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.