The number of students who live in the county and attend school in another district continues to increase. But so does the number of students from outside the county who choose to come and learn here.
This year, 1,933 public school students are registered as living in Brown County, but 231 of them attend a public, charter or private school outside the district.
Last fall, 200 of the 1,964 students who lived in Brown County attended classes outside the district, according to the Public Corporation Transfer Report released by the Indiana Department of Education.
Those figures do not include all home-schooled students in the county, who do not have to register with the state unless they also take some classes in a school.
The transfer report comes twice a school year — once in the fall and once in the spring. It is used by school districts to help understand where students are choosing to go.
According to the report last fall, 40 students were coming to Brown County to attend school who did not have legal settlement here. This fall, that number is up to 58 students. “We’re really, really happy to see that,” said Superintendent Laura Hammack.
Some of those students may be the children of district employees who live outside of the county, but that doesn’t account for all of them, she said.
“What I would like to believe is that folks are beginning to really understand the opportunities that are being offered over here and they are choosing us,” Hammack said.
“When you choose Brown County, you’re choosing effort, because to get to us is not easy. You’re going after something if you’re choosing to come to school here, and we think that’s really something to celebrate.”
This is the third year a report has been released in the fall, which means trends are starting to appear, Hammack said.
In fall 2017-2018, the number of students registered as living in the county was 2,046. It is now 1,933 — a decrease of 113 students. This correlates with “student count day” data that has shown a generally decreasing population of students in Brown County Schools.
The top three districts where local students attend instead of Brown County remain the same: Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson United School District (Indian Creek), followed by Bartholomew County and Monroe County schools.
For fall 2019-2020, 116 students are going to NHJ, with 28 going to Bartholomew County and 23 going to Monroe County.
“NHJ is where we see a steady increase — not a substantial increase, but there is definitely an increase every year,” Hammack said.
Last fall, 107 students living in Brown County attended school at NHJ.
With 58 students transferring in to attend school here, and 231 choosing to go somewhere else, the net financial impact for the school district is over $1 million in lost tuition support from the state. The district receives about $6,000 per student. That money goes into a district’s general fund, which pays the salaries of teachers and staff. In recent years, the district has been in a mode of cutting expenses in light of declining tuition support.
But Brown County is not the only school district in the state to lose students to another district.
Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation has 372 students choosing to go elsewhere. NHJ has 171, and Monroe County has 747.
Richland-Bean Blossom Community School Corporation has 385 students going elsewhere, and Spencer-Owen Community Schools had 402, according to the report. Both those districts are similarly sized to Brown County, Hammack said.
“I think many times folks think that number is just us, that we are the only district in the state that is losing kids to choice,” Hammack said.
Why do students leave?
The reasons why families choose to send their students elsewhere is sometimes due to convenience. Parents who work outside of Brown County may choose to enroll their children in a district that’s on their way to work.
Some families may transfer because of academic programs or athletic offerings.
For families who do leave the district, an exit survey is given. But most of the time, that survey is completed by families who are moving out of the state and not by those who leave for other reasons, like being unhappy.
Bullying may also be a reason families take their children out of local schools. That is a reason commenters sometimes mention when stories about enrollment are posted on the Brown County Democrat’s Facebook page.
“We own the bullying piece, and absolutely are sympathetic to families who feel like they need to leave Brown County to change the conditions for their child,” Hammack said.
“Our fundamental responsibility is to keep students safe, protected, comfortable, confident in their life here within the walls of this school district,” she said.
“Any time you hear stories where a child feels like that has not been their experience, we feel like we failed. Every situation that we are honored with the ability to understand the ‘why’ is taken with such gratitude and sincerity. We use that information to do better.”
Hammack said it is important for parents and guardians to always report bullying concerns.
“It’s hard when we don’t get the benefit of knowing the story, so that we can do better. That’s where I think sometimes I struggle with the Facebook posts, because many times we don’t know what happened in that situation so we could improve or do better,” she said.
“I have to believe that if we know what’s happening, then we’ll do better. There is no doubt that many times we are gifted with that information and students still feel like there is not enough that is being done. We have not cracked the code. But we are working so hard in order to make sure that kids are feeling better about their day.”
Each week, teachers are using a curriculum that deals with bullying in classrooms from kindergarten to eighth grade.
“It doesn’t necessarily name bullying every week, but it is naming the way in which we treat each other in kindness and in respect and ways in which we can support each other emotionally and socially, so that bullying isn’t even an option. We just don’t have space for it in our relationships,” Hammack said.
“We have not fixed bullying. We are deeply committed to fixing bullying. I would encourage any family that might feel like they have not been heard to give us that honor of hearing them.”
One way students and parents can report bullying is through the district’s SafeSchools Alert system at brownco-in.safeschoolsalert.com. Reports can be anonymous and made by phone, text, email or the website.
Hammack said that tool is not being utilized much for bullying reports.
“It might be more like reporting as a friend, like ‘I saw so-and-so be mean to so-and-so. I’m not in it, but you need to know that this is happening,’ those sorts of things. It could be the reporter was actually one of those people; we don’t know,” she said.
“The principals, within 10 or 15 minutes, they will have these things already addressed. … Report, report, report, because if we don’t know, we can’t do anything about it, and those are those hard conversations.”
For an incident to be defined as bullying and submitted to the state for data-gathering purposes, multiple boxes have to be checked per Indiana Code. Those include a perceived or real power imbalance between the people involved, and that the behavior is repeated or has the potential to be repeated over time.
“The problem with the law is that there is a stipulated definition for bullying, and hitting each component of that definition is where it doesn’t translate. When you have a condition where each one of the stipulations is satisfied, then you have, per the eyes of the law, a situation of bullying,” Hammack said.
“Many times, a family feels like a behavior is bullying. It feels like it, but it’s not defined per statute. … You even have to check off each one of the conditions and if you don’t have a condition, it’s not submitted.”
Hammack said she has heard of families who have withdrawn their child from public school to homeschool them due to bullying.
According to this fall’s transfer report, less than 10 students are attending a virtual school.
“Many of those, we know, are those students who withdraw to homeschool and then they connect that way. We don’t know with our heart and soul, but that’s what we’re told is happening many times with a family. When you see those numbers, we try to correlate those to those conversations, but you never really know,” she said.
Home-schooled students are not necessarily included in the transfer report because they don’t have to report to a state agency.
If bullying is happening outside of school hours and it becomes a school issue by interfering with the school day, Hammack said the district works to address the behavior.
But sometimes pulling everyone in for a meeting is not the best resolution for a bullied child. And sometimes the bully is dealing with issues outside of school that are also complex, so the way the district handles those situations varies.
BCS online school?
Last year, Hammack mentioned the district possibly offering an online schooling option to help capture students who are getting their education from another online school.
That idea was piloted with two Brown County High School students who were in need of a nontraditional school day in order to graduate on time.
However, the idea of BCS offering a comprehensive program online has been paused after another school district in the state was recently found to be accepting students out of its boundary into its online school. “There was negative outcry from the state board of education, the department of education, every governing body for education. That allowed for us to kind of take an opportunity to say, ‘Probably not the right time for us to build something that might be dismantled,’” Hammack said.
But offering an online option to high school students already attending school here is something the district can do for students in need of a nontraditional school day due to health or family reasons.
“We’re small enough where we can literally develop kind of these individualized programs for kids that’ll allow for them to walk across that stage at graduation,” Hammack said.
The district is also working to build a relationship with the local homeschool network. For example, Brown County Intermediate School is allowing for a group of homeschoolers to use space there in the evenings for a debate team.
If a homeschooler attends a few classes at a Brown County school, then the district can receive some tuition support from the state for that student. Attending classes also allows for the homeschool student to participate in extracurricular activities and athletics.
“We’re trying to bridge and build a relationship, build some trust and let folks know there are options with us, and that we can still respect their decision and absolutely honor that decision, but there might be some neat ways to be able to access some services,” Hammack said.
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Some families who live in Brown County have decided to transfer from Brown County schools to other public schools in surrounding counties.
116 students attend Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson United School District.
28 students attend Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation.
23 students attend Monroe County Community School Corporation.
9 attend Union School Corporation.
7 students attend Franklin Community School Corporation.
2 students attend Greenwood Community School Corporation.
1 student attends MSD Martinsville Schools.
1 student attends Flat Rock-Hawcreek School Corporation.
1 student attends Clark-Pleasant Community School Corporation.
1 student attends Southwestern Consolidated School District of Shelby County.
3 students attend school in Franklin Township Community School Corporation, MSD Wabash County Schools or Richmond Community Schools due to a state mandate or foster placement.
The following number of students attend charter schools instead of Brown County schools:
4 students attend Indiana Connections Academy (online).
3 students attend Indiana Agriculture and Technology.
2 students attend Seven Oaks Classical School.
1 student attends Herron Charter.
1 student attends Options Charter School in Carmel.
1 student attends Insight School of Indiana.
1 student attends Purdue Polytechnic High School Indiana.
The following students are using state-provided Choice scholarships to attend private, faith-based schools:
9 students attend Columbus Christian School Inc.
5 students attend Tabernacle Christian School.
3 students attend White Creek Lutheran School.
2 students attend Greenwood Christian Academy.
2 students attend St. John Lutheran School.
2 students attend St. Peter’s Lutheran School.
1 student attends Suburban Christian School.
1 students attends St. Bartholomew School.
1 student attends Lutheran High School.
SOURCE: Indiana Department of Education
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As defined by Indiana law, bullying means overt, unwanted, repeated acts or gestures, including verbal or written communications or images transmitted in any manner (including digitally or electronically); physical acts committed; aggression; or any other behaviors committed by a student or group of students against another student with the intent to harass, ridicule, humiliate, intimidate or harm the other student and create for the targeted student an objectively hostile school environment that places the targeted student in reasonable fear of harm to the targeted student’s person or property; has a substantially detrimental effect on the targeted student’s physical or mental health; has the effect of substantially interfering with the targeted student’s academic performance; or has the effect of substantially interfering with the targeted student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities and privileges provided by the school.
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