At the time of this appeal hearing, Marcelious Nickelson ("Mars") was a ten-year-old attending the fifth grade in the Hampton-Dumont Community School District. Prior to fifth grade, Mars had attended kindergarten through fourth grade in the Ottumwa Community School District, where he resided with his mother, Appellant Anntoinette Jolley, and his "step-father," to whom his mother was not married. Mars' biological father lives in Cedar Rapids. Mars' biological parents were never married, so a court-ordered custody arrangement was not required when they separated several years ago. Mars has lived with Ms. Jolley all of his life and visited his father in Cedar Rapids during the summer and on some holidays. In March 1999, Ms. Jolley moved away from the "stepfather" in Ottumwa to Geneva to reside with her fiance.

Ms. Jolley appealed the open enrollment denial. Ms. Jolley testified that the reason she didn't file the open enrollment application until August was that when she moved to Geneva, her fiance forgot to tell her about the open enrollment application process that his daughters had been through and she did not know about the deadlines. Therefore, the evidence was undisputed that the reason she did not file the application until August was because she did not know about the open enrollment deadlines until the Hampton-Dumont District's administration called her at the end of August after Mars began his fifth-grade year there.

The issue of residency has been addressed several times in the open enrollment context. Physical presence in the desired district is not accorded much weight if a home has been established in another district. The State Board of Education has been consistent in finding that there is no residency for tuition-free education or enrollment count when the physical presence of the student appears to be solely for school purposes, as is the case here.

In 1984, the Department of Education issued a Declaratory Ruling which answered a series of specific questions on the issue of residence for school purposes. 1 D.P.I. App. Dec. 80 ? Declaratory Rul. #33. As that ruling noted, two sections of the Iowa statutes create the structure surrounding the issue of residence for school purposes. Iowa Code section 282.6 provides in relevant part that "every school shall be free of tuition to all actual residents between the ages of five and twenty-one years" and section 282.1 provides in relevant part that "nonresident children shall be charged the maximum tuition rate as determined in section 282.24." The obvious result of these two sections is that children who are "actual residents" must be provided a tuition-free education, and those children who are not "actual residents" must be charged tuition. Physical presence in the desired district is not accorded much weight if a home has been established in another district. The State Board of Education has been consiste

The decision of the Board of Directors of the Ackley-Geneva Community School District made on September 13, 1999, denying Appellant's late-filed open enrollment application for Marcelious Nickelson for the 1999-2000 school year, was affirmed.