These four appeals were consolidated for hearing because they all involved late-filed open enrollment applications for the second semester of the 1997-98 school year. All of the Appellants' children have been approved for open enrollment to the Ackley-Geneva Community School District for the 1998-99 school year. The subject of this appeal is the parents' requests that their children be allowed to open enroll for the second semester of the present school year. Appellants relied on the fact that the local board had previously granted two late-filed open enrollment applications. However, the evidence showed that the Board stated detailed reasons for granting these exceptions in the minutes of the Board meeting at which these decisions were made. Because of that, the local board would only be obligated to approve late-filed applications of the same factual nature. The hearing panel and the administrative law judge did not find that the situations presented by these four Appellants fit within the two narrow exceptions previously granted by the District Board. The evidence showed that the motivating factors for these students to open enroll at the semester break as opposed to September 1998 was so that they would not be ineligible to compete in football and volleyball in the Fall of 1998 as required under the athletic rules.

It is recommended that the decision of the Board of Directors of the Wellsburg-Steamboat Rock Community School District made on December 8, 1997, which denied the Appellants' late-filed requests for open enrollment for their children for the second semester of the 1997-98 school year, be affirmed.