Some Early Childhood Center Tuition Fees Cut

(Editor's note: This article was updated on Thursday, Feb. 10 at 10:35 a.m. with clarifications sent by e-mail from J.D. LaRock.)

Tuition fees for three classes at the are going down next year, after the approved the lowered fees on Tuesday night.

The reduced tuitions are:

• Two-day preschool: $1,752, which is a $108 reduction from this year's tuition of $1,860.
• Three-day multi-age program: $3,819, which is an $81 reduction from this year's tuition of $3,900.
• Five full-day multi-age program: $6,176, which is a $324 reduction from this year's tuition of $6,500.

Committee member J.D. LaRock, in an e-mail to Melrose Patch, said that the changes put in a place a "consistent system of volume discounts" for the preschool and multi-age program options, so parents who choose longer options will now pay a lower hourly rate.

At the committee's last meeting on Jan. 25, the committee for next year, which are not changed from the current school year. 

The ECC fees were held, however, after committee member J.D. LaRock asked for more context so he could understand, for instance, why the multi-age programs' tuition rates were more expensive than the rates for preschool and pre-kindergarten programs.

On Tuesday night, Superintendent Joe Casey said that working with School Business Manager Greg Zammuto and ECC Director Jenny Corduck, they were able to make "some minor change in the fee structure that will be a little more family friendly."

Corduck told the committee that the ECC must strike a "tricky balance" between being fiscally repsonsible business program—the ECC mainly runs solely on its tuition fees, with Title I and special education funding for, respectively, low-income students and students with special needs—and staying mindful of the educational opportunities and programs offered to Melrose families and children.

"I’m very confident we’ll continue to be a healthy vibrant Early Childhood Center, providing our children and staff with everything they need," she said of the new tuition rates.

Mayor Rob Dolan lauded the ECC's model of providing through the public school system a service often left to the private sector, while maintaining economically viable and adjusting programs to the needs of the children enrolled there.

Dolan added that "because it's such a good program," the committee may have been quick to approve the original rates for next year—which would have been unchanged from this year—and thanked LaRock for asking the committee to wait  for more information.

LaRock responded that the credit belongs to Casey, Corduck and Zammuto—"Whose ears I bent the past two weeks," he said a chuckle—and added that "they were willing to look at a fee structure that was already pretty good and scrutnize how to make it better."

He added that the committee has "done great work on fees" over the past couple of years, from making more families eligible for free or reduced full-day kindergarten fees, to discounts for parents with multiple children in the Education Stations afterschool program.

"Thanks to the superintendent and the mayor, we really now—if we approve this proposal—have a set of fees that are very progressive from early childhood all the way up to the high school," LaRock said.