School Choice - Part III of IV

Trends in School Choice Enrollment
Ralph C. Mahar Regional School
Orange, MA

As you can see from the graph above, School Choice in the Ralph C. Mahar Regional School has changed drastically in recent years. For quite some time more students from Orange, Wendell, New Salem, and Petersham chose to attend middle and high schools in other school districts rather than attend Mahar. A few years ago, the balance of this equation tipped.

I would be delighted to go on about the programming at Mahar and Mount Wachusett Community College that draws students from all over Central Massachusetts, but that is not the purpose of this post. The graph above shows the possibilities that arise when academic programming is desirable to those from surrounding towns.

In the next school year it is quite possible that Mahar will take in over $1,000,000.00 in school choice funding, with a rapidly decreasing number of students who choose to attend other schools in the Commonwealth. Last year Mahar took in $873,210.00 in school choice funds. This equates to $5,432.00 per student.

In my part IV of this blog series, I will focus in on how the three aforementioned school choice accounts can be consolidated for the benefit of all students in our three districts, should regionalization take place.