SAUK RAPIDS -- The Sauk Rapids-Rice School District has adopted a new enrollment policy that will temporarily close open-enrollment and cap it for the future at the state minimum.

The new policy sets limits for different grade levels. Starting next year, the district has set a limit for an enrollment level of 300 students at the kindergarten level, 320 students per grades 1-5 and 340 students for 6-12.

Open enrollment is capped at one percent per grade, as that's the lowest state law allows.

Superintendent Aaron Sinclair says they did several months of work to form this new policy. Saying they know the worst space issues are in the elementary levels.

"Currently we have less physical space at the elementary level, so when we developed the caps, we worked backward in terms of thinking how many students do we want in individual classrooms, at certain grade levels."

Sinclair says since enrollment numbers are tough to pin down, they'll be carefully monitoring things so the policy can be adjusted if needed.

"This is going to be something that we are going to look at on a monthly basis knowing the board will have to renew the resolution annually, and we'll revisit all these numbers to see where we tracked on a particular year."

Since the district is over the newly imposed limits as of now, so, in effect the new policy means open-enrollment is closed for the foreseeable future. The students currently openly enrolled under the old policy can continue in Sauk Rapids-Rice, per state law.

The district took into account things like birth rates, projections and people moving into the area when forming this new policy.

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