By Nate Leskovic
Times Staff
7/31/08

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She says she feels the school department has not been straight with her. “It’s really frustrating,” she adds.
Buckley says her child has special issues that make switching schools a challenge. In addition, she says, it will make picking up and dropping off her child more difficult.
This is the second year that the school system’s new student assignment plan has been in effect. Last year the School Committee chose a “neighborhood schools” model, intended to send children to an elementary school close to their home.
This is not always possible, however.
Gormley says school assignments are made to keep class sizes down in the interest of student achievement. She says the children transferred from Glover were picked from those who are new to Milton schools and those without older siblings in accordance with the plan’s guidelines.
The assignment process is different each year, according to Gormley, because it is impacted by enrollment numbers, geography, the different sizes of schools and the choice of English or French Immersion tracks. This year there are more French Immersion students than English students entering first grade, which is not typically the case.
Cargill, however, maintains the process is unfair.
Both Cargill and Buckley point out that in a first grade information night earlier this year they were told picking the English program guaranteed placement in their neighborhood school.
“There are only two families fighting this now,” says Cargill. “I can’t believe they can’t accommodate us.”
He claims the “grandfather” clause distorts the assignment process, as students whose older siblings went to Glover during Collicot and Cunningham construction are still attending Glover despite living in Collicot and Cunningham neighborhoods.
Though the parents are upset, Gormley maintains once school begins and the children are assimilated that problems evaporate.
“No one ever calls me a year later asking for another school,” she says.
Gormley adds that bus transportation will be provided at no cost to the transferred students.
“I understand that they live in a neighborhood. I’m not minimizing this,” she says. “But the distance between these schools is not 10 miles.”
Parent Rachel Schewe was in a similar situation last year. She lives six houses away from Glover, and her child was sent to Tucker.
“We were definitely upset about it. It was tumultuous,” she says. “I can completely empathize with these families, but we’ve had nothing but a positive experience. She (her daughter) truly had an absolutely wonderful year.”
Schewe says it is inevitable that students will be transferred with the current system. Some schools are under-populated and some are over-populated, she says, and the French and English programs force compromises.
“Your numbers aren’t always going to be perfect,” she says.
Gormley has offered to bus Buckley and Cargill’s children to Glover at the end of the school day for an after-school program and an easier pickup, however the parents are not satisfied.
“It’s not in the best interest of the children,” Buckley says. “I will continue to keep my finger crossed in the hope that a space becomes available in Glover.”