Saugus super planning to draw back students

SAUGUS-The School Department has lost 62 students to charter schools and about 800 students elsewhere, according to Superintendent Richard Langlois’ latest statistics, but he is hoping to turn that around.”That includes 150 to vocational schools,” he said. “That’s millions of dollars going elsewhere from the district. Our goal is to recapture and bring them back.”But to do that is tricky because it takes funding.Langlois said a good chunk of the straying students are middle schoolers, who he believes left due to lack of programming. The same argument could be made for high school students who moved on to other systems. High School Principal Joseph Diorio told the School Committee earlier this month that his school failed to meet time-on-learning requirements for many of the students because there was not enough programming available to fit everyone’s schedule.The School Department is required by law to provide secondary school students with 990 hours of what it calls “time on learning” or time in a classroom with a teacher in front of them. Study halls do not count toward time on learning. Elementary schools are required to provide students with 950 hours of directed study.The Belmonte Middle School was returned to elementary school status last year because it did not have the staff to provide students with 990 hours of education.Another segment of the school population that is dwindling are kindergartners. Langlois said he believes that is tied directly to the lack of all day kindergarten in the schools. The district only has two all day kindergarten classes, one at the Veterans Memorial School and one at the Oaklandvale School. All day kindergarten are five-hour classes versus half-day, which is only two hours.”Because you have them for five hours you can have an impact,” he said. “That’s difficult to do in only two hours.”He said he has no doubt that if the district could expand the all-day-K program, parents would come back because he believes the schools would be able to offer a more structured program.Langlois said he has, for the most part, worked out the logistics and could accommodate all-day-K at the four schools, if he can get the town to sign on in terms of budget and funding.”We have to begin that push,” he said.As well as the push to bring all students back to the district, he said.