A recent letter expressed the opinion that charter school funding does not adversely impact traditional public schools. Readers should understand this is not the case.
Here is the example I know best. The Gill-Montague Regional School District now has 70 students attending area charter schools, with a net reduction of its fiscal year 2016 funding by $856,223 – or $12,232 per student, on average.
These 70 students are spread across 13 grade levels and across five schools of origin. With this distribution of student loss, it is not possible to send each student away with a $12,000 check attached and simply reduce district costs at a matching rate. In fact, in most cases, such as the loss of three students from a rural elementary school classroom, where there exists only one classroom per grade level, the reducible costs are almost non-existent.
The costs to the district are very real, however. The district lacks sufficient numbers of reading teachers, special education staff and counselors to support its students. Reducing funds lost to charter schools to the $5,000 per student rate established for funding the school choice program would retain about $500,000 in lost revenue in Gill-Montague.
This funding would go a long way towards providing highly needed services and would better align charter funding with the realities of cost accounting in public schools.
Michael Sullivan, Ed.D.
Florence
The writer is superintendent of the Gill-Montague Regional School District and a former Northampton educator.