Analyses
Who leaves Lunenburg schools, and where they go
177 of 1,730 resident children — 10.2% — are educated by a district other than Lunenburg. This is a count of children and it says nothing about disability.
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.
What this report counts
Children, by town and district pair — and DESE publishes no disability status with it. Nothing on this page is a special education figure. A child with an individual education programme who transfers out and a child with no plan who transfers out are one row in this file, and the archive holds nothing that separates them. It is also not a dollar: not one document here states what the town is assessed for these children, which is registered as a gap on both the money side and the people side.
What this establishes
The total barely moved in 13 years — 186 to 177, -4.8% — while what it is made of changed completely
About one resident child in ten has been educated outside Lunenburg for the whole of this record
The largest single destination is not school choice — it is Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical
School choice out is 58, down from 106 at its peak in FY17
None of these numbers is a special education number
Three routes, and they are three different things
The three lines below are usually added together and called “students leaving”. They should not be, and the reason is legal rather than presentational: each one is a different mechanism, decided by different people, paid for in a different way. Drawn as three lines rather than one stacked band, because a stacked band draws the sum — and the sum is the one quantity on this page that does not mean anything on its own.
NOT choosing out. Lunenburg is a MEMBER TOWN of the regional vocational district, so these children are reported as Resident/Member — of Monty Tech. The town is assessed for them, and no Lunenburg decision admits or refuses any of them.
A family applies to another district that has opened seats. The sending town pays tuition, taken off its cherry sheet. The receiving district decides how many seats to open; the sending town decides nothing.
A family applies to a charter school. A different statute and a different flow of money from school choice, assessed on the town separately.
13 years · FY2014–FY2026 · the three routes, each on its own line
the three routes, and the children still in Lunenburg's own schools
| year | Monty Tech | school choice | charter | other | total elsewhere | in Lunenburg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY14 | 70 | 69 | 44 | 3 | 186 | 1,513 |
| FY15 | 76 | 89 | 42 | 2 | 209 | 1,513 |
| FY16 | 86 | 80 | 40 | 5 | 211 | 1,512 |
| FY17 | 87 | 106 | 40 | 4 | 237 | 1,568 |
| FY18 | 77 | 99 | 30 | 7 | 213 | 1,599 |
| FY19 | 72 | 74 | 26 | 4 | 176 | 1,616 |
| FY20 | 75 | 84 | 27 | 5 | 191 | 1,607 |
| FY21 | 77 | 68 | 30 | 4 | 179 | 1,565 |
| FY22 | 90 | 77 | 28 | 8 | 203 | 1,578 |
| FY23 | 92 | 67 | 25 | 7 | 191 | 1,541 |
| FY24 | 97 | 56 | 26 | 2 | 181 | 1,565 |
| FY25 | 96 | 58 | 29 | 1 | 184 | 1,544 |
| FY26 | 97 | 58 | 22 | 0 | 177 | 1,553 |
The other column is the residual — a handful of children a year at a state-run school or tuitioned in under a local agreement. It is reported rather than folded into one of the three, because a route with no mechanism named is not a route.
What this does not show
What this does not show
What this does not show
Where they actually are, FY26
Every district educating a Lunenburg resident, whatever the reason — member town, school choice, charter, tuitioned or foster placement. This is the answer to the question a resident actually asks, which school choice on its own does not give.
1 year · FY2026–FY2026 · one year — every district, every reason
the same list, as numbers, FY2026
| district | resident children |
|---|---|
| Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical | 97 |
| Leominster | 18 |
| Francis W. Parker Charter Essential (District) | 15 |
| Fitchburg | 8 |
| Greater Commonwealth Virtual District | 8 |
| TEC Connections Academy Commonwealth Virtual School District | 8 |
| Sizer School: A North Central Charter Essential (District) | 7 |
| Nashoba | 4 |
| Harvard | 3 |
| Ayer Shirley School District | 2 |
| Gardner | 2 |
| Berlin-Boylston | 1 |
| Groton-Dunstable | 1 |
| Littleton | 1 |
| North Middlesex | 1 |
| Ralph C Mahar | 1 |
What this does not show
What this does not show
School choice, both directions
The district votes each year on how many seats to open, so the inbound figure is a decision and the outbound figure is many families’ decisions. Drawn as two bars rather than one net line, because the net hides that both arms moved.
13 years · FY2014–FY2026 · school choice, both directions
out, in, and the net
| year | leaving | arriving | net |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY14 | 69 | 44 | -25 |
| FY15 | 89 | 39 | -50 |
| FY16 | 80 | 53 | -27 |
| FY17 | 106 | 45 | -61 |
| FY18 | 99 | 42 | -57 |
| FY19 | 74 | 33 | -41 |
| FY20 | 84 | 34 | -50 |
| FY21 | 68 | 27 | -41 |
| FY22 | 77 | 18 | -59 |
| FY23 | 67 | 21 | -46 |
| FY24 | 56 | 15 | -41 |
| FY25 | 58 | 18 | -40 |
| FY26 | 58 | 11 | -47 |
where the school choice children go — every year, every district
| district | years it appears | of |
|---|---|---|
| Fitchburg | 13 | 13 |
| Harvard | 13 | 13 |
| Leominster | 13 | 13 |
| Littleton | 13 | 13 |
| North Middlesex | 13 | 13 |
| Ayer Shirley School District | 12 | 13 |
| Greater Commonwealth Virtual District | 12 | 13 |
| TEC Connections Academy Commonwealth Virtual School District | 11 | 13 |
| Nashoba | 10 | 13 |
| Nashoba Valley Regional Vocational Technical | 10 | 13 |
| Ralph C Mahar | 9 | 13 |
| Maynard | 8 | 13 |
| Gardner | 7 | 13 |
| Ashburnham-Westminster | 6 | 13 |
| Groton-Dunstable | 4 | 13 |
| Clinton | 3 | 13 |
| Athol-Royalston | 2 | 13 |
| Berlin-Boylston | 2 | 13 |
| Uxbridge | 2 | 13 |
| Narragansett | 1 | 13 |
| Oxford | 1 | 13 |
| Winchendon | 1 | 13 |
| Worcester | 1 | 13 |
5 districts appears in every one of the 13 years: Fitchburg, Harvard, Leominster, Littleton, North Middlesex. The rest come and go.
What this does not show
Every reason, every year
DESE’s own programme categories, unmerged. The Resident/Member column holds both the children in Lunenburg’s own schools and the ones at the regional vocational district, which is why the count that matters is the one drawn from the district code rather than from this column.
resident children by programme
| year | total | in Lunenburg | elsewhere | share | Charter School | Foreign Exchange Student | Out of District - Foster Care Student | Resident/Member | School Choice Program | Tuitioned In - Chapter 74 | Tuitioned In - Paid by Parent/Guardian | Tuitioned In - Waived by Local Agreement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY14 | 1,699 | 1,513 | 186 | 10.9% | 44 | 0 | 0 | 1585 | 69 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| FY15 | 1,722 | 1,513 | 209 | 12.1% | 42 | 0 | 0 | 1590 | 89 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| FY16 | 1,723 | 1,512 | 211 | 12.3% | 40 | 0 | 0 | 1600 | 80 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| FY17 | 1,805 | 1,568 | 237 | 13.1% | 40 | 1 | 0 | 1656 | 106 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| FY18 | 1,812 | 1,599 | 213 | 11.8% | 30 | 1 | 0 | 1677 | 99 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| FY19 | 1,792 | 1,616 | 176 | 9.8% | 26 | 0 | 0 | 1689 | 74 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| FY20 | 1,798 | 1,607 | 191 | 10.6% | 27 | 1 | 2 | 1681 | 84 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| FY21 | 1,744 | 1,565 | 179 | 10.3% | 30 | 0 | 1 | 1642 | 68 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| FY22 | 1,781 | 1,578 | 203 | 11.4% | 28 | 0 | 5 | 1669 | 77 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| FY23 | 1,732 | 1,541 | 191 | 11.0% | 25 | 0 | 3 | 1634 | 67 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| FY24 | 1,746 | 1,565 | 181 | 10.4% | 26 | 0 | 1 | 1662 | 56 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| FY25 | 1,728 | 1,544 | 184 | 10.7% | 29 | 0 | 0 | 1640 | 58 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| FY26 | 1,730 | 1,553 | 177 | 10.2% | 22 | 0 | 0 | 1650 | 58 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
What the town said about this
Rule 15a: for every route this page says moved, what the town was saying about that route in the same year. Some are about the seats Lunenburg OPENS, which is the direction this page counts least well — and the nearest the meeting record comes to a rate. One is the School Committee on the route that actually rose. None of them is a measurement, and none of them explains a count.
“We receive $5000 per student, however the cost per student is more than that”
School Committee · 2024-05-01 · our copy · the town’s
The district on the money that arrives with a child choosing IN. The counts on this page are children, not dollars; this is the nearest the meeting record comes to a rate, and it is the receiving side rather than the sending side that the town is assessed for.
“the idea of bringing back things like vocational programs to the school, even if it means that we'd have to disentangle ourselves from Monty Tech that is something that has real long-term value”
School Committee · 2026-03-23 · our copy · the town’s
RULE 15a. The Monty Tech line is the one that MOVED on this page — the largest route out and the only one that rose — and this is what the School Committee was saying about it in the same year the count reached its high. It is a member’s view of what the town should do, offered in a discussion of school property and programmes. It is NOT evidence about why any of those children enrolled there, and it does not bear on the count at all: Lunenburg is assessed for its member share whatever anybody at this meeting thinks of the arrangement.
“We are looking to only add school choice options to the high school”
School Committee · 2026-02-04 · our copy · the town’s
School choice runs in both directions and the district decides how many seats to OPEN. This page counts only the children going the other way, and the decision quoted here is about the seats coming in.
Searched 8,899 of the 12,015 meeting documents this archive holds (74%), covering 2009-01-05 to 2026-11-17. The other 3,116 carry no text a search can match — 3,096 of them are image scans awaiting OCR. An empty result above is a statement about what can be read, never about what was said.
The documents
dese-residents-sending.xlsx
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Enrollment of town residents by district (vxt3-k35x). Where each town’s children are enrolled, and under which programme.
table dese_town_enrollment · 2.5 MB
sha256 ef345000874dab5a…
dese-enrollment-receiving.xlsx
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
The companion file (8xyg-59b2): who arrives at a district, and from where. Row for row it holds the identical rows and differs only in column order.
table dese_town_enrollment · 2.3 MB
sha256 b23f4106f6c08bfe…
What this report cannot answer
- THAT ANY OF THESE CHILDREN HAS AN IEP. This is the one that matters, and it is why this report is separate from the other three. DESE publishes the count by town, district and programme and does not publish disability status with it. A special education student who leaves under school choice and a student with no IEP who leaves are one row here.
- What any of it costs. The archive holds the counts and not one document stating the tuition Lunenburg is assessed for them — already registered in `money-gaps.csv` on both the money-out and the people side.
- WHICH GRADES they leave in — the question everybody actually asks. dese_town_enrollment carries no grade column, and the grade counts that do exist are headcounts INSIDE a district rather than an outflow from a town, so they cannot be differenced to recover it. Whether families leave at a transition year or steadily throughout is unknown, and those imply completely different things about what the district could change. Registered in `money-gaps.csv` as “Which grades Lunenburg children leave the district in”.
- Why any family left. A count of departures is not a reason for them, and nothing in this file or in the meeting record surveys the households.
- That a child leaving is a child the district no longer spends on. Out-of-district special education placements are NOT in this file: a placed child stays enrolled in Lunenburg and is counted as a resident member.
What would close these
DLS Cherry Sheet CS 1-EB (estimated charges) for Lunenburg, which prints the school choice sending and charter tuition assessments on their own lines — the money. For the disability question, DESE’s SIMS detail crossing enrolment reason with IEP status, which is not published at town level at all. Every limit on this page is also a row in what we cannot answer, which is the single registry the records request reads from.
Where this leads
If students leave is the SCENARIO beside this measurement: what school choice would cost the town if more children transferred out, with every input a dial and the tuition rate an assumption, because no document in this archive states it. This page has no dials and no dollars. A scenario and a measurement answer different questions and the difference is worth holding on to — one is what happened, the other is what might.
The special education question this page cannot answer — whether children with an IEP leave at a different rate — is stated in its own terms on the special education hub, alongside the three reports that ARE special education figures.