Analyses
The money leaves in one year. The cost does not.
58 Lunenburg children already leave under school choice, and 11 arrive. A scenario put to this site adds 78 more in one year. Set the dials yourself — and watch what Chapter 70 actually does, because that is where the state’s own figures land somewhere the arithmetic would not lead you.
lunenburgbudgetproject.org — written by the Lunenburg Budget Project, an independent tool for residents. Not affiliated with the Town of Lunenburg, the School Committee or the school district. The data this page is computed from: /data/if-students-leave.json
What this page establishes
Six claims. The first two are about the scenario as it was put; the rest are what the town’s and the state’s own documents show once you have all of them.
The scenario’s premise holds. 45.0% of the high school playing sports is, if anything, low.
Revenue goes at once and in full. Cost goes only where somebody decides it goes.
This is not a new flow. At the settings on this page it is 2.34× an existing one, arriving in a single year.
Chapter 70 currently moves $150 for a foundation pupil, not $14,440. The two differ by a factor of 96.3.
Over 33 years, foundation enrolment fell in 17 of them and Chapter 70 aid fell in 3.
Even if aid barely moves, the town has to stop spending 31.0% of a student’s appropriation just to break even.
What this does not show
This is a scenario and not a forecast. Nothing here is evidence that 78 more children will leave, or that athletes are the ones who would. The children who leave are counted; nobody counts why, and nobody counts whether they play sports.
The counts carry no money. DESE publishes how many children go where. Not one document in this archive states the tuition that follows any of them, in either direction, so every dollar figure on this page rests on an assumed rate.
It also does not show that 45.0% of the high school are athletes. A participation is not a child — FY26’s 533 high school participations are 123.1% of the entire student body, which is the proof that column is counting something other than people.
The flow that already exists
School choice is not a thing that might start happening in Lunenburg. It has been measured every year since SY14, in both directions, by the state. This is the line the scenario departs from.
Lunenburg residents, by where they go — DESE, school years
| School year | Leaving under school choice | At charter schools | Arriving under school choice | Net school choice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SY14 | 69 | 44 | 44 | 25 |
| SY15 | 89 | 42 | 39 | 50 |
| SY16 | 80 | 40 | 53 | 27 |
| SY17 | 106 | 40 | 45 | 61 |
| SY18 | 99 | 30 | 42 | 57 |
| SY19 | 74 | 26 | 33 | 41 |
| SY20 | 84 | 27 | 34 | 50 |
| SY21 | 68 | 30 | 27 | 41 |
| SY22 | 77 | 28 | 18 | 59 |
| SY23 | 67 | 25 | 21 | 46 |
| SY24 | 56 | 26 | 15 | 41 |
| SY25 | 58 | 29 | 18 | 40 |
| SY26 | 58 | 22 | 11 | 47 |
Counted by the state, not by us. The outward flow peaked at 106 in SY17 and has averaged 75.8 over the 13 years published.
Where they go, and where the arrivals come from
Leaving, SY26
| District | Programme | Children |
|---|---|---|
| Leominster | School Choice Program | 18 |
| Francis W. Parker Charter Essential (District) | Charter School | 15 |
| Fitchburg | School Choice Program | 8 |
| Greater Commonwealth Virtual District | School Choice Program | 8 |
| TEC Connections Academy Commonwealth Virtual School District | School Choice Program | 8 |
| Sizer School: A North Central Charter Essential (District) | Charter School | 7 |
| Nashoba | School Choice Program | 4 |
| Harvard | School Choice Program | 3 |
| Ayer Shirley School District | School Choice Program | 2 |
| Gardner | School Choice Program | 2 |
| Berlin-Boylston | School Choice Program | 1 |
| Groton-Dunstable | School Choice Program | 1 |
| Littleton | School Choice Program | 1 |
| North Middlesex | School Choice Program | 1 |
| Ralph C Mahar | School Choice Program | 1 |
Arriving, SY26
| Town of residence | Programme | Children |
|---|---|---|
| Leominster | School Choice Program | 5 |
| Ashby | School Choice Program | 2 |
| Fitchburg | School Choice Program | 2 |
| Gardner | School Choice Program | 1 |
| Pepperell | School Choice Program | 1 |
What this does not show
Membership is not choice. 97 Lunenburg children attend Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical as resident members of a district Lunenburg belongs to, not by choosing out. That is the largest single destination outside Lunenburg and it does not belong in a school choice count.
These are counts of children and they carry no money at all. The tuition that follows each of them is set differently for school choice and for charters, is higher for special education, and appears in no document this archive holds.
The model — move anything you disagree with
The dials open on the scenario as it was put to this site. Every one of them is an assumption; the badge on each says what kind, and the measured figures they run against are further down with the cell each came out of.
Share of the high school who are athletes
assumedThe scenario as it was put to this site. Nothing published counts Lunenburg athletes as people rather than as participations, so this cannot be measured — but it can be bounded, and the bound is below.
Share of those athletes who transfer out
assumedThe scenario as it was put to this site. Nobody has measured how many Lunenburg students choice out in any year, in either direction.
School choice tuition, per student
statuteThe base school choice tuition set by M.G.L. c.76 §12B. It is higher for special education placements, and THIS ARCHIVE HOLDS NO DOCUMENT STATING EITHER RATE. Treat it as a dial, not as a measurement.
Chapter 70 aid lost per student
derivedOpens on the minimum aid increment DESE’s own aid-component columns give for the latest year, divided by that year’s foundation enrolment — because in that year the minimum aid increment IS the whole of Lunenburg’s increase and the foundation aid increment is zero. Drag it to the foundation budget per pupil for the scenario as it was originally modelled; the distance between the two ends is the correction the full data offers.
Share of a student’s appropriation the district stops spending
assumedOpens at zero because the students leave from across four grades, so no classroom closes on the arithmetic alone. Nothing published says at what enrolment a section is removed.
What it costs the town, at these settings
78 × $5,000. Assessed rather than appropriated: it sits inside the Cherry Sheet assessments the FY2027 Town Meeting booklet takes off the top, and no document in this archive breaks it out.
The foundation budget would fall $1,126,321 — 78 × $14,440 per pupil, cell E168 over D168 — but the aid attached to a foundation pupil at the margin is currently $150, because the minimum aid increment is the only thing adding to Lunenburg’s aid in FY26. The dial spans both readings.
Up to $1,296,209 at $16,618 a pupil. the FY2027 appropriation to the schools divided by DESE’s FY2027 foundation enrolment of 1,599. Both figures are FY2027; the denominator is the count the aid is calculated on and it is not the same as any of the three headcounts DESE publishes for the same district.
The first two, less the third. It repeats every year those students stay away, and it compounds if they are followed.
The whole range, not one number
The single input the answer is most sensitive to is the one nothing measures: how much a district stops spending when students go. Both curves below are drawn across every value of it — the lower at the aid figure currently on the dial, the upper at the reading the scenario was originally built on.
Net cost to the town, by how much spending the district avoids
| Spending avoided | At $150 of aid per student | If aid fell by the whole foundation reduction |
|---|---|---|
| 0.0% | $401,700 | $1,516,321 |
| 20.0% | $142,458 | $1,257,079 |
| 40.0% | -$116,784 | $997,837 |
| 60.0% | -$376,026 | $738,595 |
| 80.0% | -$635,268 | $479,353 |
| 100.0% | -$894,509 | $220,111 |
Break-even at the current aid setting is 31.0% of a student’s appropriation.
Where the students would come from
The scenario’s students are spread across the four grades in proportion to how big each grade actually is, printed on the same page as the total. Grade 9 is the smallest, so it loses the fewest.
High school, FY25 annual town report, printed page 89
| Grade | Lunenburg resident students | School choice students | Total | Leaving, in this scenario | Left in the grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 89 | 5 | 94 | 16.0 | 73.0 |
| 10 | 110 | 6 | 116 | 19.8 | 90.2 |
| 11 | 116 | 4 | 120 | 20.9 | 95.1 |
| 12 | 118 | 2 | 120 | 21.3 | 96.7 |
The first three columns are the report’s own, headed Grade Level Lunenburg Resident Students School Choice Students Total. The last two are this scenario.
A possible explanation — nothing here tests it
At about 21 students out of a grade, one class section per grade is the largest reduction the arithmetic alone could support, and it would need every one of those students to have been in the same courses. Whether any section could actually be removed depends on how they distribute across a timetable, and nothing published says.
What would settle it: the district’s own staffing and section plan by grade — the document behind the School Committee’s April 2025 discussion of each grade, its size and its potential seats — which would state the class sizes at which a section is added or removed.
What is measured, and where each figure comes from
Four inputs above are assumptions. These are not — each is one row or one cell of one document, with the coordinate, and each is checked against something else before this page will build.
The children: the FY25 annual town report, printed page 89
The report prints its own column headings, which matters: in the database this table is stored as v1, v2, v3 with no column meaning, and v1 means only the first figure column of this page. The page itself calls it Lunenburg Resident Students.
| Lunenburg Resident Students | School Choice Students | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Total | 389 | 0 | 389 |
| Elementary Total | 356 | 0 | 356 |
| Middle School Total | 382 | 0 | 382 |
| High School Total | 433 | 17 | 450 |
| Advanced Community | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| All Schools Total | 1568 | 17 | 1585 |
Extract status no check. The extract carries no reconciliation because the page prints no total it could be tied to. Nothing here may be aggregated with a `checked` row without saying so. What is established instead is the table’s own arithmetic, asserted by the generator before this page will build: residents + school choice students = total, on every row the page prints; grades 9, 10, 11, 12 sum to the printed High School Total; the five school totals sum to the printed All Schools Total; the printed page and `report_enrollment_mcas` agree on every row.
Every one of the 17 school choice students the town counted is in the high school — 0 anywhere else. Lunenburg is a net receiver at exactly the grades this scenario is about.
The athletes: the district’s athletics workbook, FY26
| Season | High school participations | As a share of the high school |
|---|---|---|
| Fall | 213 | 49.2% |
| Winter | 156 | 36.0% |
| Spring | 164 | 37.9% |
| All three seasons | 533 | 123.1% |
At 45% of 433 the scenario implies 195 athletes playing 2.74 sports each, which is an ordinary number. The largest single season on its own is 49% of the student body, so if anything 45% is low. Neither of these is a count of children and neither should be quoted as one.
What this does not show
The formula: DESE’s FY27 Chapter 70 district summary, row 168
| Cell | As DESE heads the column | Lunenburg |
|---|---|---|
| D168 | Foundation enrollment | 1,599 |
| E168 | Foundation budget | $23,089,580 |
| F168 | Required contribution | $14,135,611 |
| G168 | Chapter 70 aid | $9,349,335 |
| H168 | Required net school spending | $23,484,946 |
F168 + G168 = H168 exactly, which is the identity the sheet states about itself and the generator asserts. Sheet alldistricts of sources/budget-workbooks/ch70-fy27-summary.xlsx, as of 2026-01-28. The same five figures are carried independently in model/taxbase.py and the two are compared before this page will build.
The subtraction that is not doing the work
$23,089,580 − $14,135,611 = $8,953,969. Chapter 70 aid is $9,349,335 — $395,366 more, or 4.2% of the aid. 292 of the 319 operating districts on the same sheet (91.5%) are in the same position.
So a model that removes foundation dollars per pupil and reduces aid by the same amount is assuming a relationship these numbers do not currently display. That is not a flaw in anybody’s reasoning — it is a fact that only shows up if you have the district summary open at the right row.
A possible explanation — nothing here tests it
Chapter 70 carries minimum aid and hold-harmless provisions, and they are the obvious reason aid would sit above the foundation gap. Nothing in this archive applies them to Lunenburg, and the sheet does not say which provision produced this row. What is established is the $395,366; the mechanism is a hypothesis, and so is any claim about what aid would do in a year enrolment fell.
What would settle it: DESE’s FY27 preliminary Chapter 70 aid calculation for Lunenburg — the per-district worksheet that states the foundation aid, minimum aid and hold-harmless components separately. This archive holds the summary, which publishes the result of the calculation and not the calculation.
What Chapter 70 has actually done — FY1993 to FY2026
DESE’s Chapter 70 district profile carries 34 years of Lunenburg’s foundation enrolment, foundation budget, required local contribution and aid. Its FY26 aid figure is $9,229,410, which is exactly what the town’s own FY2026 revenue ledger budgets for Chapter 70 — two independent documents, and the generator refuses to publish this series if they ever stop agreeing.
Every year foundation enrolment was lower than the year before
| FY | Change in foundation pupils | Change in Chapter 70 aid | Did aid fall? |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY96 | -6 | $299,184 | no |
| FY97 | -62 | -$35,321 | yes |
| FY00 | -14 | $234,569 | no |
| FY03 | -16 | $0 | no |
| FY05 | -40 | $0 | no |
| FY06 | -32 | $83,150 | no |
| FY07 | -16 | $212,793 | no |
| FY09 | -24 | $306,531 | no |
| FY10 | -19 | -$92,416 | yes |
| FY11 | -17 | -$29,978 | yes |
| FY12 | -27 | $24,149 | no |
| FY14 | -23 | $134,759 | no |
| FY17 | -15 | $516,774 | no |
| FY20 | -11 | $233,668 | no |
| FY22 | -49 | $49,680 | no |
| FY24 | -56 | $96,900 | no |
| FY26 | -30 | $240,450 | no |
17 of the 33 year-on-year steps in the series. Aid fell in 3 of them. This is a record, not a rule. A year in this table is a year enrolment happened to be lower, not a year anybody left in the way this page models, and the size of the fall is not held constant across them.
And why: the aid calculation, in DESE’s own components
The trends workbook splits the calculation into named increments. The identity is that this year’s aid is last year’s aid plus the increments, and it holds to the dollar in 15 of the 19 year-to-year steps published — the exceptions are FY10, FY11, FY12, FY19, and they are shown rather than smoothed.
Chapter 70 aid, and what added to it — DESE’s own column names
| FY | Foundation pupils | foundaidinc | downpymtaidinc | growthaidinc | targaidphaseinaid | minaidinc | Chapter 70 aid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY07 | 1,647 | $0 | $191,223 | $21,570 | $0 | $0 | $3,921,700 |
| FY08 | 1,665 | $314,781 | $77,778 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $4,314,259 |
| FY09 | 1,641 | $276,315 | $30,216 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $4,620,790 |
| FY10 | 1,622 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $4,528,374 |
| FY11 | 1,605 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $4,498,396 |
| FY12 | 1,578 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $4,522,545 |
| FY13 | 1,630 | $586,714 | $0 | $0 | $110,678 | $0 | $5,219,937 |
| FY14 | 1,607 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $134,759 | $0 | $5,354,696 |
| FY15 | 1,627 | $216,611 | $34,565 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $5,605,872 |
| FY16 | 1,647 | $228,611 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $5,834,483 |
| FY17 | 1,632 | $516,774 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $6,351,257 |
| FY18 | 1,705 | $921,248 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $7,272,505 |
| FY19 | 1,716 | $252,202 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $7,538,072 |
| FY20 | 1,705 | $233,668 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $7,771,740 |
| FY21 | 1,705 | $2,198 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $7,773,938 |
| FY22 | 1,656 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $49,680 | $7,823,618 |
| FY23 | 1,671 | $898,610 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $8,722,228 |
| FY24 | 1,615 | $26,481 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $70,419 | $8,819,128 |
| FY25 | 1,633 | $138,143 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $31,689 | $8,988,960 |
| FY26 | 1,603 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $240,450 | $9,229,410 |
Sheet dataAid of DESE’s Chapter 70 trends workbook. In FY26 every dollar of the increase is minaidinc.
What a foundation pupil is currently worth in aid
FY26: minaidinc $240,450 over 1,603 foundation pupils = $150 each. foundaidinc is $0, so nothing about the foundation budget is adding to Lunenburg’s aid this year.
The division is ours. What DESE states is the $240,450 and the 1,603; that the minimum aid increment is paid per pupil is what makes dividing them meaningful, and the page says so rather than assuming a reader will infer it.
A possible explanation — nothing here tests it
The obvious reading is hold-harmless: aid does not fall below last year’s, so the only thing enrolment moves is the minimum aid increment on top. That fits every number above and this archive does not test it. Two things would break the $150: the Legislature setting a different minimum aid rate, which it has done repeatedly, and an enrolment fall large enough to move Lunenburg onto a different track in the formula, which nothing here models.
What would settle it: DESE’s preliminary Chapter 70 aid calculation for Lunenburg for the year in question, which states the foundation aid, minimum aid and hold-harmless components before the year is set.
Which children leave, not only how many
DESE calculates the foundation budget from the composition of a district, not from a headcount alone. Its key-factors summary, row 107, gives Lunenburg’s FY26 foundation enrolment as 1,603 and splits it three ways.
| Category | Children | Share of foundation enrolment |
|---|---|---|
| English learners | 54 | 3.4% |
| Low income (group 5) | 452 | 28.8% |
| Vocational | 0 | 0.0% |
Wage adjustment factor 1.000, Leominster-Gardner MA Metropolitan NECTA. Foundation budget $22,073,946, or $13,770 a pupil — the FY26 figure, which is not the FY27 figure the scenario above uses.
What this does not show
School choice money, the way Lunenburg currently sees it — coming in
The town has a School Choice revolving fund and its annual reports have printed it for thirteen years. It holds tuition for students who choose into Lunenburg — the opposite direction to this scenario, and the only direction anybody publishes.
The School Choice revolving fund, as the annual town reports print it
| FY | Balance forward | Receipts | Disbursements | Carried forward | Printed page |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY11 | — | — | $191,468 | — | 67 |
| FY12 | $191,468 | $319,057 | $375,942 | $134,584 | 66 |
| FY13 | $134,584 | $298,593 | $371,532 | $61,644 | 71 |
| FY14 | $61,644 | $220,058 | $193,679 | $88,023 | 29 |
| FY15 | $88,023 | $248,973 | $82,484 | $254,512 | 29 |
| FY16 | $254,512 | $286,673 | $144,316 | $396,870 | 31 |
| FY17 | $396,870 | $281,212 | $422,794 | $255,288 | 30 |
| FY18 | $255,288 | $241,647 | $245,662 | $251,273 | 35 |
| FY19 | $251,273 | $182,658 | $104,425 | $329,506 * | 37 |
| FY20 | $329,506 | $196,219 | $28,845 | $496,879 | 31 |
| FY21 | $496,879 | $199,053 | $29,028 | $666,904 | 32 |
| FY22 | $666,904 | $113,539 | $247,276 | $533,167 | 33 |
| FY23 | $533,167 | $116,976 | $311,602 | $338,541 | 35 |
| FY24 | $0 | — | — | — | 23 |
Status check failed`, `no check. Every one of these rows is `check failed`, and that status is about the PAGE: the schedule’s columns do not foot to the totals the report prints. It is not a statement about this row. What IS established here is the row’s own arithmetic and the chain between documents — both asserted by the generator, neither by the extract. The generator checks 11 rows against their own arithmetic and 11 year-to-year balances across separately published reports, and refuses to write if any fails. An asterisk marks a carried balance the row itself implies where the extract captured only three of the four printed columns.
Receipts into the fund moved from $319,057 in FY12 to $116,976 in FY23 — 63.3% lower, having peaked at $319,057 in FY12. The cherry sheet’s own School Choice Receiving line, on line 2456 of the FY2027 Town Meeting booklet, gives $94,912 for FY25, $104,835 for FY26, $77,329 for FY27.
What this does not show
These two series are not the same quantity and are not differenced here. One is cash the town’s fund received in a closed fiscal year; the other is the state’s estimate for a year not yet closed. This archive holds no Cherry Sheet for any year, so the figure a Finance Committee member quoted in January 2026 can be reported as said and cannot be checked against the document it names.
Dividing the cherry sheet line by the assumed tuition gives 19 students in FY25, 21 students in FY26, 15.5 students in FY27 — against the 17 the town counted in FY25. That is two assumptions stacked and it is shown only because it lands near a count the town printed. It is not a headcount and must not be quoted as one.
What the town said about this, in its own meetings
Found by searching the meeting archive — every board, 2025 onward. Each quote is checked against the file it is attributed to before this page will build.
School Committee · 2025-03-12
“She said to me that she was looking at choicing out if her private school choices didn’t come through. I think that's going to be the reality that we have if we're not able to offer our student choices they are going to hemorrhage out of the high school”
Tim Santry, LMHS Principal
The mechanism the scenario models is not hypothetical to the people running the high school. The principal named it at a public meeting, in the same remarks that record 27 class offerings cut over two years. What the minutes establish is that this was SAID; they do not establish that any student left, and nothing published counts departures.
Finance Committee · 2026-02-26
“Dr. Jodi Fortuna stated that the School Committee did open 24 seats this year for school choice. She further states that only 5 students applied.”
Superintendent Dr. Jodi Fortuna, to the Finance Committee
School choice runs both ways and Lunenburg is on the receiving side too. Seats offered are a decision; students arriving are not, and the two numbers here are five times apart.
Finance Committee · 2026-01-27
“School Committee Chair Sculimbrene addressed the school choice revenue issue, noting that school choice demand is uneven across grade levels and that demand cannot simply be switched on.”
School Committee Chair Sculimbrene
Choice traffic is not smooth across grades in either direction, which is the same reason a scenario spread evenly over four grades is a model rather than a forecast.
Finance Committee · 2026-01-27
“school choice enrollment revenue, which has declined from approximately $500,000 to $112,000 on the cherry sheet”
a Finance Committee member
The only figure anybody in Lunenburg has publicly attached to school choice money, and it is about money coming IN. This archive holds no Cherry Sheet for any year, so this can be reported as SAID and cannot be checked against the document it names — which is a gap somebody in the room reached before we did.
School Committee · 2026-02-04
“We are looking to only add school choice options to the high school.”
School Committee
The high school is where the choice seats are, in both directions. The FY2025 annual town report counts 17 school choice students in the district and every one of them is in grades 9 to 12.
What this page does not show
It is a scenario, not a forecast.
Nothing here predicts that any student will transfer. Every dial is an input somebody chose, and the page exists so a reader can choose differently.
The children are counted. The money is not.
DESE publishes how many Lunenburg residents attend every other district, in both directions, for thirteen school years. No document in this archive states the tuition that follows one of them.
Nothing here says why any child left.
Athletics, class offerings, a family moving town, a programme somewhere else — the count is the same number under all of them, and attaching a cause to it would be a hypothesis dressed as a measurement.
Participations are not students.
The 45% is tested against a participation count and bounded by it, not measured from it. No unduplicated athlete roster is published.
The Chapter 70 figure is a marginal rate, not a model of the formula.
DESE’s components show what added to aid in each year. They do not let anyone run the calculation forward, and the minimum aid rate is set annually by the Legislature — it has been as low as $30 a pupil in the years published.
A budget line is net, and it is dollars.
The per-pupil appropriation here is what the town raises after aid, divided by a count. It is not what educating a child costs, and grants, fees and revolving funds are in documents this one does not read.
The tuition rate is statute, not a measurement of Lunenburg.
It is higher for special education, and this archive holds no document stating either rate. Every dollar figure on this page moves with that dial.
And the same limits, in the register
A limit written on one page is invisible to everyone who did not read that page. All of these are rows in the gap register, which is what the gaps page, the records request and the API all read.
people
What the children who leave the district cost, as against how many there are
The COUNTS are published and this project now holds them: DESE’s enrollment of town residents by district (dataset vxt3-k35x) states, for every school year from SY2014 to SY2026, how many Lunenburg residents attend each other district and under which programme. SY2026: 58 children under School Choice, 22 at charter schools and 97 at Montachusett Regional as members rather than by choice. The companion file (8xyg-59b2) counts the children arriving the other way, 11 in SY2026. So "a fall in enrolment is not a count of departures" is no longer a reason to refuse the question — the departures are counted. What is NOT published anywhere in this archive is the MONEY: not one document states the tuition Lunenburg is assessed for those 58 children, or for the 22 at charters, and the two rates are set differently and are higher for special education.
Closes with: DLS Cherry Sheet CS 1-EB (estimated charges) for Lunenburg, which prints the school choice sending and charter tuition assessments on their own lines.
money out
What Lunenburg pays in school choice sending tuition, and for how many children
The town pays tuition to every district a Lunenburg child chooses into, and that money is assessed rather than appropriated: it sits inside the single `State Assessments (Outside Operating FY27)` line of $1,069,349 in the FY2027 Town Meeting booklet, which is never broken out. The archive now holds DESE’s count of the children — 58 leaving under school choice in SY2026 — and still not one figure for what they cost. The statutory base rate is $5,000 a child under M.G.L. c.76 §12B and is higher for special education, and no document in this archive states either, so every scenario of students transferring out is priced on an assumption.
Closes with: DLS Cherry Sheet CS 1-EB (estimated charges) for Lunenburg, which prints the school choice sending assessment on its own line.
money in
What Chapter 70 aid would actually do if enrolment fell
MUCH NARROWER THAN IT WAS. DESE’s Chapter 70 trends workbook breaks the aid calculation into its named components, and for Lunenburg they show that this year’s aid is last year’s aid plus named increments — an identity that holds to the dollar in every one of the last seven years. In FY2026 the whole of the increase is the minimum aid increment, $240,450, which is exactly $150.00 for each of the 1,603 foundation pupils, and the foundation aid increment is zero. Over thirty-four years foundation enrolment fell in 17 and aid fell in 3 — FY1997, FY2010 and FY2011. DESE’s component columns show a reduction applied in FY2010 and FY2011; they start at FY2007, so nothing in this archive says why aid fell in FY1997. So the marginal aid attached to one foundation pupil is currently about $150 and not the $14,440 foundation budget per pupil. What is NOT established: that the Legislature sets the same minimum aid rate next year — it has ranged from $30 to $150 a pupil in the years published — nor what happens if a large enough enrolment fall moves the district off the minimum aid track, which no document here models.
Closes with: DESE’s preliminary Chapter 70 aid calculation for Lunenburg for the year in question, which states the foundation aid, minimum aid and hold-harmless components before the year is set.
money in
What the foundation budget pays per pupil for each kind of child
DESE builds the foundation budget from per-pupil rates that differ by grade and by category, and it publishes the CATEGORIES for Lunenburg — FY2026 foundation enrolment of 1,603, of whom 54 are English learners (3.4%), 452 are low income (28.8%, low-income group 5) and none is vocational, at a wage adjustment factor of 1.000 — without publishing the rate attached to any of them in the same file. So which children leave a district changes the foundation effect and not only how many, and this archive can state that it matters and cannot size it.
Closes with: DESE’s FY26 foundation budget rate schedule, the table of per-pupil rates by grade and category and the low-income increment by decile group.
money out
How much of a school budget stops being spent when a student leaves
A student leaving removes revenue at once and in full. It removes cost only where a staffing or programme decision is taken, and nothing published says at what enrolment a class section is removed, a bus route is dropped or a teacher is not replaced. So the avoidable share of a per-pupil figure is an assumption in every scenario on this site, and it is the input the answer is most sensitive to: at the FY2027 appropriation per pupil, the difference between assuming none of it is avoidable and assuming all of it is is larger than the entire revenue effect being modelled.
Closes with: the district’s own staffing and section plan by grade — the document behind the School Committee’s 16 April 2025 discussion of "each grade, their size, and potential seats" — which states the class sizes at which a section is added or removed.
people
How many children play sports
Two town documents give 593 and 649 for the same year and count different things: one counts fee categories, the other counts participations by sport, and a participation is not a child — one student playing three seasons is three of them. Some workbook rows are negative, subtracting out-of-district athletes back out, so a season total is a net figure rather than a headcount of bodies. Nothing published is an unduplicated count.
Closes with: an unduplicated athlete roster, or a participation report that states whether it counts students or participations.
people
How many children Chapter 70 is actually paid for
The aid is calculated on a `Foundation enrollment` of 1,599 in DESE’s FY27 Chapter 70 summary. DESE publishes three other counts for the same district — Student Headcount, In-District FTE Pupils and Total FTE Pupils — and in the latest year published they are 1,563, 1,568.9 and 1,665.9. Four numbers, one agency, none of them equal, measured on different dates and counting different things. So every per-pupil figure on this project, including aid per pupil, is a division by a count whose definition has to be stated with it, and no published document reconciles the foundation count to the children in the buildings.
Closes with: DESE’s FY27 foundation enrollment worksheet for Lunenburg, which states the October 1 count by grade and category the formula was run on.
document wanted
The Cherry Sheet itself — what the state told Lunenburg to expect, receipt by receipt
This archive holds no Cherry Sheet for any year. The Cherry Sheet is the state’s own statement of estimated aid and assessments to a Massachusetts town, and it is what a tax rate is set on. Without it the only measurement of aid estimate error this project can make is one net line on the Division of Local Services free cash proof — `Excess/Shortfall Cherry Sheet Receipts (CL#8)` — which lumps Chapter 70, Unrestricted General Government Aid, the abatement reimbursements and every other receipt into a single figure. So a year that came in $390,814 short can be reported as short and cannot be reported as short in anything.
Closes with: DLS Cherry Sheet CS 1-ER (estimated receipts) and CS 1-EB (estimated charges) for Lunenburg, FY2021 to FY2027.
The data behind this page
Everything above is computed from one static file, written by one script that refuses to write if any of eleven checks fails.
- /data/if-students-leave.json — every measured figure on this page, with its coordinate
- sources/budget-workbooks/ch70-fy27-summary.xlsx — DESE’s FY27 Chapter 70 district summary
- /data/athletics.json — the participation counts and the fee schedule
- /data/money_gaps.json — the gap register, in full
scripts/build_if_students_leave.py— the generator, and its refusals
The state’s own files, by name and by hash
Four DESE workbooks, located by filename rather than by folder — this archive re-files documents on purpose, and a script that names a folder is a break with a date on it. A spreadsheet can be replaced in place, so each is hashed.
| File | Sheet | DESE dataset | Rows | sha256 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| dese-ch70-district-profile.xlsx | DataC70 | — | 14,848 | a0dc63bc9d515b28… |
| dese-ch70-key-factors.xlsx | dataAid | — | 8,767 | 9fdc7d0a6131c82a… |
| dese-residents-sending.xlsx | Data | vxt3-k35x | 74,879 | ef345000874dab5a… |
| dese-enrollment-receiving.xlsx | Data | 8xyg-59b2 | 74,879 | b23f4106f6c08bfe… |
dese-ch70-district-profile.xlsx — Chapter 70 District Profile — foundation enrolment, foundation budget, required local contribution and aid, every district, FY1993 onward. dese-ch70-key-factors.xlsx — Chapter 70 Trends in Aid and Local Contribution — the AID CALCULATION broken into its named components. dese-residents-sending.xlsx — Enrollment of town residents by district — where the children of a town actually go to school. dese-enrollment-receiving.xlsx — Enrollment of a district by town of residence — where a district’s children come from.
The athletics fund loses fees too, and that is a different pot
At the FY27 high school fee of $400, 78 athletes taking 2.74 sports each is 214 participations and $85,488 that does not reach the athletics revolving fund. That is not the town’s general fund and the two must not be added: the fund also stops incurring some of the cost of those athletes, and what a sport actually costs is not established. The fee is from Superintendent's email to families, August 2026.
Related analyses
Generated by scripts/build_if_students_leave.py from sources/town-annual-reports/text/4130-fy-2025-annual-town-report.txt; sources/budget-workbooks/ch70-fy27-summary.xlsx; sources/town-budget/text/3765-town-meeting-booklet-including-warrant.txt; dese-ch70-district-profile.xlsx; dese-ch70-key-factors.xlsx; dese-enrollment-receiving.xlsx; dese-residents-sending.xlsx; fy28/public/data/athletics.json; model/taxbase.py; sources/data/lunenburg.db — report_enrollment_mcas, v_revenue, special_revenue_funds, money_gaps; sources/meetings/text/