Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Bellville discusses the School Choice program with the School Committee for the 2025-26 school year.
Photo credit: ChicopeeTV
CHICOPEE — With the school year in its final few months, the Chicopee Public Schools administration and School Committee have begun to discuss School Choice seats for the 2025-26 school year.
During its April 2 meeting, the School Committee approved offering 31 School Choice seats in grades 1-5 for the 2025-26 school year.
School Choice gives parents and their children the opportunity to allow them to enroll in whichever school they feel best fits their needs outside of their own district. This can include a neighboring public, private or charter school.
Assistant Superintendent for Instruction and Accountability Jennifer Bellville joined the meeting to give a presentation on the School Choice program.
As of March 1, there were 84 students currently enrolled in School Choice, which is a three student decrease from the prior school year. Out of the 84 students, 13 of them are seniors.
For the 2024-25 school year, Chicopee Public Schools accepted two new students into School Choice after offering 22 slots.
Bellville explained, “I know that number seems low, but I looked historically and the year before we had only accepted 32 out of 128 slots. We knew there was going to be a reduction because we are only offering slots in grades 1 through 5.”
The School Choice district breakdown for the 31 School Choice slots includes eight slots at Barry Elementary School, 10 slots at Bowie Elementary School, three slots at Fairview Elementary School, four slots at Lambert-Lavoie Elementary School and six slots at Streiber Elementary School.
Bellville discussed the thorough process for how many slots they offered at each school. She said, “We looked very closely at class sizes that were 16 to 18 if we could add an additional student, but we were not recommending any increases when we already had class sizes of 20 or 22 and sometimes even higher in our elementary schools.”
There were no recommendations for kindergarten, middle or high school.
Bellville discussed the reason for not recommending any School Choice slots in middle or high school.
She explained, “We want to continue the rationale around grades 1 through 5. Last year when we spoke, we did recommend not to have School Choice in the middle and high schools. We’re working really hard on our middle and high school for our horizontal and vertical alignment and to address the needs of our subgroups. It was the recommendation that we were trying to kind of get our own house in order for the students here in Chicopee.”
As for not recommending School Choice for kindergarten, Bellville said, “We’re no longer recommending kindergarten School Choice. This is very intentional because kindergarten is just the unknown. I’m really glad with the decision that the committee supported last year because we do have kindergarten class sizes of 23 through 25 in several of our kindergartens this year. Twenty-three and 25 kindergarten students is a lot of kindergarten students.”
While working with Assistant Superintendent for Student Support Services Carol Kruser and the enrollment office, Bellville discovered the district currently has a higher number of kindergarten enrollments than they’ve seen in past years.
The presentation also looked at the costs of School Choice. In June 2024, Chicopee Public Schools enrolled 103 school choices students, which cost $550,280, and sent 240 School Choice students to other districts which cost approximately $1.8 million.
Bellville stated, “We send lots of students out who choose to go to whether it be a charter school or another public school. With School Choice spending, we never see those dollars. They come right off the top of Chapter 70, so we never see that. However, when we take School Choice students in, we do get paid that tuition and we do have a School Choice revolving account.”
The funds they received can be used to offset the current budget.
The current balance is $1.4 million and the expected fiscal year 2025 revenue is $125,000 brining the total to about $1.585 million, but Chicopee School’s Director of Budget and Finance John Miarecki said they do not expect to use School Choice funds this year.
Next year’s FY26 estimated revenue is approximately $375,000 and Miarecki explained they are currently in the process of constructing the
FY26 budget and assessing if the need for School Choice will need to be used.
Approximately $1.9 million is the expected amount at the end of FY26.
The School Committee unanimously approved offering 31 School Choice slots for grades 1 through 5 for the 2025-26 school year.
