Out-of-District Obligations

Select a chart to view/download Out-of-District Obligations

• Out-of-District Expenditures (37KB)
• Out-of-District Tuition (17KB)

WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT

“Other Commitments” is one of the five categories of school expenditures tracked by In$ite financial reporting. “Out-of-District Expenditures” is one of the components of “Other Commitments.” This table gives a detailed breakdown, on a per-pupil basis, of the out-of-district expenditures incurred by each district.

The out-of-district expenditures consist of four components that do not directly benefit the current students in the district: retiree benefits granted by individual districts, such as health care and life insurance; tuition for students attending nonpublic schools out of the district (students with disabilities in schools and in private residential or day programs); transportation expenses paid for students who live in the district and attend private, parochial, or charter schools; and other out-of-district expenses such as adult education and community services.

Note that Jamestown and Little Compton do not have high schools, and therefore these districts pay tuition to neighboring districts for all of their public high-school students and they pay out-of-district transportation expenses for their high-school students as well.

This table gives a breakdown of one out-of-district expenditure: Tuition. The bar graphs show out-of-district expenditures for special education for students with disabilities, career-and-technical education, charter-school tuition, and other tuition (notably, out-of-district tuition for Jamestown and Little Compton high-school students).

Both tables show total expenditures for each district – total out-of-district expenditures and total out-of-district tuition – in the right-hand column.

(Note that the per-pupil expenditures show spending divided by the total number of pupils in the district – regardless of whether the students are receiving out-of-district services.)

WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR

In general, you would like to see that the district costs are relatively low, on a per-pupil basis, although the out-of-district expenses should be seen in the context of all district expenditures. The districts are obligated by state and federal law to provide services to students with disabilities, for example, and some districts may have no choice but to send these students to out-of-district schools in order to meet their educational needs. Districts are obligated by state law to provide transportation on a regional basis, as well as to provide textbooks and certain nursing services to students attending school outside of the district. State law also obligates districts to pay the town’s share of tuition for their students who attend charter schools.