By JOE SHOUSE • Progress Correspondent

It’s been nearly 25 years since the Ohio legislators created open enrollment as a pilot program. Four years later in 1993 the inter-district open enrollment policy took effect in Ohio. In short, open enrollment is when a certain school district allows a student to attend their district who lives outside their regularly assigned school at no cost to the student.

Most Ohio school districts have open enrollment with 64 percent offering statewide open enrollment while 14 percent allow open enrollment with adjacent districts only.

In Paulding County, all three districts (Paulding, Antwerp, and Wayne Trace) allow statewide open enrollment opportunities.