School Finance: School Choice

Preliminary FY2008 School Choice Tuition as of March, 2008

March 14, 2008

This past fall, school choice receiving districts submitted files through the Department's Student Information Management System (SIMS) that listed the school choice students enrolled this fiscal year. Information from these submissions, as well as this fall's FY07 End of Year Pupil & Financial Reports, have been used to estimate annual tuition amounts for FY08. On March 31, 2008 the State Treasurer's office will assess the second third of this estimated annual charge, and pay the second third of the tuition receipts, as part of each district's quarterly local aid distribution.

The summary entitled School Choice Pupils and Tuition, FY08 Preliminary as of March 2008 is a statewide list of the number of full-time equivalent pupils and their tuition amounts for both receiving and sending districts.

School Choice Tuition Rates are calculated for regular and vocational programs. For special education pupils, an incremental cost is added to their regular, bilingual, or vocational tuition. In these preliminary calculations, the increments are estimates based last year's costs, or upon pupils' reported special education service categories.

Preliminary FY08 school choice tuition rates are set at the FY07 operating cost per full-time equivalent pupil, capped at $5000, for the receiving school district. If a district's FY07 End of Year Pupil and Financial Report appears to be in question, its previous year's rate is used. In such a case, the FY07 rate will not be available on this site until June when the preliminary calculations are next published.

This information is the basis for the March 31, 2008 local aid distributions. This coming spring, receiving districts will submit new claim forms that will be used to calculate final FY08 tuition. Pupils' actual special education costs will also be reported. Any necessary adjustments to the current numbers will be made in June.

If you have any questions about this information, please contact Phyllis Rogers of the Office of School Finance, at (781) 338-6534 or progers@doe.mass.edu..