A wealthier influx shuffles classroom seats
The number of children from relatively affluent families enrolling in the Cambridge public schools increased this year, forcing the School Committee to temporarily change its student assignment plan.
In Cambridge, students are assigned to schools based partly on their family income; each K-8 school has about 45 percent free- and reduced-lunch students and 55 percent paid-lunch students. Because enrollment fluctuates every year, a margin of 10 percent either way is permitted at each school.
After the first round of registrations this year, so many registrants were paid-lunch students that the number threatened to unbalance the system, according to School Committee members.
The initial remedy proposed by Superintendent Thomas Fowler-Finn that would have increased the percent of paid-lunch students permitted in an entering kindergarten class was rejected by the School Committee.
"The superintendent first suggested we increase the percentage to 65 percent, with a band of plus or minus 10," said School Committee member Patricia Nolan.
Under that change, 75 percent of a class then could potentially be made up of students from wealthier families and only 25 percent of the class would be free- or reduced-lunch students, according to Nolan. The plan also would have left only two seats for free- and reduced-lunch students at each of three of the most popular schools.
"We were pleasantly surprised by the enrollment increase," said Fowler-Finn in an interview last week.
Based on registrations in the first round of the lottery process in January, the schools saw an increase of 56 kindergartners over last year's 760, according to Nolan.
"It's an exciting time in the school system," said City Councilor Michael Sullivan, who served as a School Committee member when he was mayor. "The hard work of the last three to five years is beginning to bear fruit."
But some School Committee members criticized the administration for not having planned for the increase, based on birth rates, the district's recent marketing campaign, and the addition of a Montessori program that will allow 3- and 4-year-olds to enroll in the public school system for the first time this fall. At a meeting on March 6, committee members voted in favor of an alternative to Fowler-Finn's proposal. The committee voted to keep the 45/55 percentage the same, but to increase the margin of flexibility to 15 percent. This limits the percentage of paid-lunch students to 70 at any given school, and leaves as many seats as possible at each school for students in the second round of the lottery.
"This new system does give more paid-lunch students their top choices," Sullivan said.
The committee also voted to add two new kindergartens to the district, one more in the new Montessori program at the Tobin School and one more at the Haggerty School, said Fowler-Finn.
"I'm really pleased that we're attracting paid-lunch students back to the district," said Nolan. "It means our marketing is working. What worries me is that no one planned for it to work."
Because the committee was rushed, there was no time to receive public input on the temporary change in assignment policy, Nolan said. "It's unfortunate to make this kind of change without public input," she said, "but it is only for this year. We expect to review the policy and get more input for the future."
"The lottery results force the question of why some schools are oversubscribed and some are underchosen," said School Committee member Joe Grassi.
"This change is a stopgap measure for this year," said Fowler-Finn. "Next year we'll reexamine the formula, so we're not down to the wire with a decision. But there is no chance that we will eliminate controlled choice."
