HADLEY — A proposal to nearly double the student enrollment of the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Hadley is being endorsed by the state’s commissioner of education, raising concern from Amherst school and town officials about the possible financial consequences for the community.
The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will act on the proposed expansion at a meeting Monday in Malden, which would allow the charter school, which opened in 2007 on Route 9, to increase enrollment by 452 students. Current enrollment is 471 students.
“I am deeply concerned about the impact this decision will have on the budget of our towns and the level of services we can offer to our students,” wrote Michael Morris, the acting superintendent for the Amherst-Pelham Regional School District, in a letter recently sent to the Amherst School Committee, Finance Committee and Select Board, and to officials in Pelham, Shutesbury and Leverett.
Amherst, Morris said, is already sending $2.24 million from the school and town budgets to the charter school, which he describes as having non-unionized faculty and staff with contracts not negotiated by elected officials.
With the current waitlist for the Chinese language school including 32 students from Amherst, four students from Pelham, three students from Leverett, and five students from Shutesbury, Morris pegs the annual cost of these students being admitted at close to $1 million.
The Amherst School Committee has called a meeting for 6 p.m. Thursday at the professional development office at the middle school to craft a response in advance of the state meeting. Similarly, the Northampton School Committee is meeting at 7:15 p.m. Thursday at the John F. Kennedy Middle School’s community room and will have the proposed expansion item on the agenda, said Superintendent John Provost.
Richard Alcorn, executive director of the Chinese immersion school, said he anticipates the immediate impacts on other school districts will be minimal, at least initially.
“The school’s growth would be gradual and take place over many years, as has been true in the past,” Alcorn said.
The expansion will, however, allow additional slots to be available in kindergarten, sixth grade and ninth grade in fall 2017, he said.
In anticipation of approval from the state, Alcorn said he is already trying to find additional space, at a location yet to be determined, to accommodate the new students. “We’re looking at facilities in the area,” Alcorn said.
State Education Commissioner Mitchell D. Chester’s recommendations, announced last week, included both expansions and also three new charter schools, one of which is the Hampden Charter School of Science-West in Westfield, which would open in 2018 and serve 252 students in Grades 6 to 9 from Agawam, Holyoke, Westfield and West Springfield,
Alison Bagg, director of the state department’s Office of Charter Schools and School Redesign, said in an email that the board members will discuss and then vote on Chester’s recommendation for the Chinese language school in Hadley, likely approving or denying the expansion.
“If approved, the change to the school’s maximum enrollment will be in effect for the next school year.” Bagg said.
The board also has the ability to amend recommendations from the commissioner, though that is not typical, she said.
In his letter, Morris expresses several concerns, noting that the demographics at the charter school include fewer low-income students and English language learners, and special education children often return to Amherst from PVCICS.
“PVCIC is not a school that is improving the education of students from failing districts,” Morris wrote. “The vast majority of PVCIC sending districts have strong academic standing.”
Alcorn, though, notes that the language school is a regional public school that supports diversity in public education and offers students from throughout the Pioneer Valley the choice of an innovative educational alternative, and that it remains in sync with the Education Reform Act of 1993 that created charter schools.
Not only that, but the regional economy benefits from having what is a unique public education opportunity in the county. He said the worries are overblown.
“I don’t ever expect we’ll become the mainstream alternative for public education in the Pioneer Valley,” Alcorn said.
Amherst Town Manager Paul Bockelman said he shares the concerns Morris is expressing, that fixed costs, in most cases, can’t be reduced just because the school population goes down.
“This would have a dramatic impact on the town’s finances,” Bockelman said.
But Alcorn said the charter school mostly operates within the cap of no more than 9 percent of a school district’s spending going to a charter school, based on a restriction included in the Education Reform Act.
Alcorn said there should be opportunities for charter schools and traditional school districts to work together on the state’s foundation budget and on increasing state focus on the needs of rural districts, where schools are facing different challenges from charter schools.
Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg, D-Amherst, has proposed a separate line item in the state budget, while others have suggested finding ways to increase all spending on public schools.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
