A letter last week from the Springfield public schools Parent Information Center reached parents of the city’s "legacy students." As the first paragraph explains:
In March of 2005, the School Committee adopted Springfield’s Boundary schools assignment Plan for elementary and middle school students. At that time, the parents of each student were asked to choose whether they wanted their children to attend their "Legacy" school, or instead wanted their children to attend the Boundary school that was assigned to their geographic area. The School Committee further directed that school bus transportation would remain available (subject to longstanding eligibility Rules) until the end of the 2006-2007 academic year, for those children who remained eligible to attend their Legacy schools.
Got all that? An article in today’s Springfield Republican explains more. At one time, the boundary plan was called "controversial." Continuing from the letter:
Our records show that:
? your child, [X], still is assigned to [his/her] Legacy school, [X]
? you and [X] still reside at [X]
Under the city’s Legacy Enrollment Policy, your child may remain enrolled at [X] until:
? you withdraw your child from that school, or
? your child is promoted to a grade that is not offered at [X], or
? you move to a different address
However, at the end of the current academic year (in June of 2007), school bus Legacy transportation no longer will be available to [X]. (If a transportation accommodation is a part of your child’s IEP, it will not be affected by the end of Legacy transportation.)
While the letter is overly wordy, and uses arcane language and capitalization techniques, the bulletpoints are an improvement over the public schools’ prior communications about the boundary plan. Carrying on:
If [X] remains eligible to attend [X], and if you want [him/her] to continue to attend that school, you will have to provide [his/her] transportation to and from school every day, beginning in September of 2007. If you cannot or do not wish to provide such transportation, or if you do not sign and return the attached Legacy Enrollment Continuation Coupon, by December 22, [X] will be assigned to [his/her] Boundary school for the 2007-2008 academic year.
If you choose to have [X] remain enrolled at [X], and if [his/her] on-time attendance (both arrival and departure) is poor, the School Department will re-assign [him/her] to [his/her] Boundary school.
The letter then states again, clearly and in bold type, with more bulletpoints, that the coupon must be filled out and sent to the Parent Information Center by December 22, or the child will be re-assigned to the appropriate boundary school (not naming which school that might be, although the letters are personalized with children’s names).
The boundary maps are not readily available to the public. But in April 2005, maps were published in the Republican as graphics, prepared by Bob Rich for the paper, using information the school department apparently provided. Online archives of the graphics do not seem to be available.
I was able to take a few photos of the maps, thanks to the clip-and-save archival work of resident Sheila McElwaine. Click on the image to see it larger. These lend a sense of the amount of detail the public may have seen at one point. Seeing these maps would have helped me avoid huge amounts of headache later, when I misunderstood to which boundary school my kids would be assigned.
Specific inquiries about which boundary school is tied to a residential location can be made by reaching Thomas Yarsley of the school department at (413) 530-4545 or yarsleyt@sps.springfield.ma.us. As far as I know, wide-scale information is not forthcoming beyond this one-time publishing.
