Fire up the School Buses, Normandy agrees to pay to transport students to Francis Howell

The latest saga in the transfer of students from unaccredited to accredited districts is the announcement that Normandy has decided to pay for transportation of their students only to the Francis Howell school district. No, not Hazelwood, University City, Parkway or Pattonville, but far across the Missouri River to Francis Howell. Granted Francis Howell is a larger district which can better handle an influx of incoming students, but that is quite a distance and with Francis Howell starting classes at an early August 8, that gives the schools and the parents little time to prepare. Ironically classes start on August 19 in Normandy, so the transfer students will start 11 days earlier than their neighbors who stay behind.

I am curious if one of the reasons why Normandy picked Francis Howell was because it was a top performing district where the per student cost is not as high as most of the St. Louis County schools. If you look on the DESE site you can see where the average student expenditure per ADA (average daily attendance) is for every district. I noticed Pattonville's number of $14.368 was almost exactly the $14,400 they were going to charge per transfer student to the unaccredited districts. Francis Howell's is a substantially lower $9,830 for 2012, $3,500 lower per student than what Pattonville was going to charge. Even neighboring Hazelwood (a substantially lower performing district than Francis Howell) spent $10,493 per student in 2012, a bit more than Francis Howell. So perhaps the "price tag" of the selected district was a substantial reason why Normandy officials opted to send their students out to St. Charles. If you look at districts like Clayton ($18,372 per student), Brentwood ($17,187), Parkway ($12,120), or Ladue ($11,904) the Francis Howell price looks like a steal.

Normandy has posted very detailed guidelines on what parents must do to get their children registered to attend Francis Howell with very specific dates. After July 18 registration will only be available by appointment only, with no registration after July 31. I will be very curious to see the final number of students who agree to take the long bus ride to the Francis Howell schools. I will also be interested to see how many will choose to attend other, closer districts with their own parents providing the transportation. I hope the FHSD schools will be prepared to handle the increase of students and can give the Normandy students the education they deserve. I am guessing the only families who sign up will be from households with dedicated parents and students who want a better environment for learning.