It wasn't unanimous, but the Joint School Committee voted to keep the tri-town’s Project Grow preschool programs as is.

In January, Jay Pateakos and Christine Winters of the Marion School Committee expressed concern about accepting students into the program from Mattapoisett or Rochester without being reimbursed for expenses.

Each Project Grow class has 15 slots per day, seven of those must be kept open for students who have individualized education programs or IEPs. These children have some disability, ranging from learning to physical.

When one school in the three towns has filled its IEP slots, it has been the practice that a new student would be sent to one of the other two towns. Marion’s program currently has two students from other towns.

In the event that all the IEP slots were filled in all three classes, a town might have to pay to send a student out of district while not receiving any reimbursement for taking in a child from the other two towns.

“If a child moves in, then we could have to pay to send a kid to another school,” said Winters.

“It could happen, but it hasn’t,” said Director of Student Services Terri Hamm at the January meeting. “We’ve never decided what it costs for those students. I just think it’s going to be tricky to do that.”

Hamm contacted other regions with a similar structure to the tri-town. She received four responses and said, “All four towns practice as we do. They don’t specifically charge other member school districts.”

She added that receiving schools do not incur additional costs, as students are filling empty spots. “In those cases where there are additional costs, I’m saying we would go back and look at that,” explained Hamm. The three towns, which operate as separate districts, do receive a joint grant to cover part of the tuition fees, which Hamm said affects funding.

“So far, I’ve never heard there are major inequities for the way that Project Grow allocations are made,” said Brad Gordon, also of the Marion School Committee. “I think we should close this discussion at this time.”

Marion School Committee member Christine Winters maintained her stance that a policy should be created that would give towns the option to charge tuition. “If the receiving town chooses to provide a waiver, I don’t see why we don’t do that. It certainly makes sense to have that flexibility,” she said.

When put to a vote, however, the committee voted to make no changes in how the Project Grow programs operate. A policy will also be developed to solidify the current practice.