Keller ISD Seeks Exchange-Student Limit
Posted on: Friday, 23 June 2006, 18:00 CDT
By Jessamy Brown, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
Jun. 23--KELLER -- School district officials will ask the state for permission to limit enrollment of high school foreign-exchange students because of a lack of space in the fast-growing district.
The district’s request follows a complaint filed by a foreign-exchange organization, saying that the district is reneging on promises to admit 15 foreign students.
Under a state agreement, the district can accept up to 15 exchange students per year, but district policy limits the number to five such students per high school. In December, trustees barred transfer students and exchange students at Central and Keller high schools for the 2006-07 school year because of overcrowding. That leaves the district with only five open slots for exchange students at Fossil Ridge High School.
But after a California-based exchange-student organization complained to the Texas Education Agency, state officials told Keller administrators that they must accept 15 students unless the district amends its agreement, Keller Superintendent James Veitenheimer said.
Trustees on Thursday voted to ask the state to change the agreement so that the district would accept only those exchange students who have been accepted or submitted applications for the 2006-07 school year. All would attend Fossil Ridge.
Five exchange students have been approved for next school year and at least three more have asked to be admitted, Veitenheimer said.
For 2007-08, the district would accept up to five exchange students per high school, depending on whether the campus is open to transfers, under the proposal. Veitenheimer said he anticipates that Central and Keller will still be too crowded to accept transfers or exchange students that year.
Yvette Coffman, Southwest Regional Administrator of Educational Resource Development Trust/SHARE! High School Exchange Program, said the group complained to the state because they initially believed there were 15 openings for exchange students in Keller schools. The group was then told that no more slots were available.
"We did a lot of work to find families," said Coffman, who works in the group’s Allen office.
www.sharesouthwest.org
www.kellerisd.net
Jessamy Brown, 817-685-3876
jessamybrown@star-telegram.com
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Copyright (c) 2006, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
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Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas)
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