Seekonk Undecided About School Choice

The Seekonk School Committee remains undecided about approving a school choice program for the 2025-2026 academic year. The public hearing and vote on Seekonk's participation in School Choice for 2025-2026 will be held on May 19th.  

“I do believe we are a great school district, but if we lose more students who are ‘tuitioning out’ through school choice, then it reduces our capacity at the high school to offer the programs to want to bring them in,” Chairman Bob Gerardi said at the May 5 meeting.

The high school has slightly above 500 students now, a drop from 600 in 2021. Some eighth grade students from Hurley have opted to attend Tri County Regional Vocational High School for ninth grade.

Committee member Emily Field feared losing the ‘tight knit’ quality of Seekonk schools if more students were allowed in.

“With (school choice), if a child is expelled from another school, we have to let them in to Seekonk if they choose Seekonk,” Field said. “That could really change the balance of things within our school.”

“I don’t want to see school choice abused to the point where we’re not a small school,” Gerardi noted. “But right now we’re smaller than we should be.”

“I would consider it a pilot program if you chose to pursue it this year,” Superintendent Rebecca Kidwell told the committee. “If you chose to pursue it, it could benefit us in a short arc of potentially more than one year so we see what it looks like when people know earlier in the season with some marketing.”

The Massachusetts Department of Secondary and Elementary Education (DESE) explains: “The inter-district school choice program under G.L. c. 76, § 12B, allows families to enroll their children in schools in communities other than the city or town in which they reside. Tuition is paid by the sending district to the receiving district. Districts may elect not to enroll school choice students if no space is available. Please refer to the Inter-District School Choice Receiving District Status document for information regarding district participation. If you are interested in having your child attend school in another district under this program and that district is accepting students, you should contact the superintendent's office in the district where you want to enroll your child. If your district does not participate in the inter-district school choice program, families still have the option to enroll their children in a participating district.”