Thinking about transferring schools? Knox County's window is open. Here's how to do it

For Tonya Cash, taking her children to work with her was preferable to sending them to the school closest to their home.

So Cash applied for a transfer so that her sons, Zac and Zeke, could go to Christenberry Elementary, where she was teaching fifth grade. Later, when her daughter Zoey was ready to start kindergarten, Cash, now assistant principal at Christenberry, applied for a transfer for her as well.

Cash arrived at school early and stayed late, so drop-off and pick-up at a different school across town would have been difficult. Her husband, a lieutenant with the Knoxville Police Department, has a schedule that varies, so there was no certainty he could pick up the children from the schools they were zoned for every day.

Having her sons at school with her — and later close by at her alma mater Fulton High, where Zac graduated and Zeke is now a junior — was a tremendous help.

And Cash loves Christenberry, a state Reward School this year.

“I know firsthand the academics at Christenberry are stellar, and we have amazing teachers who will love my kids,” she said.

Christenberry was a better fit for her family for another big reason, she said: The North Knoxville elementary school is about half minority students. The elementary school her family is zoned for is now 70% white. At the time her sons transferred, the percentage of minority students was much smaller.

“My kids are biracial, so it’s important to me that they have a peer group that looks like them,” Cash said. “Christenberry demographics are reflective of the world they will grow up in and have to interact and maneuver through.”

Some transfers get priority

About 450 children of Knox County Schools employees apply for transfers to the school where a parent works, said Russ Oaks, chief operating officer for the school system. 

Whenever possible, the school system grants their requests.

“We try to accommodate all employees’ children,” Oaks said. “There are not a lot of perks (to being a school employees), but that’s something we can do to help.”

The school system’s window for transfer applications opened this month and will end in February 2020. Staff transfers are among a handful of situations that get priority, Oaks said.

Others include situations when:

• A sibling is enrolled in the school the student is transferring to (twins, triplets and other multiples are counted as a single transfer request);
• a student has specific medical or educational needs and has an Individualized Education Program that could not be met at the school he or she is zoned for;
• a student was attending a Project GRAD school and wants to continue that program;
• a student wants to transfer to the Beaumont Magnet Honors Academy or the International Baccalaureate Programme at West High School, for which they first take a test administered by the school;
• a student is zoned for a state-designed “priority school,” which is in the bottom 5% of schools statewide in test scores over the past three years;
• or when a student wants to pursue a specific course of study — a minimum of two years, not a single class — that’s not available at the school he or she is zoned for. This can be an academic course or a Career Technical Education course.

Some schools offer different studies

The ability to take a different course of study is the reason Wendy Lowe transferred her children to Halls schools. 

Lowe has since moved to Halls but transferred her daughter and son, who are now seniors, to Halls High School during their freshman year. Another son, now 19, graduated from Halls last year.

Lowe said that her children didn’t have the opportunity to take certain courses of study at the high school her children for which they were zoned. One son, for example, wanted to take career technical studies but also a foreign language, a combination not offered at the zoned school, she said.

Both sons took engineering courses at Halls. She said one of her daughters, who had an IEP, did not score high enough on standardized tests to take the health sciences courses at her zoned school. But Halls is set up differently, and she’s been able to take health sciences courses there.

“I was desperate for my kids to get the same opportunities as everyone else, regardless of their test scores,” Lowe said. “Some kids aren't good test takers. That doesn't mean they don't deserve to go to college.”

Halls also offers soccer for her middle school student and wrestling and Powder Puff football for the older kids. Their zoned schools did not, she said.

“They have so many more sports (and) clubs ...” Lowe said.

Transfer process has evolved 

Lowe’s students did not fall into any of the priority categories for transfer — her daughter’s IEP could be fulfilled at the school she was zoned for — so she made sure to get on the transfer waiting list early in the transfer window.

A decade ago, the school system did the list differently. Parents would come, in person, to schools the day the transfer window opened, to ensure they were among the first in line for consideration.

“We had people lining up Sunday night at the schools,” Oaks said. “We spent the next week arbitrating time stamps. … That had to stop.”

Around 10 years ago, Knox County Board of Education rewrote the transfer policy to increase “flexibility and access,” Oaks said.

Now the school system accepts transfer applications twice a year, from October to February, and from May to July. Applications can be completed online, mailed in, or completed and turned in at the schools or the school system’s main office.

Parents list their top three choices of schools for transfer, and “every effort will be made, based on space available, to offer a transfer to one of the three identified schools,” the policy states.

Knox County Schools does not provide transportation for transfer students, except for those with special needs who are attending schools specifically to meet those needs.

Once applications are in, they’re forwarded to the school office, entered into a database and randomly assigned a number. That lottery is how the school system fills available slots in schools once priority transfers are met.

The school system fields about 3,000 transfer requests a year. Around 15% of Knox County students go to a school other than the one for which they’re zoned.

For schools with more transfer requests than space, the school system sets up a waiting list. It keeps filling slots until the first day of school, adding transfer students as spaces open.

In March, Oaks said, the school system will mail out letters to parents who requested transfers during this window. Immediately, he said, some parents will notify the school system they no longer want a transfer, and the waiting list will come into play.

“It happens over and over and over again throughout the county,” Oaks said.

There’s an appeals process if a transfer is denied, but most are resolved by the waiting list, he said.

Another change the board made when it rewrote the policy: Once a child receives a transfer, it’s good until the child finishes that school — fifth grade for elementary, eighth for middle, 12th for high school — as long as the child has good attendance and makes an effort to succeed. Previously, parents had to apply for a new transfer each year to keep their child in the same school.

Oaks said the waiting list moves rapidly, and most transfers are granted one of their three choices.

“We just tell them to be patient,” he said.