By Scott Harvey
Commerce – The Commerce ISD hopes a policy change will help attract more transfer students this coming school year.
School board members Monday night approved a change to its interdistrict transfer guidelines, allowing students who live outside the district to apply for transfer at any time, provided they meet requirements for attendance, academic achievement and conduct. Previous policy enforced a May 1 application deadline and didn't require a transfer student meet certain academic criteria.
According to Personnel and Communications Director Ludonna Smithers, Commerce ISD had 70 transfer students last year. Most transfer students live within about a 30 mile radius of the city. Transfer applications are available at www.commerceisd.org.
The School Board also Monday approved the 2011-2012 budget and tax rate, which shows a slight surplus due to remaining stimulus dollars and cuts of more than $900,000 earlier this spring to allow for state budget cuts. The total budget of $15,015,340 narrowly exceeds expenditures.
The district's maintenance and operation tax rate of $1.17 remained the same. The interest and sinking tax rate increased slightly, by .0014 percent, due to a drop in appraised properly values.