Town of Weston employees who live outside Weston could send their children to the town's public schools for half what other out-of-town families pay, under draft rules the Board of Education's Policy Committee sent to the full board on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
At this year's rates, that would come to about $11,400 a year for a child in kindergarten through fifth grade and about $12,400 for a high school student. The district's 2026-27 rate sheet sets full non-resident tuition at $22,831.78 for kindergarten through fifth grade, $23,005.43 for middle school and $24,763.81 for high school. Only employees who receive benefits would qualify, and when applications outnumber open seats, their children would be fourth in line. The full board is expected to take up the draft Monday, Nov. 16.
The discount would be open for two years. Before the two years end, the board would look at enrollment and decide whether to keep it, change it or end it, the draft says. It does not say whether children admitted in those two years could stay if the board ends it. When the committee discussed the idea on Oct. 6, Board Vice Chair David Felton proposed that a child admitted during the trial could keep reapplying each year through 12th grade, as long as seats allowed.
At that meeting, the committee asked staff to put the idea in writing, and Superintendent Erica Forti told members that of 72 town employees eligible for benefits, 58 live outside Weston, with 61 children among them.
The district's own employees who live elsewhere already pay 25% of the rate, and the draft limits both groups to employees who receive benefits. The order for open seats would be:
- Non-resident students already enrolled
- Children of school district employees
- Brothers and sisters of non-resident students already enrolled
- Children of town employees
- Everyone else
Within each group, seats would go by lottery "or another neutral selection process approved by the Superintendent," the draft says. District staff told the committee that applications are now handled as they come in.
Felton asked whether, under that order, the younger brother or sister of a tuition student with no tie to Weston would get a seat ahead of the child of a town police officer. It would. He said he was satisfied with the order as written.
Town employees would pay on the regular schedule: half before the child's first day and half by Jan. 15. The district's own staff can also pay through 20 payroll deductions; the draft does not offer town employees that option. If a parent leaves the town job, the family pays full tuition from that date for the rest of the year. Families would pay the full cost of any special education or other added services.
The draft is expected to get a first reading at that Nov. 16 meeting, at 7 p.m. at Weston Middle School.