Ashburnham-Westminster Regional School Committee considers voting against School Choice

 By Doneen Durling
Reporter

Posted Jan 14, 2020 at 5:00 PM

 

WESTMINSTER — As the Ashburnham-Westminster Regional School Committee prepares for budget season, one of the issues up for consideration is whether or not to vote against School Choice.
The board recently held its meeting at Meetinghouse School after touring the building, an annual tradition to determine the needs of each of the school buildings in the district before crafting the budget for the coming fiscal year.

The Ashburnham-Westminster Regional School District has been one of the prime destinations for School Choice students in the area. Because of rising costs in education, the district began to receive a backlash of complaints from both towns. In answer to the outcry, the School Committee began to cap the number of students accepted. A few years ago, the number was more than 200 students, but that number has slowly decreased to the current 117 School Choice students in the district.

The number of students, due to the rise in the population driven by new builds and expansion in both towns, has increased the student population within the last few months from 2,366 to 2,395, an increase of 29 students.

School Committee member Kyle Johnson likened the increase to a new student every three days.
“It’s significant,” said Johnson, who added that most thought the trend was Westminster students, but the two towns were even-paced when it came to increases. “Westminster is not outpacing Ashburnham.”

School Committee member Justin Sparks noted that there are currently 28 School Choice seniors.
“When those kids phase out, the consensus is we are not continuing replacing,” Sparks said.


“We’ve gone on record that we want to scale it back,” said committee Chairman R. William Ewing.

Johnson noted that the School Choice numbers have been walked back for the last couple of years.
“It’s working, and we are doing it for the right reasons, so our children can get access to the education,” said Johnson.

Committee member Ellen Holmes said that if the district took a vote to no longer accept School Choice students, all those currently within the district would stay in place.

“That would account for that natural drop,” she said.

Holmes also said the committee would have to take a vote to not accept School Choice.

“We would take that vote to say we are no longer going to be a School Choice district,” she said. “It does not impact any School Choice children that are here. It just says you would not be accepting any new students.”

Holmes said the vote would be important for budgeting and for administrators to plan the next year.

Committee member Winifred Kender said she would like to know what the financial impact would be from the business manager, but she added, “If we can reasonably do it, looking at the projections, I would be all in favor of it. But before I would want to vote on it, I would want to learn from (Business Administrator) Julie (Surprenant) the financial implications.”

Board member Andrew Storm said the district receives $5,000 per student, suggesting that the math was easy using that number to see what the impact will be.

Holmes suggested that the board vote soon so the numbers would not only be known as next year’s budget is built but also so others applying from outside the district would know whether seats were available or not.

Interim Superintendent Sandra Rehler said she has already received queries from parents concerning School Choice.

Holmes explained that if they took a vote not to accept School Choice, no new students could come into the district but all those currently in the district were grandfathered and could stay until they decide to leave or graduate. Holmes added that they could not cap the number of School Choice students — they could only vote to allow School Choice or vote not to allow School Choice.

She added that people could vote not to accept School Choice this year and then vote to accept it the next year if they chose. Her advice again was to vote sooner rather than later before they began building the budget because of the financial implications.

The committee agreed to take the vote as soon as all facts were weighed and they heard from the business manager how the vote might impact the district.