ALEXANDRIA — Like school superintendents across Indiana, Jim Willey is hoping to control an unintended outcome of property tax reform that potentially could handicap classrooms.

In January, the cost to families wanting to send students away from their home school district will drop dramatically. That’s because under tax laws passed earlier this year by the Indiana General Assembly the state will control school districts’ general funds, and districts will no longer have the ability to charge thousands of dollars in transfer tuition.

In order to avoid sudden shifts in student populations that could create either overcrowded or deserted schools, Willey, the top administrator at Alexandria Community Schools, and other superintendents are asking their boards to enact new policies that will stipulate who can transfer and when.

“We really don’t know what’s going to happen as a result of the change in the law,” Willey said. “Schools really have three options: to accept none, accept all or accept with condition.”

Of the five public school districts in Madison County, only South Madison Community Schools does not accept students from outside the district’s boundaries. That policy has existed since 1979 and keeps the near-capacity district’s growth under control, Superintendent Thomas Warmke said.

He didn’t expect South Madison to alter its policy soon, saying the district is taking a “wait-and-see attitude.”

Other districts already have a policy regarding transfer students in place, and some are updating them to set new transfer application deadlines and ensure transfer students have good academic and discipline records.

“The landscape is changing to the effect where you almost have open enrollment unless you set criteria for which kids you’ll accept,” Elwood Community Schools Superintendent Thomas Austin said.

And while school administrators are hoping their new policies keep enrollment numbers level, they are still asking lawmakers to revisit the issue next year.

Sen. Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, said he is waiting on clarification on the law’s potential impact on families as well as school districts.

If the impact is as severe as some think it will be, Lanane said, then the law should be re-examined in the next legislative session.

“It’s something that we need to know going into the next session,” he said. “If we’re basically opening up the border for kids to go to any school district, there is a major problem for our school system and possibly other urban school districts.”

The Elwood school board will likely consider a policy Nov. 13 similar to those being worked up in other local districts. Austin said his district has “less than a handful of transfer students now” paying fees as high as $270 a month. Transfer fees at Madison County school districts varied slightly by grade level and school district.

The Indiana Department of Education said in a statement that transfers may not end up being totally free because some local sources of general fund revenue may still exist. The department could not provide precise amounts because each corporation is unique, the statement read.

Frankton-Lapel Community Schools has by far the most transfer students on its rolls of any local district: 149 this year, according to Superintendent Bobby Fields.