The Magnets Pull Money Out Of Municipalities

Published Jan. 19, 2009 at 5:30 p.m.

As if the strain on education budgets weren't enough, the magnet schools are now billing tuition and demanding more money from surrounding area schools.

This article was filed in the Hartford Courant -

On top of paying tuition for magnet schools run by the Capitol Region Education Council, Hartford's suburban districts are being billed for the first time if they send children to one of the city's district-run "host" magnets.

Most districts have paid the $2,500-per-child bill from the Greater Hartford Classical Magnet School, but officials in Manchester and Bloomfield say they're not going to do so.

"We've suddenly been receiving invoices from Hartford for a host magnet, and we will not be paying them," said Margaret Hackett, a Manchester school board member. "These schools were supposed to be free."

David Title, superintendent of schools in Bloomfield, said his district has objected to the bill for local students attending Classical Magnet because his town doesn't charge Hartford for its students who attend the magnet school in Bloomfield, the Big Picture School.

"We don't believe that's proper," Title said. "If all of a sudden districts start charging for host magnets, it has the possibility of crippling participation in those schools."...

The state gives Hartford $6,740 to educate each of the 1,900 suburban students in its magnets, but that's millions less than what it actually costs, Leone said.

Hartford officials say they may have to charge $8.7 million in 2009-2010 if state support does not increase...

State Rep. Andrew Fleischmann, D- West Hartford, co-chairman of the legislature's education committee, said Hartford officials probably feel they have no choice but to bill suburban districts.

"I'm sure it wasn't an arbitrary decision," he said. "When out-of-district participation goes up, the financing of these schools can start to get precarious."

Fleischmann called the education funding situation grave, but said there might be some help for Hartford.

"The state has entered into an agreement that it must uphold, so there could be some additional funding for Sheff [v. O'Neill] magnets," he said.

Open Choice supposedly pays West Hartford $2500 per kid coming from Hartford, even though it costs us more than $11,000 to educate a child here. Our education budget (and taxpayers) has to eat the rest. A student who treks from a suburban school into the Hartford area magnets brings in to that school $6740 from the state, and now the Magnet schools want more money. Perhaps we ought to cease sending kids to other schools and stop taking them in as well.

Desegregation and upholding Sheff v. O'Neill apparently doesn't come cheap, and for some school districts it can be downright challenging to pay for, given this economy and already strained budgets...It is yet another unfunded mandate; money and resources that the suburbs are expected to pick up with regard to the outcome of the Sheff v. O'Neill lawsuit. The problem is that the suburbs are already tapped out.

Of course West Hartford's Fleischmann has no answer other than for the burbs pony up...Fleischmann ought to move to Hartford so he can run and represent Hartford's interests since he is already doing that now, and has been doing that for years.


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