Despite some concerns voiced about doing so before a budget has been approved, the School Committee approved continuing school choice for the 2025-26 school year because of a state deadline requirement.
In the end, continued participation in school choice was approved on Wednesday, May 21 by a vote of 8-2.
“From a purely financial standpoint – well, maybe not purely financial – what I’m wondering is if, as we in the coming weeks are discussing potential cuts to our district services, whether that would be a disincentive for students to be coming in to us and an incentive for more of our students to leave,” said School Committee member Kara Moser.
“Right now, my main concern iss we do not have a budget,” said Vice Chair Hillary Kniffen, who said she generally opposes school choice.
Massachusetts mandates that each school district is open to school choice unless they vote to opt out. Whitman’s program isn’t grade-specific, but is based on where space is available.
“Unless we close to school choice, any student from any neighboring community can come to our school,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said, later clarifying that students from any town in the state could attend W-H, so long as they provide their own transportation.
“If we decide to close to all students or close to certain amount of students (grade level-wise, we can do that at School Committee meeting, but that doesn’t mean that a student in W-H can’t go to any other school that’s open to school choice,” he said.
Currently, there are 76 students attending W-H through school choice and there are 50 students from Whitman and Hanson attending school in other public school districts.
Between 2012 and 2015 years, however, W-H’s school choice numbers had increased, and then became stagnant, and now are in decline,
“We’re not getting the kids we were getting in 2012,” Szymaniak said, “We’re just not. … When we publicly come out and say we’re in a budget crisis, people are choosing not to come.”
The number of students accepted at WH, is based on recommendations from the building principals of how many spaces they have available, with sending districts paying a larger portion of costs for students on individualized education plans (IEPs) and picks up the cost for severe IEP situations requiring out-of-district placement.
Per-pupil school choice students cost $5,000 and W-H per-pupil cost is $17,500. Despite the apparent cost differential, Szymaniak said there are expenses, including administrative costs at work there. School choice students bring in funds to help the budget particularly in covering W-H’s own cost of students leaving the district under school choice.
If W-H were to close to school choice students, those already attending W-H are permitted to stay until they graduate and, Szymaniak said, W-H is always open to students who wish to graduate with their class should their families move to neighboring towns.
“When they come here, they are our students,” Chair Beth Stafford said, underscoring Szymaniak’s statement that the district cannot deny the right of a school choice student due to behavior or absences when they come to W-H.
The father of an autistic child said his son would benefit from attending W-H, which he said offers “one of the best special education programs on the entire South Shore.”

As both towns approved overrides to move on to the May 17 ballots, there are still wrinkles in the situation that could complicate things, especially if the override fails in Hanson.
Whitman and Hanson also vote on candidates for town offics when polls open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Whitman and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Hanson.
“I think it’s important that the people in both towns understand that we, as a School Committee have authority over the school budget,” Vice Chair Hillary Kniffen said during the Wednesday, May 7 School Committee meeting. “In Hanson, they voted a contingency budget.”
Kniffen had said at the Monday, May 5 Town Meeting that, if the override failed to pass, that did not mean the cuts quoted by the Hanson Finance Committee for all departments would apply to the School Committee budget.
“I was told, ‘Then, your budget just isn’t passed,’” she said. “I didn’t make a thing of it.” She added that Finance Chair Kevin Sullivan reaffirmed that was the town’s position.
“I guess my point is, if they overrides fail, the way the budget lines were in Hanson was that [there would be a predetermined amount to be cut from each department to balance the budget,]” she said. “It’s important that we all understand that doesn’t mean that the School Department is making any cuts. We are back at another Town Meeting. We are the ones who have the final say on our assessment and on our budget.”
Kniffen said that left it on the School Committee’s doorstep to get the word out and work to pass the override.
“I think there is a misunderstanding … perhaps because [in Hanson] there were two numbers voted,” she said. “There are people who think that the School Department will lose $940,000, not understanding that then it goes to Whitman and there’s a cost associated there as well.”
She said it is an important point to let folks know.
Member Kara Moser said that $940,000 would directly impact WHRSD because they do not have the power to take any of that amount out of the vocational school budgets, referring to South Shore Tech in Hanover , Norfolk County Agricultural Vocational in Walpole and Bristol County Agricultural Vocational high schools. One student attends Bristol County Agricultural at a cost of between $28,000 to $30,000 plus transportation.
“That sounds like there might be some reason to talk to Mr. Szymaniak about signing off on everybody going where they want,” said Committee member Stephanie Blackman.
“You can’t – that’s FAPE,” Kniffen said. “We would be violating FAPE – it’s the law. FAPE means Free Access to Public Education. Every student in the state of Massachusetts is entitled to a public education that they see suits and fits their needs. We don’t have the authority to do that, we would be hit with a lawsuit in a second.
“It’s a ton of money… It’s beyond us,” she said. “It’s at the state level. How are you letting a school charge this much for tuition?”
Comment from the vocational schools re per student costs and why there is such a difference.
According to Foundation Budget Rate data from the DESE Office of School Finance, part of the reason vocational schools’ per-pupil costs are higher is because they have to pay their teachers more, particularly in shop classrooms.
“Since ed reform, the state funding formula has always assumed that vocational education is more expensive than traditional education,” SST Superintendent-Director Dr. Thomas J. Hickey said Monday. “Based on FY26 foundation budget rates, the state expects the minimum per pupil cost for a vocational student to be around $5,500 more per pupil [than a non-vocational high school student]. In addition, our equipment and capital [expenses] are a larger share of our budget. When we give our towns an assessment, we assess them for any operating debt and capital all in one number.”
School equipment is expensive, and teachers’ salary scale at vocational schools must be reflective of industry pay, according to Hickey. For example, he said that first year vocational teachers are hired at a higher salary than first-year academic teachers.
“In a tight labor market we need to be mindful of industry wage levels in order to recruit skilled professionals to teach in our vocational areas,” Hickey said.
“There are students who are not built for a traditional school like this, and for us to say no to those students would be doing them a disservice,” Kniffen said.
Ferro said he recalled from back when he was a principal there were specific towns that tried to put caps on students that were allowed to go to vocational [schools], and there were towns that simply did not let vocational schools have access to the middle schools when they were in eighth grade.
“That has been challenged,” he said. “There are DESE (Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) regulations about what we can and cannot do and what we have to do in order to [admit] students in the member towns attend.”
There are only nine agricultural-vocational schools in the state and students had been limited to attend one in their region, but four or five years ago that changed to permit students who feel they are uniquely qualified for a program offered only at a specific vocational school. Sending towns are required to fund transportation for those students.
Agricultural-Vocational schools operate under different regulations, Hickey said, echoing Ferro’s point on acceptance regulations.
“In no way do I want to limit the opportunities for students to attend vocational schools,” Moser said. “I certainly wouldn’t argue that a student with a disability should not get the services that they are fully and legally entitled to. Charter schools I could have a longer conversation about, but for a certain population, I think that it is an appropriate [avenue]. My argument is more about the fact that when town boards propose a budget cut for the school department, which is technically not in their prevue that that cut is not coming out of any of those places [but] is coming out of the majority of the experience of our student population who are housed in the buildings in our two towns. It’s not equitably distributed,”
Rosemary Hill said fellow Committee member Christopher Marks’ illustration of what cuts would mean – a child doing a math problem and scribbling it out in frustration, told if a pair, was not given another piece of paper, but would have to take the limited supplies because the budget fell short.
“That was a small thing in a bigger picture of lots of small things,” she said. “Just fund us to be competitive.
Chair Beth Stafford argues that the school district is it’s own municipality in the way it had to fund faculty and staff benefits and salaries that town-connected districts fund in the town’s budget.
Regional vocational schools budget the same way.
During the Public Comment period, Erin O’Donnell, of 207 Waltham St., in Hanson, spoke about the override being only level-funded.
“We need to plan for the future and increase and staff programs in the schools,” she said, noting cuts to the budget over the past 20 to 30 years, which has been detrimental to students. “But, first we have to pass the override.”
In other business, Business Manager Stephen Marshall reported that a short-term borrowing of 10 months was needed, maturing in March 2026, until the final two district audits for fiscal 2023 and 2024 are complete, as two potential bidders for the initial borrowing for Whitman Middle School by state-qualified bonds backed out because the audits were incomplete. He said those audits are expected to be completed before the borrowing matures, when the district can again seek state-qualified bonds.
The committee voted to approve that borrowing to pay costs for the WMS project under MA General Laws Ch 70B.
Committee member Dawn Byers asked what the risk was.
“It feels really heavy,” she said.
“There’s no greater risk here than the bond,” Marshall said. “We need it to borrow anyway. The risk is if our audits are not complete and we’re not able to go back out to borrow in addition [the building could stop]. That’s always the risk.”
“It’s a bridge loan,” said Committee member Glen DiGravio. “It’s a loan until we get a loan.”
The 2022 audit delayed the following two, because that was the year the district was recovering from the data breach of 2022.
Marshall outlined the third-quarter revenue report as well.
The 2024 year-ending excess & deficiency balance through March 31 was $616,288.77.
Fiscal 2025 end-of-year budget line transfers will be calculated and ready for votes at the next full School Committee meeting.
Chapter 70 aid is expected to be $261,516 greater than what ha been budgeted, Marshall said, but added that Charter School reimbursement is expected to be $120,203 less that forecast.
“Every time they give us money, they quickly take it away,” he said. Regional transportation reimbursement is still unknown.
“There is some fiscal 2026 budget workings that include the FY 25 transportation numbers, so as the budget went through the House and Senate, and pulling some of the money out of the “millionaire’s tax” some [lawmakers] have asked for it to help us in this year, and some have asked for it to be fully [budgeted] for ’26,” Marshall said. “We still don’t know how that’s going to land.”
Medicare reimbursement is expected to be $95,000 less than budgeted.
“When you add those things up, we’re still within our budget,” he said. “I don’t expect us to be under budget on revenue.”