About 500 new non-resident students are expected to enroll in Oak Park schools for next fall, giving the school district a boost with income. But the extra students may put a strain on resources and district officials must work out a way to accommodate the increase.

The deadline to apply for a non-resident permit was Dec. 31. Nearly all of the 500 permit applicants are expected to register this month, said Cliff Moore, assistant superintendent for human resources. The applicants’ home districts will be notified in April.

Overall, enrollment for the 2009-10 school year is 3,815, of which 1,100 are out-of-district students. All but 20 of the current out-of-district students have renewed for next year. Combined with the 500 new permits, the overall non-resident student enrollment will be more than 1,600. For next year, total enrollment with permits is projected at about 4,050. The board of education has approved a maximum capacity of 4,200 students based on current facilities and classroom space, Moore said.

About 190 of the new permits are for elementary school, 100 for middle school and 210 for high school. Enrollment at Oak Park High will rise from 1,200 to about 1,425, according to Moore. There are 309 graduating seniors. The district had projected 242 new kindergartners, but so far registration figures are at 260 and Moore expects that number to increase. Of the 260, 95 are inter-district students.

To accommodate the increase in students, several changes will take place, Moore said. To begin with, up to five teachers will be hired for the middle and high schools.

At the high school, deteriorating and unusable portable buildings will be replaced with two new classrooms by autumn. An unused room in the school’s multipurpose building, known as the Pavilion, will be used. At the middle school, a storage space will be converted into a classroom and computers will be moved to the library, freeing up a room that is being used as a computer lab. Moore said that mobile computer systems have rendered the lab obsolete.

The elementary schools can accommodate the growth without hiring additional teachers, Moore said. Discussions about possibly altering class size are ongoing. Kindergarten through third grades have been capped at 22 students per teacher. The board is considering raising the number to 25 students per class. Fourth and fifth grades will remain capped at 32 students.

Class sizes at Oak Park High and Medea Creek Middle schools are set by teacher contract. Middle school teachers can have no more than about 31 to 34 students per class. At Oak Park High teachers can have no more than about 34 students on average per class. Exceptions are made for large group settings such as physical education, choir and band.

“We intend to maintain that if we can,” Moore said. “We will hire more teachers to keep those ratios the same.”

Before permit students are enrolled, the district reviews resident students to ensure their needs are met, Moore said.

“We have some residents who want to move from one school to another and we try to accommodate them as much as we can unless a grade level is full,” Moore said. “After all that is settled, then we start filling in with our interdistrict students.”

With more state budget cuts in the offing, Oak Park Unified School District has actively sought out-of-district students. The district can receive about $5,000 per student in state funding, a figure that has decreased over the years due to the state’s financial crisis. Currently, out-of-district students generate about $5.5 million for Oak Park. About $3 million of that pays for the 40 teachers and other expenses needed for the permit students, leaving Oak Park with net revenues of more than $2 million, Moore said. “The costs for staffing are not anywhere near the revenues being brought in. Without these students our programs would be decimated,” Moore said. “Our growth percentage-wise will be one of the highest ones in the county, but even with that we’re still looking into the abyss.”

Moore said that the permit program has been a good one for the community.

“I believe that the diversity of Oak Park has been positively impacted. We are much enriched by our interdistrict kids,” Moore said.

Other districts in the area have learned from Oak Park’s example and have begun similar marketing campaigns, he said.

Unlike its neighboring districts, Oak Park became a “district of choice” in 2004 to offset the declining enrollment affecting schools statewide. The program allows a student to attend the public school they want without obtaining permission from their district of residence. Some districts support the program because they believe it encourages them to work harder in order to retain and attract students; others oppose it because state education funding is based on enrollment and they say Oak Park is taking away their revenues.