The department of education shall administer a program to support school boards that voluntarily adopt and implement plans of student transfers to desegregate schools within their districts. To be eligible for such support, both of the following must apply:

(A) The district must have a minority enrollment of between twenty-five and seventy-five per cent, according to the most recent racial and ethnic census of the district prepared by the department;

(B) The school board must adopt and submit to the department, not later than the first day of October, a plan for reducing racial isolation through the transfer of not fewer than fifty students in the district. The plan must provide for any or all of the following:

(1) The transfer of minority students from a school with greater than the average minority composition of the district to a school with less than the average minority composition of the district;

(2) The transfer of majority students from a school with less than the average minority composition of the district to a school with more than the average minority composition of the district;

(3) The transfer of minority or majority students to designated schools if the transfers cause the racial composition of the designated schools to more closely approximate the student racial composition of the entire district taken as a whole. The department of education shall pay the school district an amount equal to four hundred dollars per student transferred, except that if all payments required to be made under this section during the fiscal year exceed the appropriation for the purpose, the payment to each school district shall be proportionately reduced. The school board may spend the amount received only on activities other than transportation that support the reduction of racial isolation. In the case of a transfer from a school that is being permanently closed or that results from a permanent change in the boundary of a school attendance zone, payment shall be made only for the initial year the transfer is made. In the case of any other kind of transfer, payment shall be made for each fiscal year the transfer occurs.

Effective Date: 11-15-1981.