Quentin Bohall, a non-minority student who resides in the District, will enter kindergarten for the 2001-2002 school year. Quentin's assigned attendance center is Oak Park Elementary School. His mother, Peggy Bohall, applied for open enrollment to Saydel for the following reasons: The family resides close to the boundary between the Des Moines and the Saydel Districts. They want to live in Saydel, but have not been able to locate a suitable house in Saydel. The Bohalls have friends in Saydel and want Quentin to attend school there because it is a smaller district than the Des Moines District. Mrs. Bohall filed a timely application for Quentin to open enroll out of the Des Moines District for the 2001-2002 school year. Mrs. Bohall's application for open enrollment was denied on April 3, 2001, because the District determined that the departure of this student would adversely affect the composite ratio of minority to non-minority students for the District as a whole.

Dr. Jeschke further testified that the District has a formally adopted desegregation plan and open enrollment policy (Des Moines Board Policy Code 639). The policy prohibits granting open enrollment when the transfer would adversely impact the District's desegregation plan. The District determines eligibility or ineligibility of each applicant for open enrollment on a case-by-case basis.Between July 1, 2000, and January 1, 2001, the District received 104 open enrollment applications. For the 2000-2001 school year, 8 minority students applied for open enrollment. Using the composite ratio of 1:2.53, the District determined that 20 non-minority students would be approved for open enrollment (8 x 2.53= 20.4). Of the 96 non-minority applicants, 24 were determined to be ineligible because they were assigned to a building closed to open enrollment. The Board denied Mrs. Bohall's application on April 3, 2001.

Mrs. Bohall has valid reasons for requesting open enroll-ment. She is genuinely interested in what is best for Quentin and is seeking to obtain it by filing for open enrollment. If the Des Moines District did not have a desegregation plan, there is no question that she could open enroll Quentin as requested, as long as the application was filed in a timely manner. However, the District does have such a plan. The District's open en-rollment policy contains objective criteria for determining when open enrollment transfers would adversely impact its desegre-gation plan as required by Iowa Code ?282.18(2)(2001). The policy establishes criteria for closing certain buildings to open enrollment (Policy Code 639). The policy also includes a provision for maintaining a district-wide ratio of minority to non-minority students (Policy Code 639).

The Des Moines District's open enrollment policy has been upheld by the Polk County District Court in Des Moines Ind. Comm. Sch. Dist. v. Iowa Dept. of Education, AA2432(June 1, 1995). That decision upheld the Des Moines District Board's right to deny timely-filed open enrollment applications using the building-closed-to-open enrollment provision and the district-wide composite ratio.

The facts in the record at the appeal hearing do not show that the District's policy was inappropriately or incorrectly applied to the facts of this case. Therefore, the Board's decision to deny Mrs. Bohall's application was reasonable and in the best interest of education.

That the decision of the Board of Directors of the Des Moines Independent Community School District, made on April 3, 2001, denying the open enrollment application for Quentin Bohall, is affirmed.