Quaker Valley School District no longer accepting tuition students

Quaker Valley School District is no longer accepting tuition students.

The school board unanimously voted on March 25 to update the district’s policy on nonresident students, including terminating the section that permits them to attend Quaker Valley if they pay tuition.

The district currently has four tuition students, all in secondary education.

Assistant Superintendent Andrew Surloff said they are all grandfathered in and will be able to finish their education at Quaker Valley if they choose to.

Missy Walls, board member and policy committee chair, said she could not recall any requests from families in recent years seeking to enroll via tuition.

“I think that the policy was a good policy while we had it, but it was time for the district to look to the future,” she said. “We were one of the very few districts in the area doing that, so it’s unusual. I think it did offer a good benefit for people that were able to take advantage of that because Quaker Valley is such a good school district.”

District officials had a first reading of the proposed policy changes in February. It was posted on the district’s website and people were able to comment on the matter prior to the vote.

“We did not receive any communications about it,” Surloff said. “Anybody that does not have an otherwise legal right to be a nonresident student attending Quaker Valley will no longer have the option to pay tuition to be a student at Quaker Valley.”

A recent change in due process language by state Department of Education led to the policy review.

Financial concerns were also a factor.

Elementary tuition in Quaker Valley was $16,265. Secondary education tuition was $21,826 and tuition for special education was about $40,000.

“If somebody enrolls in your district as a tuition student and then they need very expensive services beyond what the cost of the tuition would be, that cost would have to have been borne by the district and, obviously, by the taxpayers,” Surloff said. “There’s some financial benefit to having tuition students. It was more risk prevention. The potential risk of something financial or the potential of students that maybe had safety issues in their prior schools to just simply attend our schools (via tuition).”

The average cost per Quaker Valley student is about $33,300 using the formula of total school year budget divided by enrollment.

The district’s 2024-25 budget is about $60.6 million with total enrollment at about 1,820 students.

Quaker Valley is at least the second school district in Allegheny County to nix the tuition student idea this year.

Riverview School District officials in February decided to pause any action on permitting tuition students after administration officials informed the board the idea seemed to have more risks than benefits.

Riverview’s current policy, passed in 2012 and mirroring most other districts, allows nonresident students to attend the district only in special circumstances, such as court placement, change in guardianship or homelessness.