Analysis: Town and Schools
The money leaves in one year. The cost does not.
177 Lunenburg children are already enrolled somewhere other than Lunenburg and 15 children from other towns are enrolled here — a net loss in every one of the 13 years the state publishes. A scenario put to this site adds 78 more leaving in a single year. The measured record first, then the dials.
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
If you read nothing else
A scenario or an explanation — nothing here tests it
If 78 high school students transferred out, $401,700 would leave the town in year one.
A scenario put to this site, not something that happened.
If 78 high school students transferred out under school choice — the scenario as it was put to this site — $401,700 leaves the town in the first year, and the town would have to stop spending 31.0% of what it appropriates per pupil just to break even. $390,000 of that is sending tuition and $11,700 is Chapter 70 aid at the margin the formula is currently paying. Both go in year one. The students come out of four grades, 21.3 of them from the largest, which has 118 students in it — so the $1,296,209 of appropriation they carry with them, at $16,618 a pupil, only stops being spent where somebody decides to stop spending it. That decision is the whole of the difference between a town that loses money and a town that does not.
the children who actually leave, counted → · what comparable districts spend →
What it rests on The scenario as a member of the Select Board put it to this site, evaluated at its own defaults. High school enrolment is the FY2025 annual town report’s enrolment table, read off the printed page and reconciled to the totals the page prints. The appropriation per pupil is the school appropriation over DESE’s foundation enrolment in the FY27 Chapter 70 district summary. Sending tuition is the base rate set by M.G.L. c.76 §12B, and no document in this archive states it for Lunenburg.
What it does not show That any child will leave, or that athletes would be the ones who did. Nobody counts departures by reason. It also does not show that anything could be cut: nothing published says at what enrolment a section is removed, so the break-even share is what would have to happen and not what could.
Lunenburg’s state aid changes by $150 if one pupil leaves.
Lunenburg gets $5,847 a pupil in all. Only $150 of it moves with enrolment.
Lunenburg receives $9,349,335 in Chapter 70 aid, about $5,847 for every pupil the formula counts. That is not what a departing pupil takes with them. Because the town sits on the minimum-aid floor, the aid total moves by about $150 per pupil — so a scenario can price a leaver anywhere between $150 and the $14,440 the state’s own costing says a pupil is worth, a factor of 96.3, and the answer changes the arithmetic completely. DESE’s own aid-component columns make each year’s aid the previous year’s plus named increments, an identity that holds to the dollar in all 7 of the last seven years. In FY2026 the whole of Lunenburg’s $240,450 increase is the minimum aid increment and the foundation aid increment is $0; $240,450 spread over 1,603 foundation pupils is $150 each. Across the 33 years DESE publishes, foundation enrolment fell in 17 of them and aid fell in 3.
why the aid lands where it does → · the whole state aid line, not Chapter 70 alone →
What it rests on DESE’s Chapter 70 Trends in Aid and Local Contribution workbook, sheet `dataAid`, which breaks the aid calculation into its named components, and DESE’s Chapter 70 District Profile, sheet `DataC70`, for the whole published run of foundation enrolment and aid. The latest year’s aid is tied to the town’s own revenue ledger before any of it is used.
What it does not show What aid would do if enrolment actually fell. Minimum aid and hold-harmless are statutory provisions, this archive holds no document applying either to Lunenburg, and a record of what happened is not a forecast. DESE’s own row also shows Lunenburg’s aid sitting above foundation budget minus required contribution, so that subtraction is not currently what sets it.
58 Lunenburg residents left under school choice in the latest year counted.
Children already leave. The question the scenario puts is how fast that moves, not whether it happens.
Children already leave. DESE counts 58 Lunenburg residents choicing out in SY2026 against 11 arriving, so the question the scenario puts is not whether school choice happens here but how fast it moves. The outward count has run between 56 and 106 in every year since SY2014, and a further 22 residents attend charter schools. The scenario adds 78 in a single year, which would take the outward flow to 136 — 2.34 times what DESE currently counts. Nothing in the published record has moved that far that fast, and that is the honest way to read the scenario: as a rate, against a flow somebody already measures.
where they go, measured → · the largest destination outside Lunenburg — families choose it, and the bill follows a different rule →
What it rests on DESE’s enrolment of town residents by district and its enrolment of a district by town of residence — the two files that count the same children in opposite directions — filtered to Lunenburg in every school year both cover, with each year’s destination detail summed back to that year’s total before it is used.
What it does not show Why any of these children left, or where the money went with them. The counts carry no dollars: not one document in this archive states the tuition that follows a child in either direction, which is why every dollar on this page rests on an assumed rate.
Those are the answers this report could reach from the documents behind it. If the one you came for is not among them, ask us — no name or email needed.
Read the full analysisThe full version37 min
The other findings
Children arriving in Lunenburg from other towns fell 70.6%.
Leaving is flat and arriving has collapsed. The net barely moves, and that is what hides it.
Lunenburg has not had a year of net gain in the thirteen school years DESE publishes — 177 children left in SY2026 against 15 arriving. The net barely moves, and that is what hides it: leaving is flat and arriving has fallen 70.6%. Leaving has run between 176 and 237 and ends at 177, nine fewer than the 186 it began at. Arriving has gone from 51 to 15. The net has been a loss of between 135 and 192 children in every single year, which is why the page draws all three lines: the net on its own is nearly flat across the whole of the movement.
the outward half, decomposed → · what a family pays to stay →
What it rests on DESE’s two enrolment files, counted as filters rather than as lists of programmes: every Lunenburg resident enrolled in a district other than Lunenburg, and every child enrolled in Lunenburg resident in a town other than Lunenburg. Both filters, and the complement of each, are asserted to select something in every year, and each year’s two halves are added back to DESE’s own row count for that year before any of it is used. Charter and vocational children are inside the outward count; foster and locally-agreed placements are inside the arriving one.
What it does not show Why arrivals fell. A district decides every year how many school choice seats to open and at which grades, so this is equally consistent with fewer seats being offered and with fewer families applying, and nothing published separates them: the Superintendent stated both counts to the Finance Committee for a single year, quoted on this page, and there is no series. Nor does it show what any of it is worth — no document in this archive states what Lunenburg receives for a child who chooses in, so the fall in children cannot be turned into a fall in dollars here.
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 enrollment 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 record: every child who leaves, and every child who arrives
Not school choice alone — every programme, both ways, every year the state publishes. This is measured. Nothing in this section responds to the dials.
Both directions, all programmes — DESE, SY14 to SY26
| School year | Leaving — all | Arriving — all | Net | of which: vocational member | school choice out | charter out | school choice in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SY14 | 186 | 51 | -135 | 72 | 69 | 44 | 44 |
| SY15 | 209 | 44 | -165 | 77 | 89 | 42 | 39 |
| SY16 | 211 | 55 | -156 | 88 | 80 | 40 | 53 |
| SY17 | 237 | 45 | -192 | 89 | 106 | 40 | 45 |
| SY18 | 213 | 42 | -171 | 79 | 99 | 30 | 42 |
| SY19 | 176 | 33 | -143 | 73 | 74 | 26 | 33 |
| SY20 | 191 | 34 | -157 | 75 | 84 | 27 | 34 |
| SY21 | 179 | 28 | -151 | 77 | 68 | 30 | 27 |
| SY22 | 203 | 19 | -184 | 91 | 77 | 28 | 18 |
| SY23 | 191 | 21 | -170 | 93 | 67 | 25 | 21 |
| SY24 | 181 | 15 | -166 | 97 | 56 | 26 | 15 |
| SY25 | 184 | 19 | -165 | 96 | 58 | 29 | 18 |
| SY26 | 177 | 15 | -162 | 97 | 58 | 22 | 11 |
Leaving is every Lunenburg resident enrolled in a district other than LEA 01620000. Arriving is every child enrolled at LEA 01620000 resident in a town other than Lunenburg. Net is arriving minus leaving; negative is a net loss of children. Counted by the state in two separate files, one per direction; each year’s two halves are added back to DESE’s own row count for that year before this page will build.
The net is flat. One of its two halves is not
Leaving has barely moved: 186 in SY14, 177 in SY26, never outside 176–237 in between. Arriving has fallen from 51 to 15, a fall of 70.6%, and it is the only one of the two totals that has moved at all. A chart of the net alone would be a near-straight line drawn across the whole of that movement, which is why all three series are on the axis above.
What moved inside the outward count is composition rather than size. Children at charter schools fell from 44 to 22 and children attending the vocational district as members of it rose from 72 to 97. That second route is not a school choice transfer and never has been: Lunenburg is a member town, so the state splits one required contribution rather than charging a tuition. Families apply, compete in a lottery and may not get a place — what differs is how the bill behaves, not whether a decision was made.
Arriving in SY26, by the mechanism that brought each child
| Mechanism | Children |
|---|---|
| School Choice Program | 11 |
| Out of District - Foster Care Student | 2 |
| Tuitioned In - Waived by Local Agreement | 2 |
Three different mechanisms, and they do not carry money the same way. Only the first is school choice.
A possible explanation — nothing here tests it
A receiving district decides every year how many school choice seats to open, and at which grades. So 15 arrivals against 51 is equally consistent with fewer seats being offered and with fewer families applying, and the two imply opposite remedies. The published record states both counts for a single year — the Superintendent’s figures to the Finance Committee, quoted further down — and in that year the seats were opened and the applications did not arrive. One year cannot speak for the other 12.
What would settle it: The School Committee’s annual school choice vote — seats opened, by grade, for every year since SY14. The minutes hold it in pieces; nobody has compiled it as a series.
What the arriving half is worth, and why this page does not say
An arriving school choice student brings tuition into the district, so a fall in arrivals is money as well as children. Two measured series describe it and neither is divided into the other: over the 9 years the two files share, DESE’s count of arrivals went from 51 to 21 (58.8% down), and the town’s own School Choice fund receipts went from $220,058 in FY14 to $116,976 in FY23 (46.8% down).
What this does not show
What one arriving child is worth. This archive holds no document stating what Lunenburg receives for a child who chooses in. The statutory base rate is set by M.G.L. c.76 §12B, it is higher for special education, and no Cherry Sheet — the one document that prints the receipt — is in this archive for any year. The two measured series on this page are set side by side and never divided into each other.
So the money value of a 70.6% fall in arrivals is not established here, and dividing the receipts above by the count above would not establish it either. Two reasons, and both are on this page: 4 of SY26’s 15 arrivals came by a mechanism that is not school choice, so they are in the count and cannot be in the tuition; and the statutory rate is higher for special education, which nothing published here counts among arriving children. An average across both would be a number, not a rate.
And it would not reduce the appropriation one-for-one if it were known. Tuition received is revenue into a fund; a budget line is what the town has to raise after everything else that pays for the thing has been subtracted. Money arriving and an appropriation falling are two different events.
The outward half, decomposed — who receives these children, and by which route
Within that record, school choice — and where the scenario would put it
The same thirteen years, narrowed to the one programme the scenario is about. The two solid lines are DESE’s count; the dashed rule is the scenario, and it is the only thing on this chart that moves when you move a dial.
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
Families choose Monty Tech. The bill is what behaves differently. 97 Lunenburg children attend Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical — the largest single destination outside Lunenburg. They applied, and a place is not guaranteed. What is different is not whether a decision was made but how the money moves: Lunenburg is a member town, so the state computes one required local contribution for the town and splits it between its two districts by foundation-budget share, rather than charging a tuition per child. That is a different rule from school choice, which is why these children are counted separately here and not added to a school choice total.
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. DESE counts how many Lunenburg children are ENROLLED elsewhere in a year, and this page draws thirteen years of it in both directions — but a stock is not a flow. Nobody counts how many children MOVED in a year, which is what this dial sets.
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 enrollment — 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 enrollment 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 enrollment 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.
The column the report heads “resident” is DESE’s SY2026 headcount, 1,568. DESE’s own receiving file counts 1,553 of those children as Lunenburg residents and 15 as living in other towns, 11 of them under school choice. So the column already includes children from other towns, and the printed total of 1,585 adds 17 school choice students on top of them. The high school figures here are students in the school, not residents only.
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 enrollment 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 enrollment, 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 enrollment 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 enrollment 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 enrollment 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 enrollment 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 enrollment as 1,603 and splits it three ways.
| Category | Children | Share of foundation enrollment |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | — | — | — | — | 67 |
| FY12 | — | — | — | — | 66 |
| FY13 | — | — | — | — | 71 |
| FY14 | $61,644 | $220,058 | $193,679 | $88,023 | 29 |
| FY15 | $88,023 | $248,973 | $82,484 | $254,512 | 29 |
| FY16 | — | — | — | — | 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 | — | — | — | — | 23 |
Status check failed`, `checked`, `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 9 rows against their own arithmetic and 7 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 $220,058 in FY14 to $116,976 in FY23 — 46.8% lower, having peaked at $281,212 in FY17. 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 enrollment 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 enrollment 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 enrollment 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 enrollment 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 enrollment 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 enrollment 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.
money in
What Lunenburg receives for a child who chooses IN, and what the fall from 51 to 15 is worth
DESE counts the children arriving in Lunenburg from other towns in every school year from SY2014 to SY2026: 51 at the start, 15 at the end, a fall of 71% while the number leaving stayed flat. The town’s own School Choice fund receipts fell over the ten years the two series share, from $220,058 in FY2014 to $116,976 in FY2023. Neither document states a RATE. The statutory base tuition is set by M.G.L. c.76 §12B, no document in this archive states it, and it is higher for special education; the arriving children also come by three different mechanisms — school choice, tuition waived by local agreement, and foster placement — which do not carry money the same way. So the two series can be published side by side and cannot be divided into each other: a per-student figure produced that way would be an assumption in a measurement’s clothes, and the money value of a 71% fall in arrivals is therefore not established anywhere on this site.
Closes with: the DLS Cherry Sheet CS 1-ER (estimated receipts) for Lunenburg, which prints School Choice Receiving Tuition as its own receipt line, for the years the DESE counts cover.
people
How many school choice seats Lunenburg opened, by grade and by year
Children arriving from other towns fell from 51 in SY2014 to 15 in SY2026. Two readings fit that equally well and the published record separates them in one year only. A receiving district DECIDES each year how many school choice seats to open and at which grades — the School Committee minutes record that decision being taken on 22 January 2025 (elementary seats against high school only, tabled until the budget was settled), on 16 April 2025 (options beyond grade 9, moved contingent on free cash passing) and on 4 February 2026 (“We are looking to only add school choice options to the high school”). So fewer arrivals is consistent with fewer seats offered and equally consistent with fewer families applying. The Superintendent stated both counts to the Finance Committee on 26 February 2026 — 24 seats opened, 5 students applied — which points at applications for that one year and cannot speak for the other twelve.
Closes with: the School Committee’s annual school choice vote, seats by grade, for every year from SY2014 onward; the minutes hold it in pieces and nobody has compiled it as a series.
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 enrollment, 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/