Burlington is down about a dozen students compared to this time last year, according to Director of Student Enrollment Robyn Miliano. It’s in line with much-discussed projections from the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which were used to help calculate the size of the recently funded reconstruction of the Fox Hill Elementary School building.
There were no significant surprises in the data, Superintendent Dr. Eric Conti said Tuesday night; In fact, they were able to dispel some rumors in the community that more students were leaving the district for private schools.
“I worked with [Support Services Coordinator] Mr. [Joe] Attubato to get an idea of historically how many students we lose to private school, and it has not increased at all. The number will change because the class size changes. Right now we have 289 8th grade students in Marshall Simonds, so we may lose 50 students, but it’s proportionate to however many students we have in the class.”
Instead, according to Conti, more students are attending Shawsheen Valley Technical High School, which he called “a very positive thing.” He added, “We have not seen any sort of mass exodus or any sort of trend in the enrollment data.”
Still, there were some changes in where students are living and what their needs are. With more students living in apartment complexes like Lifetime or Corporate Drive, the district has had to modify some of its bus routes. And more students experiencing homelessness has required a significant investment of time and attention from district administrators. The School Committee approved two $10,000 stipends for two administrators who make sure homeless students get the transportation they need to get to school, whether that’s in Burlington or outside of it.
Under a Massachusetts law called the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act, homeless students have the right to continue going to the school they were attending when they became homeless, even if they’re now sleeping in motels, cars or “doubled up” outside of that district. According to Burlington Superintendent Dr. Eric Conti, Burlington is finding that those students’ situations tend to be highly variable, meaning you can’t just solve their transportation needs once: It takes specialized administrators often working nights or weekends to make sure each student can get to school in Burlington or in another community.
“We’ve had people who have been doing that work for us, but we often get notified late and they’re doing work on evenings and weekends trying to get the kids into school. And it’s been an unfair burden on them,” he said.
Conti said the district is also looking into projections for potential new students due to rezoning in the Mall Road area, but doesn’t anticipate a significant influx any time soon.