What's Next for School Choice?

by members of the School Committee is just the first step in the process, Superintendent of Schools Jay Cummings said.

In April, the district will be finalizing enrollment numbers. The district is in the process now of reaching out to parents of Grafton students who attend other schools, through school choice, for example, or private schools, to determine if they plan to return to town schools.

Then in early May, based on these final numbers, the district will determine the number of available seats for school choice participants.

Once this number is secured, the available seats will be advertised in May to parents in school districts throughout the area.

Applications will be accepted in late May. If there are more applicants than seats, a public lottery will be held to select at random the school choice students.

By law, the town schools have to accept all applicants until the number of allocated seats is filled. If the number of applicants exceeds the available slots, the lottery selects students at random, with no screening process or other pre-determination.

By a 4-1 vote, School Committee members voted to accept school choice. Cummings recommended that a maximum of 25 seats be opened to students from outside the district, with five students each in grades 1, 4 and 8 and ten positions in grade 10.

These grades were chosen because there was room to add students at these levels without exceeding recommended class size, Cummings said.