[Backwoods]

Open enrollment as it is called is a local issue. Any school board my choose to permit out of district students to enroll. They also set the fee that is paid.

If a student pay's the tuition they can attend any school they want. Sometime's County school's and Independent city school's in the same county have agreement's where any student can enroll at whichever school,the city or the county,they choose. This was the case at Harlan Co. until recently. With the economy and the decline in population and the cost of building of the new high school the county is going back to honoring district boundaries and paying the tuition. It's a very touchy subject in Harlan Co. right now. The city wants students to have the choice to go where they want without paying the tuition and recieve the gov't funding and the county wants students to pay tuition if they cross district boundaries. I can't really blame either for wanting what they do. With the decline in population and Harlan Co. losing an estimated 1% of it's population yearly (per the Harlan Daily Enterprise). Both school's are suffering economically and probably the county school more because of the building costs. I think Harlan Co. High School has lost nearly 500 students since opening their doors a very few years back. When they opened I think their enrollment was around 1900 and now somewhere around 1400 or maybe even a little less. But,if a school goes under it will likely be Harlan Ind. that is forced to consolidate with the county. It's a sad situation really. Both school's should be aloud to thrive. Harlan Ind. has been around for over a 100 years and the alum's are proud of that. I think the same thing is going on with Corbin school's.