Pento Road students must attend Woburn schools
Published on August 25th, 1999
STONEHAM, MA - Jonathan Fraser has been a student in the Stoneham schools since his first-grade year at the Robin Hood Elementary School on Magnolia Terrace. But this year Stoneham administrators are sending him to Woburn.
"My son is very upset," Elsie Fraser said. "He wants to stay with his friends."
Twelve-year-old Jonathan fully expected to continue at the Stoneham Middle School as a seventh grader in the fall of 1999. But in June his mother received a letter which said that a verbal agreement between former school superintendents in Stoneham and Woburn had no legal basis.
Jonathan's family lives at 8 Pento Road in Woburn. Pento Road lies in the narrow strip of land between the Stoneham/Woburn border and Route 93. The road is part of a neighborhood partially in Woburn but mostly in Stoneham.
An agreement between former school superintendents in Stoneham and Woburn allowed children on Pento Road to attend the Stoneham school system because of the convenient proximity to Robin Hood.
A total of four students in the Pento Road neighborhood were in Stoneham schools as of last year.
Stoneham Superintendent Joseph Connelly and Woburn Superintendent Carl Batchelder confirm the existence of the agreement which was made before their respective tenures.
"I knew there was an agreement, but I didn't know it was unofficial," Elsie Fraser said. "I called both places and asked where my son should go to school, and they said Stoneham."
But Superintendents Connelly and Batchelder agree a mistake was made which must now be corrected.
"The only way for the students to stay is for Woburn to pay Stoneham the average per pupil cost of $6,500 for each student," Connelly said.
Connelly said taxpayers in Stoneham should not be asked to assume the costs of educating Woburn children.
Batchelder said Woburn taxpayers should not be asked for money for the Stoneham schools.
"We have a great school system, and I welcome the Pento Road children to Woburn," Batchelder said.
Jonathan is so upset, his mother said, he won't even look at schools in Woburn.
"I want to know why it took so long for them to tell us about this," Elsie said.
She added, "The schools made a mistake, so why should my son have to pay for it."
Elsie plans to go to the Thursday, Aug. 26, school committee meeting to ask if the students currently in the system can be grandfathered as Stoneham students.
Jonathan is asking all the parents of his classmates to attend the meeting in support of his desire to stay with his friends in Stoneham.
"That is not an option," Connelly said.
But Pento Road resident Ariana Gomez, a rising junior at Stoneham High School, will be allowed to continue in the Stoneham system because she spent "the bulk of her educational career in Stoneham" as a letter from Connelly's office reads.
"Ariana and Jonathan have been in school in Stoneham for the same time — six years," Elsie said.
Jonathan has gone from first to sixth grade, and Ariana went from fifth to tenth grade after moving from Somerville.
"The school committee members have children," Elsie said. "I hope they understand."
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