Dive Transient:
- The Massachusetts Division of Increased Schooling is ramping up monetary oversight for 2 of the state’s faith-based faculties, warning that it can not affirm the establishments have the sources to remain open by means of the subsequent tutorial yr.
- The company mentioned final month that it’s working with the 2 establishments, Northpoint Bible School and Boston Baptist School, to craft contingency plans within the occasion they shut.
- Each increased schooling establishments have not less than one main danger issue for monetary troubles — small pupil populations. Northpoint Bible School enrolled 225 college students in fall 2022, whereas Boston Baptist School had simply 43 college students.
Dive Perception:
Underneath a 2019 legislation, Massachusetts’s increased schooling division is required to yearly evaluation the monetary well being of the state’s personal faculties to find out whether or not they face imminent closure.
The statute is supposed to assist keep away from faculties closing with out warning. Massachusetts lawmakers authorised the statute after Mount Ida School abruptly shuttered in 2018, leaving college students scrambling to determine learn how to end their applications.
State laws require that faculties’ closure contingency plans embrace switch and articulation agreements for college kids and a finances adequate to maintain the establishment’s instructional choices by means of a possible closure.
The division can even ask faculties prone to closure to supply monetary collateral to ensure refunds for pupil deposits and to protect pupil information.
The state has seen a number of different acquisitions and school closures lately, together with Boston School’s buy of Pine Manor School and Becker School’s shuttering on the finish of the 2020-21 tutorial yr.
Northpoint Bible School didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark, although it offered an announcement to the Massachusetts increased schooling division.
“The School welcomes the oversight of the Massachusetts Board of Increased Schooling in monitoring its institutional well being,” it mentioned, in accordance with the company’s discover.
The faculty acknowledged that it had incurred declining enrollment and rising money owed over the previous few years — points that have been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Certainly, Northpoint Bible School’s enrollment dropped dramatically, falling 42% from 388 college students in fall 2012 to 225 college students a decade later. And tax paperwork present Northpoint Bible School ran deficits within the 2021 and 2022 fiscal years.
Nonetheless, the faculty famous that its pupil inhabitants elevated in fall 2023, breaking eight straight years of declines, although it didn’t share its present enrollment ranges.
Boston Baptist School has additionally seen enrollment plummet, dropping 51.7% from 89 college students in fall 2012 to 43 college students a decade later. David Melton, president of the faculty, didn’t instantly reply to an emailed request for remark Wednesday.
