government

By Alice Waugh

Lincoln became the fourth town to withdraw from the Minuteman High School district with a vote capping two and a half hours of discussion at a Special Town Meeting Tuesday night.

More than 200 people filled Brooks auditorium and part of the lecture hall for the February 23 meeting, where residents were asked to vote on whether to withdraw from the district and whether to approve the district’s new regional agreement. The final vote on withdrawal was a voice vote with roughly two dozen residents voting nay.

As of Wednesday morning, 10 of the 16 towns in the district had voted to approve the revised regional agreement. Carlisle, Sudbury and Wayland voted earlier this month to approve the agreement and withdraw. Boxborough and Weston, both of whom have expressed interest in withdrawing, had Special Town Meetings scheduled for Wednesday night.

Vocational Education Options Working Group (VEOWG) member and Selectman Peter Braun summarized the data that the group gathered about the cost of sending Lincoln students to Minuteman vs. any of three other area vocational-technical schools. Changes to the Minuteman regional agreement would increase Lincoln’s share of costs for a new school building while also reducing the weight of Lincoln’s vote on the Minuteman School Committee, he said.

The FinCom, the Board of Selectmen and the Capital Planning Committee all unanimously recommended that Lincoln withdraw from the Minuteman district.

The bottom line: “It’s less expensive to send Lincoln students [to Minuteman] out of district than as a member, and even less expensive to send them to other nearby schools on an out-of-district basis,” said VEOWG and Finance Committee member Laura Sander, referring to a chart showing comparative costs.

“The Minuteman budget is not trivial to Lincoln,” said FinCom chair Peyton Marshall. Because member towns are responsible for the building debt regardless of how many towns remain in the district or the school’s total enrollment, “a significant financial risk is eliminated by withdrawing,” he added. Furthermore, continued declines in Minuteman’s enrollment (both in-district and out-of-district) are a distinct possibility, Marshall said.

But Minuteman Superintendent/Director Edward Bouquillon said the school’s enrollment has been declining because as an expensive building project loomed, the Minuteman School Committee voted for a smaller school, “and we were tasked with gradually and humanely… reducing the size of the school,” he said.

Although several towns with small enrollments are leaving the district, larger cities and towns such as Watertown and Everett have expressed interest in joining, Bouquillon said. Member towns have priority in slots for their students at Minuteman, and while the school currently has some space for more out-of-district students, “that capacity is not a certainty in the future,” he said.

“Once a physically attractive, modern new building with state-of-the-art equipment and labs opens, enrollment will increase from both member and non-member towns—of that there can be very little doubt,” said Kemon Taschioglou, a former Minuteman School Committee member from Lincoln. “Minuteman will fill to capacity and it will need to impose an enrollment waiting list as most of the high-quality vocational-technical schools in the state do. Demand will exceed supply.”

If there are fewer spaces than applicants for Minuteman, out-of-district applicants are ranked based on recommendations and an interview as well as academic, attendance, and disciplinary record, Bouquillon said.

Taschioglou acknowledged that the town’s costs for sending students to Minuteman as a member town will go up, “and yet I am willing to pay this even more to support and participate in the governance of another excellent town institution,” he said.

Several Minuteman students and alumni also spoke in favor of Lincoln staying in the district. If future students have to travel farther to another technical high school, “the possibility isn’t as readily there,” said Jack Neuhaus. “By removing ourselves from Minuteman, we’re unintentionally giving the message that we value traditional education over vocational-technical education.”

If Lincoln was not a member of the Minuteman district, any vocational school would be welcome to make a presentation to Lincoln School eighth-graders, perhaps at a vocational education night in Lincoln, Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall said.

The Planning Board will require a site plan review because the new school will be built on Lincoln land, but Minuteman can be exempted by state law from many zoning restrictions, “so your expectation as to what the Planning Board can expect to accomplish with that should be appropriately limited, and this decision won’t change anything about that process one way or another,” said Planning Board Chair Margaret Olson.

If the new school decides it needs a dedicated on-site police officer, Lincoln would seek reimbursement for that expense, Braun said.

Earlier articles:

• Minuteman panel approves new regional agreement; Lincoln deal TBD
• Key votes on Minuteman slated for Monday night
• CapComm wrestles with Minuteman options
• A breakthrough and a hiccup for Minuteman
• Heated discussion over Lincoln and Minuteman
• Minuteman school project in a political and financial tangle
• Minuteman gets state funding for new school, now needs towns’ approval

To the editor:

Tonight, the Vocational Education Options Working Group will be holding a public forum to discuss their findings and offer the opportunity to ask questions about Lincoln’s vocational education options in advance of the upcoming Special Town Meeting. I encourage you to attend the meeting and learn about the various options and their implications.

[Read more…] about Letter to the editor: CapComm recommends Minuteman withdrawal

By Alice Waugh

Town officials offered a preview Monday night of vocational-technical costs and options for Lincoln students in advance of a February 11 public forum at 7 p.m in the Hartwell multipurpose room and a Special Town Meeting later this month.

On February 23, Lincoln voters will be asked if the town should withdraw from the Minuteman school district. If the answer is no, they will then be asked to approve the amended Minuteman High School regional agreement. Selectman Peter Braun, a member of the Vocational Education Options Working Group (VEOWG), said last week that it would make sense for Lincoln to withdraw, in his opinion.

Earlier in the process of hammering out a new regional agreement, “we had never even conceived of withdrawing” from the district, largely because the new Minuteman school building will be on Lincoln land and the current agreement requires the school to be located within a member town. But as Lincoln’s dissatisfaction with the new agreement’s cost formulas became an issue, the Minuteman School Committee offered Lincoln (along with six other towns) an expedited withdrawal option, along with removing the school location requirement.

If Lincoln votes to withdraw, it can leave the district without incurring a member town’s share of the debt for the new building—assuming the agreement is also approved by the district’s other 15 towns. It would also forfeit representation on the Minuteman School Committee but would pay less overall for vocational-technical education.

The VEOWG gathered cost estimates for various scenarios such as staying in the Minuteman district, leaving but still sending students to Minuteman as an out-of-district town, or sending them to any of three other technical schools in the area (all of which have been recently renovated). They also compiled information on curriculum and career data for all four schools, as well as an FAQ with background on the issue and what factors to consider before voting.

“It’s been an eye-opening experience. We had absolutely no clue about what withdrawal would look like, or what other schools would look like, or the cost comparisons,” Braun said.

Lincoln’s estimated costs

Selectmen noted that Lincoln has always been in favor of a new Minuteman building and would have paid its share of the cost under the current agreement. However, Braun noted at Monday’s Board of Selectmen meeting that under the new agreement, which takes into account both enrollment and each town’s “wealth factor” as determined by the state, Lincoln’s debt obligation would double and its voting weight would be reduced from the current 6.25 percent (each of the 16 towns gets one vote) to less than 4 percent.

Assuming Lincoln sent five students to Minuteman in fiscal year 2020, the cost would be almost twice as much per student ($55,911 vs. $29,503) if Lincoln were a member of the Minuteman school district than if it were not. The cost for sending those five students to one of three other schools instead would range from about $21,000 to $24,000 per student.

Options at other schools

If Lincoln does withdraw from the Minuteman district (which would take effect July 1, 2017), “a future committee will have a year and half to focus in some preferential way on another school or Minuteman” for Lincoln students, Braun said. However, the choice will always rest with students, who are free to go anywhere as long as a school has capacity.

“Not being a member of a district creates the ultimate flexibility,” Braun said.

Based on site visits and discussions with Assabet Valley Regional Technical School in Marlborough and Nashoba Valley Technical High School in Westford “clearly have capacity… and indicated they would welcome having us,” Braun said. The working group has not yet been able to meet with officials from Keefe Regional Technical School in Framingham due to inclement weather, but members included cost information for all five schools in their cost estimate chart.

The VEOWG did not gather information on Shawsheen Valley Technical High School in Bedford because that school does not take out-of-district students, Braun said.

As an out-of-district town, Lincoln would not be guaranteed slots for its students at Minuteman. The new building will have a capacity of 628 students. The current enrollment is 673, but that number will decline if towns withdraw from the district. The school may also see fewer out-of-district students from Boston and Waltham. Boston has improved its vocational-technical facilities and Waltham’s planned new or renovated high school is expected to include voc-tech programs, according to the working group’s FAQ document.

At the selectmen’s meeting, resident and former Selectman Sara Mattes asked if withdrawing from the Minuteman district would amount to “treating vocational-technical kids differently than our other kids… is this not a version of school choice?”

“This has nothing to do with the school choice you’re talking about, with reciprocity between districts,” Braun responded. Many Massachusetts towns are not a member of a vocational-technical school district, “and it’s very common for towns to have multiple choices available for their [vocational-technical] kids. I’m comfortable with the sense that this is not an unusual situation we would be putting our kids in.” About 41 percent of Minuteman’s students this year are from non-district towns.

Based on questions and discussion at Thursday’s public forum, the FAQ document may be revised before the Special Town Meeting, Braun said.