School Board Enforces Entrance Age Policy

Citing fairness, the Westborough School Committee affirmed and enforced its entrance age policy Wednesday night.

The unanimous vote leaves the 13 Westborough families who sent their children to Kindergarten in Worcester, which has a younger entrance age, this year with two options for next fall, Assistant School Superintendent Daniel Mayer said: enroll in Westborough's Kindergarten program, either the half-day or full-day sessions; or attend first grade in Worcester, continuing there through Massachusetts' school choice program. 

The Westborough public schools require students be five by Sept. 1 to enter Kindergarten, and six by that date to enter first grade. The children affected by Wednesday night's vote did not meet that Kindergarten age requirement. But they met the one in Worcester, where the cutoff date is Dec. 31. The families have sought to enroll their children in Westborough's first grade next fall despite missing that age requirement.

"I think the best way for us to stop this practice is that we need to enforce our policy," school committee Chairman Ilyse Levine-Kanji said.

"A third of Westborough children are born between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31. Many of those families chose to send their families to private kindergarten or private pre-Kindergarten this year with the expectation of going to a second year of Kindergarten in Westborough next year.

"I also firmly believe that our entrance age policy makes sense, that most districts have a Sept. 1 entrance date requirement, because we want students to be of an appropriate maturity level to learn."

But, at least some parents may continue pursuing enrolling their children in Westborough's first grade class for next fall.

"We're exploring our options. Definitely, we'll contact our attorney," one man told Westborough Patch after the vote at the Forbes Municipal Building.

The vote followed a discussion, beginning with a slide presentation by Mayer and Superintendent Marianne O'Connor that Mayer said would "lay out the context and the facts."

Mayer said there's been "lots of community discussion on this issue," including "a lot of misconceptions, people speculating on what was going on."

Westborough school officials contacted the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for data, Mayer sald.

The state's  school choice law allows any community school department to vote to accept students from other communities, he said. The state then subtracts $5,000 from the amount it sends to the sending community.

In December, the state notifies the sending community of the names, grade levels and the districts they're attending.

"School's already started, and we're four months, five months into the school year," O'Connor said.

Mayer said "the Worcester issue" involved "seven families (that) registered their children as first graders this year in Westborough, and they were underage for our school system by our first grade age requirement."

The Westborough schools' policy allows for exceptions for students moving into Westborough from another community, he said. School officials ask for birth certificates or copies of them, and proof of residency.

"We found out that these seven children had registered in Westborough only after they had registered here," Mayer said.

"What happened this fall was that one of our administrators noticed on a lease, they saw the date the lease was signed pre-dated their arrival in Kindergarten."

O'Connor said that "the misinformation that this has been happening for years is not true, despite all the rumors."

State data shows that between the fall of 2007 and the spring of 2011, 15 Westborough students chose to go other districts, O'Connor said.

"Of those 15 students, 12 went to communities other than Worcester and attended grades other than Kindergarten," she said.

"As soon as the administration learned that seven children went to Worcester last year that were attending first grade this year, we started addressing it." School officials told the school committee and the school district's attorney, O'Connor said.

"We called the Department of Education to see if this was an anomaly. We found out that this tends to happen in communities that are close to school choice communities," she said.

O'Connor said Westborough's age requirements are not new.

"I've gotten e-mails from folks saying, 'This was 27 years ago,'" she said.

Levine-Kanji told the parents Wednesday night she understood that "you believed you were doing something in your children's best interests."

"Unfortunately, a secretary cannot make policy on behalf of the district," she said, and it "would have been much better" if the parents had met with O'Connor or a principal.

School board member Jody Hensley said the comments she heard on this matter was "more feedback than any other issue since I've been on the school committee."

The board did not take questions from the audience, which upset some of the parents.

"You're not getting from our side," one woman said.

Levine-Kanji said parents had exchanged e-mails with the school administration, and they met with her and Mayer.

"We had a lot of testimony at our last meeting (on March 27)," she said.

"At some point, you just have to make a decision."