A very distraught parent rose to speak at the last school committee meeting to express her concerns about changes proposed to the grandfathering of siblings into specific schools and programs (French, English). At issue is the possibility of a program such as French or English becoming oversubscribed and siblings being split up among schools. This parent may be the tip of an iceberg.

Last year the school administration set up a system to put students into a lottery should there be more students requesting a program at their neighborhood school than could be accommodated. The seats available would be filled as determined by the lottery and the remaining would go to another school where seats were available or, if the number was sufficient, to an auxiliary classroom at Cunningham.

Last year when this was presented the policy was that an entering student who had a sibling already in a school / program would not need to enter the lottery. They would be grandfathered into that school/program.  This upset families with only one child. They felt all children should be in the lottery regardless of whether they had a sibling or not.

Now the administration is proposing a modification. Children can attend their sibling’s school but “not necessarily in the program of their choice.” This introduces the risk that a parent may have children in two separate schools and have to deal with the logistical complications that result. The prospect of having to deal with that has one parent ver upset and where there is a spark there is a fire.