The School Committee revisited the school choice issue on Wednesday, March 15, voting to accept school choice for all grades except 11 and 12.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said the process would only be open based on student enrollment and class size.
He reported that district legal counsel Andrew Waugh reiterated that all school districts are school choice unless they opt out.”
A tie vote, like the one cast on March 13, would mean W-H is a school choice district “because the School Committee did not make an affirmative vote to opt out,” Szymaniak explained. “We need a 6-4 vote to opt out.”
Waugh made some further recommendations for the committee to consider voting again in hopes of reaching a 6-4 decision to withdraw from K-12 school choice for the school year 2023-24.
The committee again voted 5-5 on the opt-out option.
Waugh further recommended in such an event, that a motion establishing parameters around how the district should participate in school choice.
Szymaniak suggested the motion that the district withdraw from school choice in kindergarten through grade eight, and 11 and 12, while allowing it in grades nine and 10 – and for students in any grade, whose family moves out of the district as school choice – for school year 2023-24.
The committee then voted 9-1 to accept school choice for all grades with the exclusion of grades 11 and 12. Vice Chair Christopher Scriven voted against.
It was an amended motion at the suggestion of member Dawn Byers as questions began popping up about Szymaniak’s suggestion.
Scriven asked what the rationale was in allowing high school freshmen and sophomores but not any other grade, as well as the benefits of doing so and the considerations made in offering it.
“In grades nine and 10, those students have a fresh start in coming to school,” Szymaniak said, just like any other student at the high school. “That’s what we’ve done in the past. In grades 11 and 12 [administrators] have less control of that student, graduating from school.”
Where K-eight is concerned, Szymaniak said there just hasn’t been space for school choice students and the district has been more focused on lowering class sizes in those grades.
“That, for me, facilitates the issue that is most concerning to a lot of us that oppose this,” Scriven said.
Member Hillary Kniffen said if enrollment considerations were a reason for not taking school choice in lower grades, why not allow them in so they could become part of the community, which would negate that concern among opponents of school choice.
“It sounds like we’re talking out of both sides of our mouths,” she said.
Member Dawn Byers moved to amend the motion for school choice to be open to all grades, with a cap per grade based on enrollment.
“I’ve got one seat in second grade, I’ve got four seats in fifth grade, I’ve got seven at ninth-grade … We don’t have to accept 199 kids if they all want to come here,” she said. “We have the control as a district.”
A policy limiting class size could also be used.
Member Beth Stafford said she would prefer to cap it at 10th grade, because of the possibility and incoming student might not have the credits to allow them to graduate on time.
Szymaniak said he would be looking at keeping class sizes to 20 at the elementary grades, 20-23 in middle grades and 25 at the high school, in determining how many school choice students might be allowed in.
“Our high school enrollment this year in grade nine is the lowest we’ve ever had,” Szymaniak said, noting that where they usually have 270 students, this year they are looking at 230.
If the committee voted to open school choice for all grades, he would look at the numbers in order to announce how many students would be accepted and a lottery system would be used.
If students are looking for schools with good sports teams for their school choice plans, the MIAA requires varsity athletes to apply for a waiver and the receiving administrator and athletic director have to sign off on it, or that student-athlete has to sit out the year.
“You can’t deny [acceptance] unless it’s a drugs or weapons violation,” Szymaniak said of students with disciplinary issues. Otherwise districts are not allowed to ask why students are interesting in coming.
“We’re not even supposed to meet with that family prior to,” he said.
WHRHS Principal Dr. Christopher Jones said he is very pro-school choice, as it does a lot for the school, but he asked what consideration is given a parent who wants to choice two kids – one in ninth grade and one in 11th.
“I would tell that parent it’s not an option for that 11th grader,” Szymaniak said.
In other business, Student Advisory Committee members gave a slide presentation on their findings from an outreach survey of students in all five district schools regarding multiple line items in the FY 2024 district school budget.
Students were strongly in favor of some change in start times, with Indian Head students in Hanson supporting an earlier start, Duval students nearly unanimous that some change was needed.
“A majority [of Duval students] informed us that they woke up at 7 a.m., and just watched TV or played video games with the time they had before school started,” the survey found. At Indian Head, “many told us they had busy lives afte school, and it was difficult to get to extra-curricular activities while getting home [from school] around 3:30 p.m., every day.”
Conley students also preferred an earlier start time.
Getting off a school bus in the dark during the winter wan another source of dissatisfaction with the start times.
Opinions were more mixed for Hanson Middle School students, where the older ones preferred an earlier start and younger students preferred a later start time, but there was little demand overall for a change. Whitman Middle School students, meanwhile, were split over a slightly different start time,versus no change.
A majority of high school students supported a later start time.