By Cate Lecuyer
Staff writer
April 23, 2008 06:00 am BEVERLY — Ayers and North Beverly schools would have a disproportionate share of low-income children under Superintendent James Hayes' proposal to reorganize the district. About 30 percent of the students there would qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches — a measure the schools use to determine income. At Centerville and Hannah schools, only about 20 percent of the children would be low-income. Yet it may seem like a bigger difference than it really is, said Salem State economics professor Ken Ardon. "That's actually probably closer than a lot of towns," he said. "My gut feeling is that's not that spread out." But the numbers are causing some concern. During a speech Monday, Mayor Bill Scanlon spoke strongly about the importance of equally distributing students who come from different economic backgrounds. "We cannot have one building serve the bulk of at-risk students while other buildings serve few, if any, of those students," Scanlon said. "These inequities are bad for our students, they are bad for our school system, and they are bad for our community, and unfortunately some of them exist today. Any reconfiguration must redress this while at the same time helping to achieve our goal of fiscal sustainability." The discrepancy in numbers of low-income children is a result of consolidating six elementary schools into four and grouping them into pairs when it comes to redistricting students. Hayes has proposed turning McKeown School into an early childhood education center and sending those students to North Beverly and Ayers, on the same side of the city, and turning Cove into an alternative secondary school and sending those students to Hannah and Centerville, also on the same side of the city. Creating pairs of schools based on location makes better economical sense than busing students all over the city in search of a perfect balance of low-income children, Hayes said. "The view of trying to spread everyone around evenly means an entire redistricting of the city," he said. "It would be a very expensive transportation situation." Hayes presented the consolidation plan to help close a $2.6 million gap between spending and revenue in next year's budget. If voters pass a Proposition 21/2 override, it would buy administrators another year to further develop the proposal, but they are also moving forward with planning in case the override doesn't pass. Perfect balance? In any case, a perfect balance of low-income children may be unachievable. "You'll never have everyone mixed equally," Salem State's Ardon said. "It's just not going to happen." School districts should strive for a balance, he said, while also keeping in mind state and federal aid that may be available based on higher percentages of low-income students in each school. Preliminary estimates of the free and reduced lunch distribution show North Beverly at 34 percent — almost twice as much as Centerville, which is at 18 percent. But those numbers are only a starting point, Hayes said. As the administration starts looking at individual kids and where they would go, the idea is that Ayers, at 26 percent, would go up, and North Beverly would go down, so both schools would come out around 30 percent, he said. Also driving up the numbers are the 32 upcoming third-graders at North Beverly who are on the free and reduced-price lunch program. The numbers in the rest of the first through fifth grades range from 13 to 23. "It's a real bubble that's passing its way through the system," Hayes said. It will eventually disappear and shouldn't be a prominent factor in redistricting, which would be in place for many years, he said. Although the scale in September would still be tipped between the pairs of schools, that could change, he said, as parents lose jobs or families move. "In this economy, any family could be free and reduced tomorrow," he said. The free and reduced lunch program is a national program funded by the state and federal government and is based on family incomes. According to data from the Massachusetts Department of Education, children from families with incomes at or below 130 percent of the poverty level — currently $21,710 for a family of four — are eligible for free meals. Those between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty level — currently $30,895 for a family of four — are eligible for reduced-price meals, which can cost no more than 40 cents. Lunch is $2.25 at the elementary schools and $2.50 at the middle and high schools. About 25 percent of students in grades first through fifth are enrolled in the program.
2008-2009 free and reduced lunch enrollment projections School Percent of students in program Ayers 26.44 North Beverly 34.29 Centerville 18.13 Hannah 22.87
—
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.