By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
ROBBINSVILLE — The Board of Education last week debated the pros and cons of accepting, for the first time, a limited number of tuition-paying high school students from outside communities beginning in September 2013.
Superintendent Steve Mayer emphasized the revenue-producing plan, if adopted by the school board, would be limited to high school students only because there is no room for out-of-district students in grades K-8. The district is seeking voter approval in December of an $18.96 million referendum to expand the elementary and middle schools due to current overcrowding in grades K-8.
The present enrollment at Robbinsville High School, which opened in 2005, is about 900 students. The high school building is projected to have as many as 1,100 students in the years ahead based on the district’s present K-8 enrollment.
”At the high school, our facility could handle extra students, but from a staffing perspective —while we’re making strides — we still have some pretty good class sizes,” Dr. Mayer said. Class size is mostly in the mid- 20s at RHS, although some “heavily subscribed” courses have more than 30 students, he said.
”So part of the discussion is how many (students) is too many” Dr. Mayer told the school board at the Aug. 28 meeting. “At a $10,000 (tuition) figure, another 20 students is an amount of money that we could hire extra staff with, so I think it’s a worthy discussion.”
Board of Education member Thomas Halm Jr. said the tuition revenue could help the district replace the teachers that were laid off several years ago due to state budget cuts and give the district the opportunity to offer more advanced courses.
”One of things I like conceptually about the idea is that in times when we can’t raise tax dollars to fill positions, and we still need to recover teaching positions, is the ability to find a revenue source that would (provide) teachers and … possibly increase AP offerings,” Mr. Halm said.
”This seems like a nice way to add opportunities for our students while bringing in students from other districts who are looking for an opportunity to come here,” Mr. Halm added. “It could be a win-win if done properly.”
Board of Education member Keith Kochberg asked what would happen to staff hired with the new tuition revenue if in the years ahead Robbinsville’s own burgeoning enrollment forced the district to stop accepting out-of-district students.
”Tuition students come with dollars,” Dr. Mayer said. “If they graduate and there’s not another (tuition-paying) freshman to take their spot, then that’s a concern we have to wrestle with.”
Dr. Mayer said the district also has the option of revising and resubmitting its application to participate in the state’s Interdistrict Public School Choice program, which allows districts with unique educational programs to offer a limited number of seats to out- of-district students. Under the Choice program, the state pays the tuition of the out-of-district students, not the parents.
The state denied Robbinsville’s 2010 Choice application, which proposed accepting 10 out-of- district students per year, for a total of 40 students, in the high school’s acclaimed four-year pre-engineering program.
”We wrote the proposal but set no criteria for entrance other than they have to agree take the four (engineering) courses — one per year,” Dr. Mayer said. “That disqualified us because with our Robbinsville students we don’t require that.”
Robbinsville freshmen that enroll in the Project Lead the Way pre-engineering program can leave the program at any time.
Board of Education President Mike Reca asked the members of the board’s Education Development and Policy Committee to review the out-of- district tuition revenue options and make recommendations to the full board.
A final decision on whether to accept out of district high school students will be made sometime in the next four to six months, Mr. Reca said.
Dr. Mayer said the school district receives one or two calls every week from families in nearby communities asking if the district accepts tuition students.
”We’ve consistently said no,” Dr. Mayer said. The only exception is for Robbinsville families who move out of town mid-semester and want to pay tuition so that their kids can finish out the school year in Robbinsville, he said.
A formal policy change would need to be adopted by the full Board of Education in order to accept out-of-district tuition students at RHS in 2013.

