For the first time in many years, the Harvard schools will not accept any new students under the state’s School Choice program next year. This year, there are 60 Choice students from kindergarten through 12th grade, three of whom will graduate in June.
In past years, the School Committee would have opened at least three slots for incoming Choice students to make up for those who were graduating. But Superintendent Linda Dwight told the School Committee this week that the school leadership team recommended that the committee consider adding no new Choice students in fiscal 2023. The committee voted unanimously Monday to follow that recommendation.
Dwight said enrollments at both Hildreth Elementary and the Bromfield School are likely to increase. She cited the new elementary school as a factor in drawing families with young children to town, along with the new construction at Emerson Green in Devens and Craftsman Village on Ayer Road.
The School Committee has tried to keep 10% as an upper limit for the number of Choice students in any one grade. Choice students already make up more than 10% of the current grades 7, 9, 10, and 11 at Bromfield, so the committee had not expected to add new Choice students in those grades.
All the current Choice students at Hildreth Elementary School are in fifth grade and will move on to Bromfield next year. The School Committee has usually been reluctant to add Choice students in the early grades. So, under the current plan, there will be no Choice students at the elementary school as of next fall.
The fiscal 2023 school budget was developed assuming $325,000 in School Choice payments: $5,000 each for 65 students. Reducing that assumption by seven students would leave the budget $35,000 short. However, the schools expect to have $205,000 in the School Choice revolving account at the end of this fiscal year, Dwight said, and could make up the gap by drawing down that account.
The absence of Choice students in the elementary school, however, may involve more than a loss of dollars. In the past, school administrators have praised the diversity the School Choice program has added at all grade levels in the Harvard schools. The state first enacted the Choice program in 1991.
