• We are asking for the state to increase state aid to the Greenfield public school district by $4 million dollars more in funding. 

 

• This amount is the amount we pay in costs for school choice and charter schools and it's deducted from our state local school aid.  

 

• This petition addresses school funding inequity in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and how it affects Greenfield specifically

 

This petition is for Greenfield residents to ask the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to underwrite the municipal cost of sending tuition assessments for charter school and school choice public funding polices for low and moderate income cities and towns.

 

For the City of Greenfield, the cost of these polices in 2023 for assessments for charter schools was nearly $2 million dollars and for school choice $2.7 million dollars. 

 

A full underwriting of the sending tuition assessments for low income school districts would bring over $4 million in new state funding for the Greenfield Public School District.

 

State polices and mandates relating to education have in the past put enormous funding pressure on the city of Greenfield specifically. For example in 2018 Greenfield was on a top 3 list for un-reimbursed expenses for educational services for students in foster care. That top 3 list consisted of Greenfield and 2 major Commonwealth cities, Brockton and Boston. We paid 4 times per capita what Brockton paid and 12 times what Boston paid.

 

As the county seat for Franklin County, city municipal and institutional services are provided here for a county that is otherwise entirely rural except for Greenfield. As a non-rural community we do not benefit from rural school aid, but we also lack the population size to be classified as a Gateway city for state funding and grants.

 

For these and many other reasons, Greenfield struggles with the punitive effects that School Choice and Charter School public funding policies impose on low income declining enrollment districts like Greenfield.

 

This current funding system disproportionately siphons essential public funding from low and moderate income public school districts.

 

For each family who chooses to send their child to a charter school in the Commonwealth, the full amount of public funding for that student follows the student to the charter school.  For each family who chooses to send their child to another public school district, a portion of that funding follows the student to the other school district.  

 

This system costs public school districts much more in tuition payments than it saves them from having to educate fewer students.  Because students "choice out" from different classrooms, grades and schools across a public school district, the costs to operate the public school district remain relatively unchanged.

 

Many of the costs associated with running a school district do not "scale down" and are fixed costs including; maintenance, utilities, transportation and benefits negotiated in good faith for public employees.  For this reason, consolidating resources is not a viable option to respond to the loss of funding and the ensuing local budget cuts deprive the remaining students of program offerings and support staff.  This results in more local budget cuts, further perpetuating a downward spiral of loss of students to charter schools and wealthier school districts and a continued decline in school funding.

 

The Commonwealth has a constitutional obligation to provide an education for all its children, rich and poor, in every city and town through the public schools.  Charter School and School Choice assessments deducted from the state aid of low and moderate income school districts should therefore be the financial responsibility of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

 

This petition is directed at the following decision makers:

• The Greenfield School Committee
• The Greenfield City Council
• State Representative Natalie Blais (1st Franklin District)
• State Representative Susannah Whipps (2nd Franklin District)
• State Senator Joanne Comerford                                            (Hampshire, Franklin and Worcester)