Community Corner

School Board Denies State Request for 50 More Choice Students

The state education department wants 2,500 students enrolled statewide.

The local school system will not be taking in any additional students through Connecticut's Open Choice program.

The Vernon Board of Education this week voted to deny a request by the state Department of Education to take 50 more students in. One consensus was that there is just not enough room.

In a letter to Superintendent of Schools Mary Conway, Charlene Russell-Tucker, the chief operations officer for the state Department of Education,  indicated next year's goal is to have 2,500 students from Hartford in "racial isolation settings" enrolled in the program.

The program has a pool of nearly 4,000 applicants spread out through the final year of high school, according to the state:

• Pre-K - 351
• Kndergarten - 551.
• Grade 1 - 265.
• Grade 2 - 248.
• Grade 3 - 228.
• Grade 4 - 234.
• Grade 5 - 200.
• Grade 6 - 346.
• Grade 7 - 214.
• Grade 8 - 263.
• Grade 9 - 645.
• Grade 10 - 209.
• Grade 11 - 133.
• Grade 12 - 56.

The school board briefly discussed accepting a sibling of a student already  enrolled, but decided against it.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here