Countless students across St. Louis could soon join the 1,719 pupils who pack KHS halls every day. Regardless of residency, the Kirkwood School District (KSD) may have to admit any student wishing to transfer out of a failing school district.

“Can you imagine 600 more kids in the halls?” Dr. Michael Havener, principal, said. “Class sizes would shoot into the high 20s. We could even have more than 600 new students. We could have thousands.”

Five members of the St. Louis Fire Department filed a lawsuit against Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Lindbergh and St. Louis school districts Jan. 24 over their failure to allow students from districts that do not meet Missouri standards for academic performance to attend better public schools without paying tuition. The firefighters, who by state law must live in the city, were turned away when they attempted to enroll their 10 children in the St. Louis County districts.

“These men and women provide the highest level of service and selflessness,” Tim Belz, attorney for the firefighters, said during a press conference at International Association of Firefighers Local 73 headquarters in Kirkwood. “They deserve our gratitude, but what they get are sleepless nights and financial strain trying to provide a quality education for their children.”The firefighters are accusing the four school districts of failing to comply with the Outstanding Schools Act, a law passed in 1993 that is supposed to allow students to transfer from unaccredited districts to accredited schools in adjacent counties. In 2010, the Missouri Supreme Court further asserted St. Louis County districts must accept students who wish to transfer from an unaccredited district in the Turner vs. the School District of Clayton case, but the decision did not outline procedures with regard to whether adequate space or funding was available in districts required to receive students.

“The issue is that there are no guidelines,” Ginger Fletcher, district director of community relations and development, said. “We want to be able to accept kids based on class size and building capacity, but right now the guidelines are very vague. We don’t want to add teachers or classes to the current enrollment without discretion.”

According to Fletcher, KSD is hoping guidelines for accepting and rejecting students will be set March 5 when the Turner vs. Clayton case goes to the St. Louis County Circuit Court. Until that date, KSD offered to place families wishing to enroll their children on a waiting list. Currently, about 60 students have been placed on that list.

“Who pays for students who come from another district? How do we handle that and who pays that bill? When can we say our classes are full? We don’t want 30 kids in a class,” Fletcher said. “If you let one through, then others will come through, too. All we are asking for are guidelines.”

One reason KSD is reluctant to open its doors to every prospective student is due to the steep price that would be imposed upon the district, said Havener. It costs around $7,000 to educate one student, and since 92 percent of students enrolled in KSD are from Kirkwood, Kirkwood taxpayers currently support the bill.

Money is also an issue for the firefighters and the families who have had to choose to enroll their children in expensive private schools rather than sending them to failing school districts. Plaintiff Mike Killingsworth, firefighter, claims he spends $20,000 annually to pay for his four children to go to Catholic schools. Jane Edmunds, junior, however, believes funding Kirkwood residents should be KSD’s primary goal.

“I understand the firefighters are in a tough situation,” Edmunds said. “But we have to think of our community first.”

Roberta McWoods, literacy specialist at North Glendale elementary school, lives in University City. However, her son and daughter are able to attend KHS because she teaches within the district.

“From where I stand, firefighters don’t get a chance to enroll their kids into better districts,” McWoods said. “Their children deserve to have a good education too, and it’s unfortunate they can’t get that because they live in a district that isn’t as equitable. The other side is they knew by being firefighters they wouldn’t necessarily have those opportunities, but when you want what is best for your child, you do what you can.”

Briana Gregory, junior, knows numerous students who attend city schools, and she claims they do not receive the same caliber of education as the students in KSD.

“The city districts are horribe,” Gregory  said. “I wouldn’t go there if my life depended on it. Unlike the city schools, Kirkwood  has good teachers and students who come to school because they want to learn.”

The second factor preventing KSD from accepting certain pupils involves space.

“We value small class sizes,” Havener said. “We simply do not have the space, and you know how crowded it is anyway.”

A study conducted by the University of Missouri-St. Louis after Turner vs. Clayton was filed shows suburban schools would have to find room for an additional 13,500 students in their classrooms if parents in St. Louis could send their children tuition-free to any public school district in St. Louis County.

“There is no side to this case; it’s just reality,” Havener said. “We can’t afford to take in 1,000 more kids.”