ALLENTOWN: BOE shuffles seats in ‘Choice’ program

By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
   ALLENTOWN — The students’ art portfolios are under review, the live auditions have been scheduled, and a local farmer’s goats are ready to visit.
   It’s all part of the evaluation process for the scores of applications the Upper Freehold Regional School District has received from nonresident students interested in enrolling in Allentown High School under the state’s Interdistrict Public School Choice Program, Superintendent Richard Fitzpatrick said last week.
   The initiative allows nonresident students to attend state-approved schools offering unique educational programs at no cost to their parents (or the receiving district’s taxpayers) because the state pays their tuition. The arrangement benefits the receiving district’s own students as well because they are afforded the same opportunity to take innovative courses the state revenue helps support.
   UFRSD has been approved by the state to expand its School Choice offerings beyond its existing award-winning four-year agricultural sciences program to also establish an Arts Academy and specialized four-year academic programs called Tomorrow’s Teachers and Public & International Affairs in 2013-14 at AHS.
   A new advanced mathematics and Algebra program also is approved as a Choice program for students in grades five to eight at Stone Bridge Middle School next year.
   The deadline for out-of-district students to apply for the limited number of nonresident seats in the programs was Dec. 3. The district has not finalized decisions yet on how many of these nonresident students qualify and will be accepted.
   ”The dancers and singers are auditioning this week, and the art portfolios are being evaluated,” Dr. Fitzpatrick told the Board of Education on Dec. 12.
   More than 30 applications were received for the agricultural sciences program at AHS, which originally had reserved only 15 freshman seats and seven upperclassmen seats for nonresident students in 2013-14, he said.
   Dr. Fitzpatrick told the school board the agricultural science applicants are coming to the campus with their parents for an information program that would include a tour of the lab, greenhouses and a meet-and-greet with live goats a local farmer would be bringing to the school.
   ”We want to make sure they understand what vocational agriculture is and that they have an interest in this . . . that this is not just a way to get out of wherever they are now going to school,” Dr. Fitzpatrick told the board. “They must have a real interest in pursuing vocational agriculture or veterinary science.”
   Should all 30 agricultural science applicants turn out to be both academically qualified and still interested after meeting the goats, the district has wiggle room to exceed its preset cap of 15 nonresident freshmen for that program. That’s because the number of applications for the Arts Academy, Tomorrow’s Teachers and Public & International Affairs was less than the number of seats reserved for nonresidents.
   The state allows a Choice district to move open seats from one program to another, provided the total number of seats and students the state will have to pay tuition for doesn’t change, Dr. Fitzpatrick said.
   ”That’s how we’ll be able to accommodate the 30 kids” interested in the agricultural sciences program, Dr. Fitzpatrick said.
   The Board of Education voted unanimously to approve a “seat amendment form” for its Choice program for submittal to the state.
   Dr. Fitzpatrick emphasized that rules limiting the number of seats in Choice programs apply only to nonresident students because the state pays their tuition.
   ”This is only for outside-district (students); it does not compromise any of the seats for our own kids,” Dr. Fitzpatrick said.
   Students residing in the Upper Freehold Regional School District have until March 1 to apply for admission to one of the Choice programs. All residents who meet the academic and other eligibility criteria for a Choice program will be admitted; there are no caps on the number of available seats for residents.
   Information about the eligibility requirements for participation in a Choice program at either the middle school or high school can be found on the district’s website at http://www.ufrsd.net/choice_programs.
   For further questions, contact Assistant Superintendent Stephen Cochrane at [email protected].