, as one reason for the move.

"It's a short-term fix for us, but for TUSD it's a big, long-term problem," she said. "I don't want to see schools closing or resources being taken away because parents are leaving TUSD, but they can't provide the programs other districts can."

While students enrolling in other districts is new for TUSD, declining enrollment isn't — it's at least a decade-long trend.

Since the 1997-98 school year, when TUSD enrollment peaked at around 63,000 students, there has been a loss of nearly 300 to 500 students per year, Scott said.

But this year, TUSD saw a drop of 1,200 students — an abnormally high number, he said, making it nearly impossible to plan for next year's enrollment, let alone worry about students going to other districts.

Bidwell cites charter and private schools as a major reason TUSD enrollment has dropped. He doesn't see Tanque Verde's and Catalina Foothills' efforts as having much of an impact.

"Families who live on the border of our district and another, when they see a school across the street that their children can't go to and they have to travel further for their school — that's just something we can't compete with," Bidwell said.

"But there are thousands of students in the core of our district that are going to charter schools or private schools, so it just makes more sense to try and reach them."

TUSD expects that about 2,000 students will return to the district as a result of the upcoming campaign, Bidwell said.

The ads will be paired with signs on buses and research into what programs parents and students would most like to see in their schools, he said.

Once that research is complete in spring 2009, TUSD schools may develop a focus on subjects such as math and engineering, computer science or performing arts, Bidwell said.

But some parents say the programs that TUSD wants to build already exist in other districts.

And other districts are happy to build their enrollment.

"In the last three years, we've had a trend downward in enrollment, which we attribute to unaffordable housing within our district," Kamerzell said. "So we do look to open-enrollment students as a way to fill in those gaps, and every year we are taking in more and more."

This year, 497 students, or 10.7 percent of Catalina Foothills' student body, are open-enrollment students.

Since the "Choose CFSD" campaign began in December, Kamerzell said, Catalina Foothills has received more than 480 new open-enrollment applications — about 340 of them from TUSD families.

The majority of those students will be accepted, she said, though a definitive number has yet to be reached. The students should bring an extra $1.5 million in funding, Kamerzell said.

Like TUSD, Tanque Verde is facing a budget deficit for the next school year and beyond.

"We'd be short about a million bucks in our case if we were to get not a single open-enrollment student," said Steven Auslander, a member of the Tanque Verde Governing Board.

Tanque Verde hasn't finalized how many TUSD students it will accept, he said, but it's expected to be between 100 and 180.