Milford School Board Abandoning Plans For Speciality High Schools

The Board of Education is studying both short and long term potential changes to the school system, and one of the long-term proposals included creating specialty schools within both Joseph A. Foran and Jonathan Law high schools.

Apparently not anymore. The school board reached a consensus Monday night to abandon plans to create speciality schools within each high school.

The proposal would have created a school within a school for 120 students at both Foran and Law. A speciality program would have been created only for those students, and if demand exceeded space then there would have been a lottery.

Superintendent of Schools Elizabeth Feser said she’d prefer to have the flexibility of offering new programs to more students than just 120 in each high school.

Feser said speciality programming should be available to all students.

The school board will hold a community conversation in the spring and the administration will prepare to add two new programs at the high schools in time for the fall of 2016, officials said.

The hope is two add two new programs each year.

The school within a school concept was floated in part to help keep Milford students enrolled in the district. Some students depart the school system in search of a magnet school that offers more specialized academic programming.