MANCHESTER, N.H. – How should the Manchester School District address situations where students from private schools and home schools seek to make use of school district resources? That was the question on Wednesday night as the Manchester Board of School Committee (BOSC) Policy Committee sought to recommend a policy on the topic.
Under New Hampshire state law, any student of a home school or private school within a public school administrative unit’s jurisdiction is authorized to take part in activities provided by those public schools such as athletics or music programs if their own schools don’t offer them.
The matter was under discussion on Wednesday night after it was found that the Manchester School District did not have a policy specifically outlining the process when home school or private school students request to be part of public school activities.
Manchester School District Attorney Kathryn Cox Pelletier advised that the Manchester School District adopt a policy with standardized language from the New Hampshire School Board Association to ensure consistent guidelines whenever the Manchester School District accepts non-enrolled students into certain programs moving forward.
The proposed policy also would have not deviated from the informal process used already by the district when accepting non-district students into district programs.
Ward 11 BOSC Member Dr. Nicole Leapley noted that the formula for state adequacy aid has changed and now whenever a public school student transfers their enrollment to a private school or a home school, that decreases the total amount of state adequacy aid funding the district receives.
“It seems to me that the state needs to update their statute if they’re going to change the way they pay for children’s education,” she said. “It seems like our duty should not be the same now since the state has decided that their duty to our students is different.”
In regard to funding, Leapley also asked if parents now receiving school freedom education account funding, also known as school vouchers, should be used by parents specifically to pay for public school programs being used by non-public school students, requesting additional information at a future meeting for clarification.
Ward 4 BOSC Member and Policy Committee Chairwoman Leslie Want noted that parents of home school and private school children still pay property taxes, which go toward paying for public schools.
Want also disagreed with a comment by Student Representive Kellen Barbee who felt the matter was better suited for the BOSC Committee on Education Legislation, saying that the matter of the policy itself had to be dealt with in this committee.
Ward 8 BOSC Member Peter Perich also noted that it has been a long standing practice for private school or home school students to participate on the athletic teams of public schools when they did not have access to teams in that sport at the schools they attended.
Manchester School District Chief Finance Officer Karen DeFrancis indicated that home school and private school students may provide a partial amount toward adequacy aid for school districts if they participate in public school programs, but she would need to research this. She confirmed that they do not count toward base adequacy aid funding from the state.
A decision on the matter was tabled for the committee’s meeting next month.