In September 1999, Mrs. Freese requested an open enrollment application from the District. The District sent her an application for the 2000-01 school year, along with information about the Open Enrollment Law and related procedures. Mrs. Freese submitted the application to the District, which received it on September 20, 1999. The heading on the application was altered to indicate that it was for the 1999-00 school year in addition to the 2000-01 school year. A portion of the application asks whether the request is because the parents have changed their district of residence and want the student to remain in the original district with no interruption in educational program. The Freeses marked the "no" response to this question. The Board met on October 20, 1999, and denied the application because it was not timely filed.

Superintendent Hartman testified that the Board's policy is to deny open enrollment applications for elementary students unless they meet the filing deadlines in the Open Enrollment Law. The Board would consider an application with special circumstances if sufficient information about those circumstances were supplied. In this case, the Board had only the open enrollment application upon which to base its decision.

This case represents the need to balance several important but often competing interests under the Open Enrollment Law: the need for parents to observe statutory timelines and procedures in order to enjoy the right to open enroll their children; the need for school boards to be flexible in applying those guidelines and procedures when it is necessary to accommodate an unusual set of circumstances and the best interest of the children involved. Even if the continuation box on the Freeses' open enrollment application had been marked, "yes," the Freeses had also missed the deadline for notifying the District.

There was no evidence in the record that the Freeses had complied with this rule. The third Thursday of the next September fell on September 17, 1999. The District did not receive the application from the Freeses until September 20, 1999.

The present case, however, does not involve a situation where the parents did not realize that they had moved into a new school district. In addition, the Freeses had previously used the open enrollment laws when they moved to Stanhope and had reason to know that there were deadlines involved with the process.

The decision of the Board of Directors of the Grand Community School District, made on October 20, 1999, denying the Appellant's open enrollment application for being filed late, was affirmed.