School Committee approves School Choice slots for 26-27 school year

The School Committee discusses School Choice slots for the 2026-2027 South Hadley school year during its April 1 meeting.
Photo credit: SHCTV15

SOUTH HADLEY — The South Hadley School Committee officially approved 51 School Choice openings for the 2026-2027 school year during its April 1 meeting.

School Choice gives parents the opportunity to enroll their children in whichever school they feel best fits their needs outside of their own district. This can include a neighboring public, private or charter school.

The vote comes after Superintendent Jennifer Voyik presented two different budget options at the committee’s March 25 meeting: a deficit budget and a fully funded budget if a tax override passes.

The two options were crafted after Voyik met with the administrative team, who went through all the grade levels and looked at the projected enrollment for the next school year.

The committee voted against the deficit budget, which would have led to severe cuts across the School Department, at that March meeting, and instead opted for a $27.5 million fiscal year 2027 budget. That number, however, could change based on which tax override option residents choose during the April 14 Town Election.

Voyik said she took the comments the School Committee made on March 25 back to the administration team to discuss the available School Choice slots before presenting the final proposal for recommendation at the April 1 meeting.

At the kindergarten level, there will be 10 slots available. With that, South Hadley Public Schools will look to hire a kindergarten teacher using School Choice funds. The 10 slots would add $50,000 in School Choice funding for the following year.

Voyik explained the decision to use this funding for a kindergarten teacher, stating, “The idea would be that we strategically do this over the next several years to help stabilize our class sizes and get them down to a more reasonable spot that would attract families back into the district, and also provide our teachers the ability to be able to really dig in a little bit more with their students.”

There will be six sections next year for kindergarten and 10 School Choice slots, with an average class size between 18 students and 19 students.

Voyik said there will be one slot in grade 1, two slots in grade 2, and no slots in grade 3 due to the larger class size. There will be one slot available in grade 4.

For the middle school, there will be no slots available in grade 5, five for grade 6, two for grade 7 and zero for grade 8.

Voyik talked about having no slots available for fifth grade and eighth grade, explaining, “For fifth grade, that’s going to be our largest class in the entire district, I think it’s 153 [students] next year, so we don’t recommend slots for fifth grade. The middle school is going to have the largest student population next year, so fifth and eighth grade, I believe there’s 142 or 146 [students], something like that, so a zero for eighth grade.”

The School Committee also approved having 10 slots in grade 9, grade 10 and grade 11, respectively. Voyik explained the School Choice decision for the high school after discussing it with Principal Elizabeth Wood.

“Principal Wood, recognizing that no matter what scenario happens, if there’s a deficit budget, students are going to leave, and so there will be room for slots, and in an override budget, there are slots available because we’re not losing teachers, and so her recommendation for the high school would be 10, 10 and 10, and we can’t accept School Choice for 12th grade,” Voyik stated.

The School Committee unanimously approved the School Choice slots for the 2026-2027 school year. With the acceptance, the applications for School Choice are officially live, and the application will soon be posted on southhadleyschools.org.