At the School Committee’s March 25 meeting, Lunenburg resident Bill Jaffee asked the School Committee to think about more than economics in deciding what to do about next year’s school choice admissions. Jaffee identified himself as a clinical psychologist at Harvard Medical School and the father of two daughters who, he hopes, will enter kindergarten and first grade in Harvard next fall under the choice program.
Jaffee said that he understands the School Committee needs evidence that admitting choice students will “benefit, not burden, the school.” But he asked them to look beyond the economic factors to consider the academic impact as well.
“There is a body of research out there indicating that school choice students are among the highest achievers,” he said.
Jaffee spoke in the opening commentary section of the Monday meeting and then waited about two hours until the committee took up the issue of admitting new choice students for the fall.
Level enrollment for 2014
Interim Superintendent Joe Connelly reported that the Harvard School District would have to accept nine new choice students for next year to maintain the current total of 77 choice students from kindergarten through twelfth grade. School Committee Chairwoman SusanMary Redinger noted that the school budget for fiscal 2014 had been created on the assumption that the number of choice students, and their accompanying state reimbursements, would stay at that level.
Among the complex factors that committee members brought up in the ensuing discussion were the predictions of declining enrollment over the next decade; the small number of five-year-olds indicated by the town census; the late and unexpected upswing in kindergarten enrollments last year; and the increasing number of home sales in Harvard.
The numbers are all over the block. Past trends, according to Connelly, would suggest that 58 students will probably enroll in kindergarten. But the town census–which may not be accurate–indicates only 42. Last spring, enrollment was in the low 40s in April, but shot up to 60 before school opened. The crucial number, Connelly said, for setting the number of kindergarten sections is 54. Once enrollment passes that number, keeping class size within district guidelines requires four sections of kindergarten.
Need for choice students challenged
Last year was the first time that kindergarten students were admitted under the choice program, and the issue was controversial. In the past, School Committee member Keith Cheveralls, then chairman, had expressed strong reservations about doing so.
In Monday’s discussion, Cheveralls urged the committee to reconsider the whole idea of accepting choice students. He said that the School Committee could manage the district without adding any choice students at all and that the current policy had been set when enrollments were increasing, not declining.
Redinger asked for a motion on the question of accepting nine choice students, and there was a long silence. Eventually, committee member Kirsten Wright proposed such a motion but then withdrew it. Committee member Patricia Wenger followed with a motion to accept two choice students in kindergarten, first, third, and sixth grades for next year.
“You are heading down a dangerous and slippery slope,” Cheveralls said. While previous School Committees might have admitted choice students on a financial basis, he said, “choice is going to work against future committees” because of the fixed payment level per pupil.
In the subsequent vote, the motion failed, with only Wenger and Redinger supporting it.
Future enrollments uncertain
As discussion shifted to the long-term effects of cutting back on choice enrollments on the Bromfield School, Wenger commented, “Potentially, we could be talking about, if we get too small, will we have to regionalize?”
The committee then tried to schedule an off-cycle meeting to resolve the issue, but they were unable to find a workable date. The matter was deferred to the next regularly scheduled meeting on April 8, despite an already crammed agenda for that meeting.
Meanwhile, uncertainty continues for Jaffee and other parents who would like to enroll their children in Harvard schools under the choice program.
