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Superintendent reports steady enrollment, flags AMSA charter-amendment request and potential budget implications
Summary
Superintendent reported district enrollment of 4,786 and rises in multilingual learners and McKinney-Vento students; the committee discussed AMSA's charter amendment request to increase enrollment and potential financial and special-education implications for Marlborough Public Schools.
At the Oct. 8 Marlborough School Committee meeting the superintendent presented the Oct. 1 enrollment report, saying the district's total enrollment is 4,786 students. Kindergarten enrollment was reported at 433.
The superintendent told the committee multilingual-learner counts have grown compared with October 2020, and that McKinney-Vento (homeless) students numbered 236 at the start of the school year, a rise from the prior October.
She also reported that AMSA submitted a charter amendment request to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education seeking to increase student enrollment, and that DESE will not consider amendment requests earlier than Jan. 28, 2025 and not later than Feb. 24, 2025; the department is soliciting public comments by email.
Committee members raised concerns about how an increased AMSA cap could affect Marlborough Public Schools' Chapter 70 funding and transportation costs, and asked for more data about demographics, special-education service differences between the charter and district, and the charter school's compliance with the enrollment-makeup intent of the original charter.
The superintendent and committee members said they would consider joining regional superintendents' comments to DESE while also drafting a district-specific response to reflect Marlborough's urban-district priorities.
No formal action on the charter amendment occurred at the meeting; committee members were advised of the DESE timeline and the opportunity to submit public comment.
