The long-running practice of accepting out of district transfers has ended in the Lakeland Joint School District 272. 

Out-of-district transfers are students who do not live within school zoning but are still allowed to attend schools inside the 272 district. Lakeland has had relatively low class sizes, but with those numbers on the rise, the school board has decided to repeal this policy. 

Lakeland is the first district in the area to repeal this policy, however, other districts may follow suit

The reason that class sizes are on the rise can be attributed to the skyrocketing population of areas that are within the district boundaries. The population growth in Rathdrum is obvious based on the quantity of new housing developments in the city’s limits. 

However, Rathdrum is not the only city that is on the rise and also in the district. Spirit Lake and Athol are also rising in population, and those are zoned for Timberlake High School, which is within the district, as well. 

All these factors considered, it becomes clear why the board has opted to no longer allow transfers that are out of district. 

Not only will this affect Lakeland schools but also other districts in the area, because some will go to a different school since they cannot apply to go to Lakeland.

If you are an out of district transfer — do not worry. You are “grandfathered” in and cannot be removed now that you have been accepted. 

In the past applying was a long process, having to fill out a multitude of forms and other assorted paperwork and submit that to the district office. Year after year this was the process, even if a student had already been admitted the forms needed to be reviewed the following year. 

Considering the time consuming nature of the application process, parents and students will be relieved to know that they will not be removed from the district. 

“Lakeland has a deal with Genesis Prep where we take their students if they want to dual enroll, but they do not take classes on campus,” Tomia Browning, the school’s registrar, said. 

This essentially means they can take online NIC/NNU classes through LHS, and KTEC classes, but do not come to campus. 

Those students amount to around 20 at the moment, with 11 new ones coming in. However, that does not hold much of an impact because they do not go here in person.

As far as out of district transfers go that are unaffiliated with Genesis Prep, but just want to attend the school, those are all being denied even with special circumstances. The only ones that are attending LHS are people that are already in.

However there are only three to five students who are grandfathered in. 

When asked about the reasoning behind this change, school board members had not replied to multiple requests for comment at the time of press.