| LINCOLN
Metco proposal removed from ballot questions Sponsors withdraw petition amidst controversy in town By Eun Lee Koh, Globe Staff Correspondent, 2/16/2003
Both proposals urged the School Committee to reduce participation in the program from 12.6 percent to about 6 percent, while looking for lower-cost alternatives to diversifying the school population - suggestions that many longtime supporters of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity said the town would need more time to consider before the March 29 Town Meeting. Although the Town Meeting article remains on the warrant, Cindy Sweetser, the main sponsor of both measures, said she might ease the language in the article or pull it altogether, depending on how the other sponsors feel. Although residents will not be voting at the polls on the issue, Sweetser said she has already accomplished what she intended. ''People have been afraid to talk about this for so long, and I'm happy that we're finally coming around to having this discussion,'' Sweetser said. ''These are difficult times, and no one wants to be talking about this. If there was plenty of money, this conversation wouldn't be taking place.'' Last week, the leaders of several groups, including the School Committee, the Parent Teacher Association, and the League of Women Voters, agreed to sponsor discussions specifically about the costs incurred by the Metco program. Sue Hollingsworth, chairwoman of the School Committee, said she was relieved that the proposal was formally off the ballot, because it now gives the committee a chance to study Metco costs and other ways to fund the program. ''I thought it was too specific a question, and the community was not ready to address something that specific,'' Hollingsworth said. ''Now we have an opportunity to talk about it at a broader level and consider options we haven't thought of before.'' Hollingsworth said she is open to forming a study group that would examine how much money the district could save by reducing participation in the Metco program and the possibility of funding it through private donations or grants. Jurrien Timmer, a member of the K-8 Task Force, who helped calculate the cost of the program to Lincoln in a report last fall, said the School Committee now has an opportunity to figure out how to educate the maximum number of Metco students with the minimum amount of funding. ''I really believe there is a way to do this without having to cut back significantly on the program,'' said Timmer, who is a candidate for School Committee. ''An across-the-board cut may not have been the best way, so I'm glad we are having this discussion.'' Many in town feared a contentious debate at the polls and on Town Meeting floor, as voters weighed the price tag of Metco against the value of bringing diversity into Lincoln classrooms. School officials predict there will still be some rancor as the town and the schools work out a budget for fiscal 2004. On a percentage basis, Lincoln has the highest participation rate in the state, drawing more than 12 percent of its students from minority families in Boston, compared with an average of 2.8 percent in other suburban school districts. Lincoln officials estimated that the percentage of minorities in the student population without Metco would be in the single digits, and many residents saw the program as the quickest way to achieve diversity in the classrooms. But with the economy sagging and school spending under scrutiny, Sweetser and other sponsors believed that school officials and residents also needed to look at the rising costs of maintaining Metco. According to figures in the K-8 Task Force report, funding for the Metco program accounts for about 5 percent of the school's annual budget. ''No matter what, the value far outweighs the cost,'' said Chris Horner, Lincoln's Metco director. ''The program has become a scapegoat for the financial difficulties Lincoln's had over the years. In all honesty, removing the program won't solve our problem.'' This story ran on page 1 of the Globe West section on
2/16/2003.
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