News

Goshen officials hear from educators about school choice

By Patrick Adrian [email protected]
GOSHEN — Private school educators are turning to the Goshen Selectboard and news publications to build community support to include private school options in Goshen’s school choice plan.

Christy Whipple, head of the Newport Montessori School in Newport, spoke at the Goshen Selectboard meeting to answer commonly asked questions about her program and hypothetical logistics if the Goshen School District were to tuition some students to Newport Montessori.

Whipple said she has tried to have this discussion with the Goshen School Board but their rules prevent Whipple from speaking at their board meetings because she is not a Goshen resident. With the Goshen School Board currently expressing reluctance to extend a school choice plan to include private schools, Whipple asked the town selectboard for an opportunity to address several unanswered questions and misconceptions about private programs.

“This is a little out of your purview,” Whipple told the selectboard. “But this is directly relevant to you as managers of the town’s budget overall.”

Goshen, whose school district serves about 80 students in grades K-12, does not have a school of its own. New Hampshire law permits districts without their own schools to tuition their students to other schools, including public or non-public.

The district would first need to partner with an “anchor” school, a neighboring public school whose tuition agreement will represent how much the sending district — or Goshen, in this scenario — will spend in per-pupil tuition for each Goshen student.

Should Goshen provide a school choice option, families could spend up to that tuition amount at another school that contracts with the Goshen district.

The annual tuition to Newport Montessori, which serves grades K-8, is $8,600 for grades 1-8 and “a little less for the kindergarten,” Whipple said.

If the anchor school tuition rate is, for example, $15,000, Goshen would recoup savings for each student enrolled at Newport Montessori, according to Whipple. Conversely, if a family chose a more expensive school, such as Kimball Union Academy in Plainfield, whose tuition exceeds that $15,000, the family would have to cover the additional cost.

A recent town-wide survey by the Goshen School District found that 53% of the 90 responses said they would support using public funds to allow students to attend private schools. However, the survey also showed a sharp divide in support between households with school age children and households without children. Whereas 81% of 43 surveyed families with school age children supported public funds for private options, 71% of the 48 households without school age children opposed it.

Whipple said she hopes to reduce some of that opposition by addressing the common questions or concerns about private schools, such as how they assess student learning, providing special education services and transportation.

Newport Montessori uses the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills as its standardized assessment. Whipple said her school prefers the Iowa assessment because it assesses students in all four major subject areas: language arts, mathematics, science and social studies. New Hampshire uses two different assessments, Smarter Balance and NWEA, but neither of these include a social studies assessment.

“Since inception our students have scored 100% at grade level every single year, with many each year scoring above grade level,” Whipple noted.

Students at Newport Montessori who qualify for special education services may either be parentally placed or district placed, according to Whipple. Service providers — such as speech and language therapists, psychologists, or occupational therapists — visit the school to meet with students during the day.

If the Goshen School District were to contract with Newport Montessori, Goshen would be responsible for managing the special education needs of their students, including testing and evaluations and contracting service providers.

Whipple said that transportation decisions would lie with the Goshen School Board. The board could decide to place the transportation responsibility to or from the non-public school upon the family or contract a transportation service agreement.

School Board Chair Allen Howe, in attendance, asked the selectboard about their intent by inviting Whipple to speak.

Selectman Steve Smith assured Howe that the selectboard would not be rendering an opinion nor interfering with the school board’s decision. The selectboard only wanted to allow Whipple an opportunity to share relevant information.

“We’re not advocating one way or another,” Smith said. “We put her on the agenda and that’s it.”

Whipple, who also serves on the Department of Education’s Nonpublic School Advisory Committee, said she also plans on publishing this information in letters to local newspapers, including the Eagle Times.

For the past few years, the Newport School District had been Goshen’s anchor district. But in July the Goshen School Board terminated that agreement with Newport and is now negotiating an anchor agreement with SAU 6, which serves Claremont and Unity.

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