The future of one small school: Pelham Elementary among many with larger choice levels
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PELHAM - On a recent afternoon, Rena Moore, the principal here, sat in her office looking through her papers for the enrollment figures that told the story of her school. After a bit of shuffling, Moore produced a graph that illustrated the school's predicament: in 1999 the elementary school had 143 students who lived in the town. Today it has only 76, with the number of school choice students growing every year.
Pelham Elementary School is not alone.
Schools across the state have seen their enrollment numbers drop over the past 10 years. Provincetown, Greenfield and Hancock have witnessed some the largest declines of the last decade, experiencing enrollment reductions of 47 percent, 38 percent and 35 percent, according to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Amherst area schools have been similarly affected. Over the last 10 years, the school population has declined by 27.3 percent in Shutesbury, 16.5 percent in Amherst and 14.3 percent in Leverett.
--View a map of school enrollment levels over the past decade in Massachusetts
Declining population is at least partly to blame for the decrease. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the Massachusetts population between the ages of 5 and 9 will fall by 6.3 percent between 2000 and 2010, and the 10- to 14-year-old population will decline by 5.7 percent.
The falling enrollment numbers have been a driving factor behind the ongoing school regionalization debate and have given rise to questions about the long-term financial viability of the small-town schoolhouse.
Up until recently, the specter of forced school consolidation loomed. But the Bay State seems to be backing off its strong stance, now urging schools to consolidate rather than making it a mandate. J.C. Considine, spokesperson at the commonwealth's education department, said the state was recommending that schools with falling enrollment numbers consider regionalization.
"We generally encourage small school districts with declining enrollment to explore regionalization alternatives because of the opportunities for improved or expanded programming, increased capacity and sharing of services," Considine said. "It becomes a fiscal viability issue."
Pelham's future
In Pelham, the issue of falling enrollment has led to a series of discussions about the future of the elementary school. A recent regionalization panel with 12 members from Amherst, Pelham, Leverett and Shutesbury recently considered closing the Pelham school, but eventually concluded that such a move would have little financial benefit.
Nonetheless, Pelham school and town officials continue to ponder the future of the elementary school. Their solution, thus far, has been to fill the vacant desks with school-choice students, a move that has bolstered the school's budget and kept the school afloat. Today the school has 125 pupils, 48 of whom are school-choice students.
Ironically, Pelham has proved a magnet for school-choice families exactly because it is a small-town school. Parents said they were attracted to the school by its small class sizes, a sense of community and the school's high educational standards.
"Day after day, year after year, I am amazed at how good a school it is," said Elaine Fronhofer, an Amherst resident, who sends her two sons, Nathaniel and Leif, to Pelham. "From the principal to the teachers, they have complete devotion to the children and each of their needs."
Fronhofer said that she and her husband, Eric Corp, chose to send their children to Pelham because they felt the school was a better fit for their educational needs.
Yet in a series of recent interviews, school and town officials alike expressed skepticism that school choice was a long-term solution for keeping Pelham Elementary open.
Moore, the Pelham principal, said the cost of education continues to rise while school-choice rates have remained flat since they were first implemented in 1993. A school receives $5,000 per incoming school-choice student, a figure paid by the student's home school district.
"Unless the state is going to look at increasing the payment for school choice, it doesn't make much sense financially," Moore said. Moore cited the rising cost of health insurance, salaries and general school maintenance as some of the factors that have made education more expensive over the years.
John Trickey, Pelham Finance Committee chairman and a member of the regionalization panel, echoed that sentiment.
"School choice only brings in $5,000 per student and that does not cover the cost of the school. We don't think (the school) is viable with those numbers," Trickey said in a recent phone interview.
Pelham's school-choice numbers have risen steadily from four students in fiscal 2004, the year the school implemented the program, to 18 in FY2006, to 38 in FY2009. The influx in students proved a boon for the school's coffers: in FY2009, choice students brought in $355,538 to Pelham, representing nearly 23 percent of the school's $1.6 million budget for that year.
Tracy Farnham, Pelham School Committee chairwoman, said school choice is only a piece of the solution.
"(School choice) is a dance with the devil because once you start doing it you start to rely on it," Farnham said. "Part of the problem is that some people say, 'Why don't we take in more school-choice students?' But people seek us out because we have small classrooms. If we were to raise the number to what the state average is for a classroom, we no longer would be so appealing."
Benefits relished
Yet Pelham officials' feelings about school are complicated, officials say, because of the substantial number of benefits it has brought to the school. Choice has not only kept the school open, but also allowed Pelham to maintain one of the highest educational standards in the area, which in turn encourages more school choice students. In the 2009 MCAS, the school scored first in sixth-grade math, second in fifth-grade science and fourth in sixth-grade English. School choice has also allowed the school to main precious programs.
"It has allowed us to keep programs that we probably would have had to cut if we had just Pelham students," Moore said. She listed Spanish and technology as two programs that the school has been able to maintain largely because of school choice. Yet, the benefits of school choice go beyond mere budgetary matters, the principal noted.
"It has brought in a culturally and economically diverse group," Moore said. "The school choice group is not a homogenous group. They come from towns and cities."
Parents agreed.
Fronhofer said she thought school choice could be a long term option for the school.
"I think it could work. It seems like they are making it work this way, and it could continue to work."
Heidi Arnold, a Greenfield resident whose son is in sixth grade at Pelham, said she thought school choice will continue to work for Pelham.
"They are doing something that any school could do, but they are making it work. It could be a model and they are putting it into effect. I have never seen anyone do it better."
Future options
Farnham said the School Committee has examined the school's enrollment problem regularly in the past and will continue to do so in the future. She listed enhanced cooperation with Amherst as one of the long-term options for Pelham, should it become necessary.
"This is very much in its infancy, but one idea that has been put out there is a tuition scenario where Amherst tuitions a set number of students to Pelham," Farnham said. The plan would give Pelham students and accompanying tuition dollars it could rely on and also help Amherst, Farnham said.
Neither Amherst Superintendent Alberto Rodriguez and Rob Detweiler, director of finance and operations for Union 26, Pelham's district, could be reached for comment.
Moore said the town could close the Pelham school and pay tuition for students to other schools, but noted that such an approach is financially unattractive at present, because of transportation costs and the costs associated with the elementary school building.
Back in Boston, Considine said regionalization should remain an option. In an email response to a question asking if Pelham was the type of school the state would like to see regionalized, Considine wrote, "Yes, a small district like Pelham is the type of district that we would like to encourage to seriously explore regionalization."
