On School Choice...
Full note available on Facebook blog
https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-katrina-hobbs-everett-committee/on-school-choice/1490273211011293/
There seems to be confusion about where HPS stands regarding "School Choice". So I took some time this morning to put together this quick overview and update to help bring the community up to speed. I hope it is helpful. Happy Sunday!
There have been several questions regarding “School Choice” and where HPS stands on this for this school year.
First I think it is important the people understand what “School Choice” is. To learn the DESE description of school choice and how it works please visit their website: http://www.doe.mass.edu/finance/sch...
Where is Haverhill with all this?
The conversation about the most recent school choice vote started at the June 22nd SC meeting at about 1:55:12 in where it is presented by Mr. Jared Fulgoni for voting. http://haverhillcommunitytv.org/vid...
If you watch at (1:55:12) important information is started to be discussed about funding. When students come in under school choice we as a district do get money for them from their home district. When OUR students choose to leave the district and go to other participating school choice districts, we PAY for that. Mrs. Gail Sullivan inquired about how much money we as a district are loosing. Students who live in haverhill take "about 1 million dollars a year" with them according to Business Manager Mr. Brain O’Connell; "about 200 students a year" are leaving the Haverhill Public School district AND we are paying for them to go! (I will speak more on this later). It is important to note that a vote “For” or ”against” school choice will not change our loss. Initially only Mr. Scott Wood was in favor of stopping school choice for grades 9-12, and made a motion to approve school choice ONLY for grades 9-12. Then a motion came and was seconded to "Table" the issue. Which would makes an automatic approval for k-12 school choice as we already had. There was confusion about what this action would mean. There is much discussion, then Mr. Paul Magliocchetti made a motion to reconsider the tabling the issue, which would remove the tabling of the issue and allow it to be discussed and possibly voted on. Which was approved by all except Mr. Shawn Thooey. Then Mr. Scott Wood made a motion again to approve school choice for grades 9-12 only 2nd by Mrs. Maura Ryan-Ciaridello. After more discussion and pausing to gather more information, the issue come back up and Mr. Fulgoni suggested that we the district gets about 31 students in from other districts under school choice, and the its really a “loss” for the district. At (2:36:21) the School Committee finally makes their unanimous decision to “Table” the item until further notice.
The conversation is revisited at the next School Committee meeting on July 27th. http://haverhillcommunitytv.org/vid... At (1:34:30) Mr. Scully’s suggestion is to keep school choice as it is. Mr. wood supported that by making a motion to keep school choice as it is for grades k-12 at the suggestion of the Superintendent, this motion was unanimously approved by the full school committee.
End result; Haverhill DOES have School Choice. Here is the application for school choice for this school year http://www.haverhill-ps.org/wp-cont... . This is inter-district school choice. The term “School choice” that is often misunderstood within the district (meaning Haverhill students going from one school to another within the district) is something different and that is determined by the individual principals of each school.
I hope this is helpful.
Best,
Kat
Photo credit https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/03/12/real-consequences-of-school-choice/?utm_term=.388ab737834a
