Over the summer we got a few questions regarding Wellesley Public schools, mostly about two sometimes hot-button issues — Open Enrollment and grade-freezing at the elementary level. We’ve noticed that there is sometimes confusion between the two terms, so we decided to go to Superintendent David Lussier for answers.
Dr. Lussier has held the town’s top educator job since 2012. Before that, he was executive director for the Office of Educator Quality in the Austin, Texas Independent School District for six years. His move to Massachusetts was a homecoming of sorts: Lussier boasts some serious local chops, having grown up in Dracut. From there he attended UMass-Lowell, Boston University, and Harvard, where he collected various degrees befitting a top-dog educator.
The superintendent took time out of his day earlier this summer to discuss open enrollment, freezing enrollment at elementary schools, and when a small school is too small.
Swellesley: What is Open Enrollment?
Dr. Lussier: Open Enrollment is a voluntary mechanism or choice mechanism that parents can use to attend a school that is not their home school. So each year, for any number of reasons (such as a family’s need for a special education program that the family’s officially districted school does not offer) a student may go to a school that best serves that student’s needs. For example, we have an autism program at Upham. So a family that resides in the Fiske district may send a child to an out-of-home district, so to speak, to attend a specialized program, such as the one offered at Upham.
One scenario may be that a special education student has a rising sibling who does not require special ed services, but the family wants to have both kids in the same school. They could achieve this by requesting, through Open Enrollment, for the rising sibling to attend the school that is outside of their home district. If there’s space, it can happen. That’s the key.
Another example of Open Enrollment at work could be a family that’s moving within Wellesley, say a Sprague family moving to Schofield, but who would prefer that their kids stay at Sprague to finish their elementary school experience. The family could put in an Open Enrollment request, and if there’s space, we try to accommodate those situations. So that’s what the Open Enrollment process is.
Swellesley: What does “freezing” grades mean?
Dr. Lussier: It’s a reality that because of our space and enrollment challenges, and given the way that our elementary attendance zones are currently drawn, that in order to stay within class size guidelines that reflect the learning environment we like to see, in schools and grades we sometimes have to close grade levels.
That means that someone coming in might be assigned to a school nearby where there’s actually space, rather than in their districted school, so that we don’t go over guideline in those particular sections. So this year right now I believe we have eight sections, or grade levels, closed across all seven elementary schools. That means anyone who comes in after the point of classroom guideline, we work with that family very closely to reassign them. As of today, I think that only a single family has actually been reassigned, which also reflects the dynamic nature of it. I think there’s a lot of noise around this, even though it’s actually really affected very few families, and that’s because enrollment is dynamic. Even after we’ve closed a grade level, people move all the time for various reasons. For example, a spouse may get a job offer and be reassigned at the last minute. So we’re talking a school or a grade level that is closed at a certain school, even once it’s closed, if families continue to withdraw for whatever reason, space opens up. When that happens, when someone moves into town to register we would absolutely assign them there.
Swellesley: What about redistricting? Would that solve space problems?
Dr. Lussier: We looked at redistricting almost three years ago, and it wasn’t going to solve the problem. The reality is that we have very small elementary schools, and so even what appear to be very small incremental changes in enrollment, if you only have two classes at that particular grade level, you’re talking about three or four students, you say, wow that doesn’t seem like a lot of students. But if there are only two classes and you want to stay within the guidelines we have, three or four students has a disproportionate impact.
We looked at redistricting as a way to try and affect or improve some of those imbalances. We know that in some schools we tended to have much higher class sizes than others. The reality is that redistricting is a blunt instrument. It really allows you to affect gross changes, and it’s really not a useful tool for some of these more surgical needs, for very small neighborhoods where you might get only incremental change. So what we found when we looked at a number of scenarios was we’d basically be shifting problems from one school and one neighborhood to the next if we went with redistricting.
The reality is that redistricting is a blunt instrument. — Supt. Lussier
The only way redistricting will work is if our space changes, which is really the urgency behind the Hunnewell, Hardy, Upham (HHU) proposal and its solution. Until we have different space configurations at these schools, redistricting with the current inventory of schools doesn’t solve any problems, it only shifts problems from one school to the next. At some point declining enrollment should provide some relief. But until then, closing grades is an interim measure to hopefully create some equity in terms of class size guidelines.
Previous to this, you might see a class at Upham at 16 students, whereas if you went over to Hardy you might see 24 students. So this has allowed us, in our 113 classes across all the elementary schools, to have I believe only a single section over guideline, and I think that was by one student, which is extraordinary. So it works, and it’s actually affected very few people. And actually about 42% of our classes last year were slightly under guideline. So we’ve done a much better job of balancing.
Open Enrollment is one of the tools we have, separate from grade level closures, because if people voluntarily want to switch schools, it helps us solve space issues. That’s a good thing. So that’s something that we’ve promoted as well.
Swellesley: A comment from one realtor was that “Open Enrollment has resulted in some chaos in the real estate market locally and also in kids being denied entrance to the elementary school in their district.” What is your response to this?
Dr. Lussier: Well the first thing is I think they’re confusing Open Enrollment with grade levels being closed, which are two separate although related facets of how we’re managing the district as a whole at the elementary level. But I get it. I hate closing grade levels and I wish we didn’t have to do it. And yet we’ve exhausted every possible tool. Which is worse, to close grade levels and reassign a few families, or to redistrict and affect entire neighborhoods? If you are one of the new families coming in and you’re reassigned, it doesn’t mean that it feels particularly good, but which is worse? To do that or to be running classes at 25, 26, 27 at the elementary level?
Swellesley: Could it happen that a family switching districts within town could get frozen out? Like if a Sprague family moved to Hunnewell district and Hunnewell says I’m sorry but there’s no room here for your second grader.
Dr. Lussier: That could happen but typically this affects families coming in new. Last year we had six grade level closures and it only affected six families district-wide for the whole year. This year so far it’s a single family. I get that especially for the realtors, I think the challenge is that it creates more uncertainty. So that if you have your house on the market and you’re a prospective buyer, say you’re out of state, when you go to the MLS listing sheet there’s uncertainty. In the past, you knew that if you bought on this particular street , it’s zoned to this particular school, and that’s still largely the case. I think that what’s different now is, again given the reality of the situation, we can’t guarantee that under every circumstance you’re absolutely going to be able to go Fiske or whatever school it might be.
It really depends on the situation as it’s evolving. So I think that’s been the hardest part. It’s created more uncertainty because realtors can’t say with absolute authority that if you buy here, you’re absolutely going to be able to go there. I always counter that, though, unlike in many districts, the luxury Wellesley has is that we don’t have a single bad elementary school. Kids are going to get an amazing education regardless of which school they go to. And the reality is that parents sometimes have their hearts set on a particular school, whether it’s word-of-mouth or their friends live in a particular zone. Most typically though, when they are assigned to a school, let’s say it’s outside of their district, they end up loving it and don’t want to leave after the fact. But I totally appreciate the uncertainty and I hope we get to a point where that’s no longer necessary. But it’s an interim measure prior to coming up with larger facilities .
Swellesley: I’ve spoken to real estate agents who say they have had potential buyers walk away from a house upon hearing a given class in their assigned elementary school was frozen.
Dr. Lussier: A lot of this is so granular because each of our elementary schools is already fairly small. When you think about a particular grade level — and one of the challenges of neighborhood schools is that they are really driven by the composition of the cohort that lives in the neighborhood at that particular time — it can vary widely based on gender based on any number of things.
In fact at Upham right now, one of the challenges we’ve had is this past year there was a single kindergarten class. Next year, when that class moves forward, it will be a single first grade class. One section at any school in one grade level is not a good thing. That’s why in the conversation in the community about small schools, some schools are actually too small. Upham is too small right now. Our preference is not for two-section schools, meaning two sections in each grade level. Because the problem with two-section schools is that although intuitively it feels good to have small learning environments, it can flip to one section pretty quickly depending on the cohort in that neighborhood. When that happens, then you’re down to a single teacher in a grade level, and that teacher then has no peers at that grade level.
If you’re the principal assigning students to a class — and that’s a big thing every year at the elementary level — trying to think about the right composition, some kids you want to keep away from each other for whatever reason. But if you have a single class in a grade, you have no options. And think about those kids. If they’re in a single class for five years and they suddenly come to a 1,200 student middle school, and their universe in their grade level has been 22 students, socially that’s a problem as well.
Our preference, as reflected so far in the HHU work, our sweet spot would be grades of three to four sections per school, like a 3.5 sections school. That’s really our sweet spot Because then you can expand a little bit or even contract and not run out of space or get down to one section of kids. It gives you that nimbleness as a system to move.
It’s an important distinction between small classes and small schools. We still want small class sizes within any one of our schools, and that’s why these grade level closures are critical to maintaining those. Even in the HHU proposal, the class sizes aren’t going to change, it’s just thinking about the overall size of the school.
Swellesley: Does Wellesley have any plans to enroll international students as a source of tuition revenue?
Dr. Lussier: We’ve had a lot of interest in this topic. We certainly participate in a number of exchanges, and what we’re finding is that there is a lot of interest in foreign students coming here, and there’s a whole cottage industry around that idea. I think it is coming, and we are interested. It could be a revenue stream coming in, but I think you want to go in with eyes wide open with who exactly are the kids you’re getting, what additional services will they need, what are their language skills, how sustainable would such a program be, what visas are required? I meant there’s a whole legal aspect with the State Department. So we’re kind of in the middle of exploring all of those things. I think we’re definitely open to looking about what number of kids we’re talking about, and it must be balanced with what does this mean for space.
Families at the high school, where I know that courses sometimes are locked out, would be concerned about kids coming in who aren’t Wellesley kids per se getting into courses, and what does that mean for impact. So I think there are a lot of things we have to look at, but we’re certainly interested .
Swellesley: But at this point we don’t have any international tuition-paying students?
Dr. Lussier: No, we don’t. Not foreign students.
Swellesley: Is there a big problem with people who do not live in town trying to sneak their students into Wellesley schools?
Dr. Lussier: I think people generally try to do the right thing. We currently have a robust registration process. Frankly, there was some looseness in that process previously, but we do our best to make sure that we have residents that are providing us with the documentation that all families must provide across the board.
Swellesley: Thanks for taking the time to talk with me.
Dr. Lussier: You bet.
You can keep up with the Superintendent on Twitter.
RELATED: Wellesley School Committee pretty much gives superintendent Lussier an “A”
I have not been following the HHU or other school-related matters as closely as others. That said, there is one underlying assertion that has been standing out to me and which again stands out in this post: the assertion that enrollment is declining. That assertion just runs counter to everything that I am seeing around Town. Indeed, I chuckled at the paradox of it being presented adjacent the indication that elementary schools either do not or will not have enough space for students who would otherwise go there.
I think that the root of the problem might be with the demographic study that is being relied on. My understanding the Town is relying on a demographic report from 2013 or so (which I believe is, happily, being updated). I do not think that the 2013 report effectively captured the mini baby boom from 2010-13 that followed the bust from 2008-2010 (I.e., immediately after the financial crisis when many couples said, “er, maybe we’ll wait a year or two to see how this shakes out”). The anecdotal evidence of the mini-boom is readily apparent; new daycare facilities are opening all over, facilities that host pre-school aged birthday parties are booked solid and other businesses catering to pre-school aged kids are very busy.
On my street, in the last year alone, no fewer than 4 “empty-nester” families (no kids) have moved away and have been replaced by families with school-aged and/or younger children. All these families have moved in after the Town’s last census, so I have serious doubts as to whether they have been accounted for in any calculations of future class sizes. It should go without saying that this is happening all over Town, as Baby Boomer empty-nesters take a look at the real estate market and decide now is the time to pocket their HUGE capital gains and retire to cheaper communities.
Further, I do not believe that the projections/demographic report are effectively accounting for migration into Wellesley. This might be due, in some part, to the ever-popular notion that “Millennials want to live in the City”. That is right – until they have kids. The cool South End 4th floor walkup isn’t that cool anymore when you’re carrying an infant seat (among other reasons). The demographers and school folk have to get out to the open houses around Town to see who is there – a huge percentage of the cars have Boston Resident Permit Parking stickers and are being driven by people who clearly have, or will soon have, small children. As hard as it might be for them, they are giving up South End restaurants for Wellesley schools (unfortunately, we all have to grow up some time).
I will close with another anecdote. The town in which I grew up similarly bought into a declining enrollment report. Accordingly, 2 of 3 intermediate schools were closed, and one of the two high schools was converted into a single intermediate school. The high schoolers all went to the remaining high school, with that space being supplemented by one of the closed intermediate schools next door. You can imagine how much this cost (think about each urinal in the old high school having to be lowered to accommodate intermediate school kids).
The “realignment” lasted 5-7 years, before they realized enrollment was exploding, and had to undo everything they had done before. The entire farce cost some high 8-digit sum.
We had better be careful about this, or the ensuing tax revolt and Town government house-cleaning will tear the town apart.
You have hit the nail on the head regarding the increased families and children moving to town. For every empty nester home that is leveled, a 4-5 bedroom house is built and filled with 2-4 children. Have we looked at how many homes over the next 5 years may fall or be sold and replaced with families?
Hi Jen, a new enrollment report was just completed and it references tear downs as a 1:1 comparison; meaning a house was torn down and a new one was put up. I, like you, do not think they can compare.
Tracy Healy, the owner of Future Think who completed the new study, mentioned in last week’s HHU meeting that an average of .5 kids will go in to one newly constructed house. From what I am seeing it is approx 3 children in our neighborhood .not .5
During a past MPC HHU meeting there was a suggestion by the Director of Planning to hire a company which could study what actually could happen in Wellesley like you mentioned. The MPC HHU committee declined to spend money on a study like this. I thought this would be a very valuable study but apparently others did not.
I was told we had 18 new families start at Hardy this year and our enrollment is pretty steady. Our surrounding towns aren’t seeing a decline so I’m not sure what makes us so special.
As you read this article please keep in mind that a 4 section school was what was recommend and pushed for a year ago by the School Facilities Committee (SFC) Wellesley residents voiced their opinions that they were not happy with this and to go back to the drawing board. Now Dr. Lussier says 3.5 sections is the sweet spot. This may looking like a little change but a school that jumps from 3 sections to 3.5 sections will have an increase of over 70 students. This would be a building of almost 500 students. This is not a little increase. Wellesley is not a large school town.
A 3 sections school hovers around the 400 student mark and adds classrooms to the current 2/2.5 section schools to avoid the 1 classroom situation that may arise and is mentioned often. A school with 3 sections should be our sweet spot.
Here is the reason it isn’t: two 3.5 section schools and what the school administration is suggesting is a “decline” in enrollment gives the them an argument for closing a school. We do not want to close a school. Neighborhoods are built around our schools.
The answer is simple:
Please ask Dr. Lussier and the HHU MPC committee to go forward with a plan that consists of three schools at 3 sections and to spend their time wisely by finding a fiscally responsible way to do so. Email: HHU@wellesley.gov
Upham having one 1st grade class was as a result of the superintendent making the decision to close that school. Originally Hardy had 2 closed classes that year, but last minute the superintendent opened Hardy to a 3rd class and closed upham to 1 class.
In addition stating that only 1 family has been moved because of open enrollment is misleading. People started asking for different elementary schools when they realized their distracted school was overcrowded, so when the superintendent says that open enrollment doesn’t effect many people it is false. It does. The actual number who were forced into open enrollment is small, but the number who chose it is large.
Finally, stating 2 section schools are a “problem” is simply misleading and shows the superintendent doesn’t understand the town he works for. We have historically had 2 and 2.5 section schools in Wellesley since its inception, and those small schools are what gave us our stellar educational reputation. Don’t ruin our school system just because you want to put on your resume that you opened a new state of the art elementary school. This should not be about what our superintendent wants! This should be about what our town wants!
I’m confused. Isn’t Dr. Lussier a voting member of the current HHU MPC committee? This committee was set up to take a fresh, unbiased look at all options on the HHU issue, including rebuilding 3 schools. I understand and appreciate that Dr. Lussier spent a lot of hard work and time on the original SFC proposal to close Hardy. But if he’s now sitting on the MPC, he’s supposed to be considering all options, not publicly pushing his preferences for consolidating kids into larger schools. MPC member deliberation hasn’t even begun. So I find it concerning that this seems to be a public push for his past SFC proposal. Will he still be able to view data and hear public opinion objectively during the remaining months this committee is active? Admittedly, I respectfully disagree with his desire for larger schools for our youngest learners. But I’m not sitting as a voting member on the MPC, so it feels a little more appropriate for me to share my bias.
Further, Dr. Lussier says “I hate closing grade levels and I wish we didn’t have to do it. And yet we’ve exhausted every possible tool. Which is worse, to close grade levels and reassign a few families, or to redistrict and affect entire neighborhoods?” He seems to believe that affecting entire neighborhoods with redistricting is negative – I agree with him here. So how can he reconcile closing a school, which would redistrict hundreds of families throughout the entire town, as well as lower property values and increase traffic??
Rebuilding and slightly enlarging all three schools under consideration to 3-classes per grade (18 classes per school) would only require moderate redistricting (to ease overcrowding in some zones) and offer the flexibility needed to alleviate the administrative problems he stated in this article. There’s no need to go over 3 sections. And going over by even a half section per grade is a lot more kids. What’s the point of enlarging more if we can solve the classroom assignments and teacher collaboration with 3-classes per grade?
There are numerous educational benefits for kids in smaller buildings. What are the the educational benefits for the children in large schools? Seems he’s only concerned with administrative needs not what’s best for the kids.
We moved to Wellesley because it had small elementary schools. I don’t understand why suddenly these ‘enrollment’ problems are popping up that require bigger schools and freezing classes. My 3 children all attended Upham, with at least 2 sections in every grade. Occasionally there were 3 sections, or 2.5. No one had to be shut out of the school. Yes, one of my kids was in a kindergarten class with 16 children (3 sections). The next year, there were 2 sections, each in the low 20s. It didn’t seem to be a problem. Why have things, according to the Superintendent, changed so dramatically? In this article, every single answer he gives to every single question ends up saying: We need bigger elementary schools. Nowhere do I see any explanation of why that is the case. More importantly, I don’t see any explanation of why larger schools are better for children. I would also like to ask: Across all the elementary schools, how many times have we actually had only one section in a grade? I would hope that all this uncertainty is not being created with the object of forcing people to conclude that larger schools are the only answer. Do we have a ‘solution’ looking for ‘problems’?
Anytime there is a big change proposed in town, there tends to be so much noise created that it can be very hard to boil things down to the central, sound arguments on both sides of a debate and, so far, this holds true (at least for me) with regard to the “Save our Neighborhood Schools” campaign. This interview goes a long way to presenting Superintendent Lussier’s thinking so, thank you for posting this! Might the Swellesley Report do a follow up interview with the “Save Our Schools” camp that similarly cuts through all the hysteria and noise and presents the central educational and fiscal reasoning for such?
Meanwhile, though, I can personally attest, from having sent 3 kids through the WPS, that “too small a school” can be exceedingly detrimental to both the educational and social trajectory of its students. In two of my children’s cases (twins actually), a significant gender imbalance led to six years of increasingly skewed educational and social learning that had a profoundly negative impact that I still see traces of today. Yes, yes, they grew up and went on to do fine, but it absolutely wasn’t because of those six years in “too small a school,” it was in spite of it.
Hi, in regards to a too small school you mentioned I think there is a fine line which can pushed the school to become too big for K-5 students. A school with 3 sections seems to be the perfect size.
I have a son in a 2.5 section school and his classes are very girl heavy. This year it is 6 boys and 13 girls. We have had no issues. I would prefer this over a school with 450 + kids. So I think this can vary based on the child.
If you do a search you will find reports which indicate grade schools consisting of a population of 300-400 students work best for elementary age children. Smaller schools help promote a sense of safety, have increase parent participation and teacher satisfaction, amongst other positives. Larger schools are better at being cost effective and are easier for the administration to work with.
If you start consolidating schools now, on the West side of town, I can almost guarantee Fiske and Schofield will be next We moved here because we liked how Wellesley’s elementary schools were set up, not because we wanted to drive our kids across town for school. There are many pieces to consider with this issue. I’m also pretty sure the SWNS group has a website that explains why they think it is so important to keep all our elementary schools. I agree with them 100%.
Why is our superintendent, a voting member of the current HHU MPC committee pitching school consolidation so blatantly? This new HHU MPC committee was set up to take a fresh, unbiased look at ALL options on the HHU issue, including rebuilding/renovating all our schools. In reading this article, it seems that his mind is already made up, while MPC Committee deliberations have not even started! The entire HHU process has been biased from beginning to now. How would you feel if it was your school closing? How would you feel it you bought a house to be next to a school that is on the chopping block?
By the way, just to be clear, we approached Dr. Lussier for an interview in response to a reader’s question about Open Enrollment. The superintendent did not approach us re: a discussion of school consolidation, HHU, etc. That just naturally came up as part of the conversation. The Swellesley Report
I agree with all the above comments. Dr. Lussier appears to have already made a decision, and the declining enrollment argument doesn’t pass the common sense test.
Our small neighborhood school has been the absolute best thing about living in this town for the last 16 years.
Why do we continue to waste money on consultants and architects here? Let’s think outside the box and bring in experts from Germany, they build buildings that LAST 100’s of years. Wood is not the answer, we need concrete to make our schools last forever.
Against the backdrop of climate change, the German construction industry is increasingly focusing on environmental research. Optimising the energy efficiency of buildings and constructing in a manner that is energy-efficient and sustainable is a major focus in research and development. The German industry offers new solutions when it comes to developing new building materials and technologies. In addition, the German construction industry offers state-of-the-art innovations in the areas of digital planning and construction, and in the integrated use of IT applications in construction.
To build something that will last you build it with concrete.
http://buildwithstrength.com/strength/
As someone who has worked in various elementary schools for over twenty years, I have observed that school principals and psychologists are overstretched in schools large than even 300 students, much less 400+! They don’t know all the children in their buildings. It would be shameful of school administrators and the parent community to expect principals and psychologists to adequately serve the need of all the students in a school the size of those being proposed under any HHU plan that involves closing one of Wellesley’s seven elementary schools. They will not be able to connect and engage with our youngest students. Young learners need face-to-face contact with a range of staff members to experience the best learning environment. To accomplish this, we would need to put more staff in place in a :supersized” elementary school, and there would go the minimal cost savings arising from consolidation touted by the School Facilities Committee.
Did you watch Thursday night’s HHU MPC meeting!?!?! Click here
http://vp.telvue.com/preview?id=T01662&video=288324
and start around minute 29. How can these people try to stop a fellow committee member from sharing his opinion!?? He even send his slides to them earlier!! In other meetings there were 3 other MPC members who gave presentations with slides, with no objection from anyone at all!! What is happening!!??
Not to mention that the MPC specifically included residents who had expertise in various fields. This guy is an expert in data analysis and forecasting – let him talk!!
If you’re as disgusted as me, please email town officials and let them know (your Town Meeting Member’s emails will prob get kicked back, because mysteriously enough their addresses are shut down for what appears to be the longest upgrade a system has ever seen. But include them anyway – you never know).
HHU@wellesleyma.gov
School_Committee@wellesleyps.org
sel@wellesleyma.gov
advisorycommittee@wellesleyma.gov
TMMPrecinctA@WellesleyMA.gov
TMMPrecinctB@WellesleyMA.gov
TMMPrecinctC@WellesleyMA.gov
TMMPrecinctD@WellesleyMA.gov
TMMPrecinctE@WellesleyMA.gov
TMMPrecinctF@WellesleyMA.gov
TMMPrecinctG@WellesleyMA.gov
TMMPrecinctH@WellesleyMA.gov