Below is an e-mail received from school board candidate and Montessori proponent Mary Graham, taking issue with the information provided on the Montessori Info page. At the bottom is a response from the author of that work. Chart and comments added at bottom - 4/16/07. Site Administrator
On your page discussing Edgewood Montessori, you calculate a cost per student based on expenses divided by enrollment. Upon a quick check of each elementary schools annual report (I do not have the budget information readily available), from the district web page, I found the enrollments listed as follows:Benn. Woods-345
Central-175 (web site lists 206)
Cornell-349
Edgewood-214 (web site lists 176)
Hiawatha-413
Wardcliff--260
As you will note, there are large discrepancies in the reported enrollments for both Edgewood and Central. I would appreciate some clarification on this issue.
Thank you, Mary Graham
Mary then followed up with a 2nd e-mail:
The following is from the author
In doing a little more research, I realized that the discrepancy in the Edgewood enrollment numbers listed is most likely due to the 3 and 4 year olds who are enrolled at Edgewood. However, since these students pay tuition, that amount should probably be listed as revenue along with the foundation grant money.Mary Graham
The 3 and 4 year olds program is non-mandated and run at the district's choice. The district is required to charge tuition. This tuition is considered non-restricted revenue. Unlike the restricted revenue of foundation allowances which must be used only for direct K-5 education costs, non-restricted revenues may be used for any expense throughout the district. The 3 and 4 year olds program is not subject to the same pupil accounting standards as the K-5 program. The funding system is a revenue stream run separately from K-5 through Community Education. The 3 and 4 year olds program is financially the same as a day care. The program could be housed anywhere.The attempt on the web site is to compare apples to apples. The 3 and 4 year olds tuition revenues are in no way uniquely tied to Montessori. These revenues belong to the district as a whole. It would be misleading and inaccurate to assign them specifically to Montessori.
Table 1 enrollments reflect information provided by the Okemos School District on 11/04/05 (see below). That information was based on head counts on 9/30/05. Montessori enrollment does not include the 3 and 4 year olds at Edgewood. The total Central enrollment was 175 district students and 31 School of Choice students for a total of 206.
