Many Brighter Choice students aren't enrolling at the district's new West Hill Middle School, leaving the new school almost $1M in the red. Back in the spring, assistant superintendent for business Bill Hogan assured concerned Board members and parents that because the district would no longer have to pay charter school tuition to Brighter Choice, we'd essentially "break even." Now a new report from Dr. V. says breaking even was the best case scenario - it would only happen if every eliglble student from Brighter Choice chose to enroll at West Hill.
Last year approximately 355 Albany students were enrolled at the Brighter Choice middle schools in grades 5-8. How many have enrolled at West Hill so far? Because the new school will only be for grades 6-8, if every eligible student enrolled, total enrollment would be approximately 266 (assuming even distribution of students at each grade level.)
At the August 20 Board meeting, Dr. V. said we had 220 students enrolled. A recent memo dated August 28 doesn't help clear things up: Page 1 says 172 students "as of this writing;" page 2 says 273 students "as of this writing;" page 3 says 182 students had enrolled as of August 24. Why are the numbers decreasing as we get closer to the beginning of the school year? And how can school staff adequately prepare for the first day of school if they don't know how many people will be there?
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