Tuition paying students to get chance to participate in special programs

Tuition-paying students who live outside the City of Lynchburg are set to gain new access to certain special Lynchburg City Schools’ programs.

The board voted 6-2 Tuesday to open the division’s Schools for Innovation, Gifted Opportunities Center, and Central Virginia Governor’s School for Science and Technology slots to applications from non-resident students who pay to enroll in the division.

The new policy specifies nonresident students must be enrolled in the Lynchburg City Schools for a minimum of one academic year prior to being eligible to attend.

Nonresident students seeking admission to one of the schools for innovation at the Kindergarten level may apply without meeting the minimum one-year-enrollment requirement, according to the changes.

School Board Vice Chairwoman Treney Tweedy said she supported the changes as a way to be fair to the division’s nonresident students who already compete against other Lynchburg students for a variety of opportunities on a daily basis.

Her comments echoed points brought up by tuition-paying Bedford County resident Bob Sullivan during the public comment portion of the meeting.

Sullivan testified to his daughter’s positive experience at E.C. Glass High School and her desire to apply as a Glass student to the Governor’s School, a part-day regional science program. He asked that his daughter be given the same chance to compete, and possibly fail, as other Lynchburg students.

Board Members Regina Dolan-Sewell and Jenny Poore voted against the proposal.

Dolan-Sewell stressed Lynchburg’s special programs already have competitive application pools and long waiting lists. Allowing non-resident students to apply for these programs could mean qualified resident students miss out on opportunities from which they might have benefitted.

She said 60 percent of Lynchburg City Schools students now qualify for free or reduced lunch. The change could result in tuition-paying students, likely from more economically privileged backgrounds, taking opportunities from those students.

“That's the piece of the puzzle that I simply can't wrap my head around,” Poore said. “We have so many children whose only chance for enrichment is through the chances offered by the school division.”

Board member Keith Anderson, attending his first board meeting since losing his daughter in a fatal car crash last month, abstained from the vote.

In a separate 8-1 vote, members approved a series of fees for nonresident students accepted into the special programs, on top of the normal $3,400 tuition they pay.

That’s $300 more for Paul Laurence Dunbar Middle School for Innovation, $400 more for T.C. Miller Elementary School for Innovation, $500 more for Dearington Elementary School for Innovation, and $4,200 more for the Governor’s School.

Students will not pay an additional fee to attend the Gifted Opportunities Center, a recommendation made by school administration based on language in the Code of Virginia. Board Member Albert Billingsly cast the lone vote against the fees, suggesting the fee to attend the Governor’s School placed too high of a financial burden on families, when added to the $3,400 in base tuition.