Controlled Choice & Neighborhood School model

Somerville has a "Controlled Choice" school assignment program -- meaning that families are eligible to enroll their child at any school in the district, by lottery. Many families choose their neighborhood/proximity school, and Somerville explicitly supports this by giving lottery preference to your neighborhood school. However, many families choose by other priorities - and Somerville has always encouraged families to visit multiple schools and find the right choice for their kid.

A school district with a wide variety of communities and programming means that families can find the right place for their kids' needs, within the public school program. 

The Brown is the last remaining K-5 school in the Somerville district. This makes it unusual among our schools, with a different set of pros and cons. But having the Brown means that families in Somerville have the option to send their kid to a small school, if that's the environment where that kid thrives -- even if they don't have the money for private school. 

Part of what makes this program successful is that we have such a wide variety of schools, placed all across the city. However, if you've been in the kindergarten or pre-k lottery lately, you know that there's a big caveat - if the school is completely full with neighborhood placement students, then there is no room for families opting for that school with the controlled choice program. This is often the case for Kennedy, which is over capacity for kindergarten for the next school year (2026-7 has 27-student classrooms). You can see city school choice data here ("Data For Previous Years").  Closing Brown and "moving" that space to Sycamore St will require redistricting and put additional pressure on the other schools that are walkable for Western Somerville families -- West and Kennedy. Brown, West and Kennedy are currently all "2-stream" schools, meaning they have 2 classrooms for each grade; closing Brown reduces elementary school capacity on the Western side of town by 1/3. 

Families in Somerville value walkability and community. 

In 2024-5, the Construction Advisory Group surveyed Somerville families about their priorities for the school system. You can read the entire survey results here. The data showed that Somerville families support our current system of neighborhood schools, and highly value the walkability and community connections fostered by this model. 

Data from the 2025 CAG survey shows....

Planning for change

If we intend to change the way that Somerville schools work and our existing priorities, then we need our elected officials to deeply consider the impact of those changes before they commit to making them. 

Some of the many questions that need consideration include...

How will the city address enrollment needs on the west side of Somerville if the Brown school is closed?

There are not enough spaces at either West or Kennedy to accommodate all of the current students on the west side of Somerville with the Brown School operational, let alone if it closes. In the future, enrollment needs on the west side of Somerville will be exacerbated by the 425 new units of housing being built at the Clarendon Hills site as well as the potential new apartments from the Cooper Mill project in Davis Square.

Will the city provide a new catchment plan for the entire city, and if so, how will this affect the other schools in Somerville? Will the catchment reassignments provide a walkable school option for every child or will it leave more dead zones where walkability is not a realistic option?  

The burden of transporting children to schools will fall on families when walkability is not an option with this centralized school model.  Loss of walkability will cause more families to drive, putting more cars on the road, which is in direct contradiction to the city’s commitment to Vision Zero and Somerville’s climate goals.

How does the city envision the future of school choice in Somerville?

The controlled choice lottery in Somerville has been a valuable and successful system for managing school enrollment, allowing a large majority of families to enroll their child in their first-choice school each year.  Families are at risk of losing this agency with a centralized, consolidated school model. With a disproportionate number of seats located east of the center of the city, there will be more demand than is available for seats for families seeking to send their child to the closest neighborhood school on the west half of the city, leading to more families unable to send their child to their first-choice school.  Additionally, eliminating two small school environments, one neighborhood school, and the only K-5 school in the city further reduces families’ choice.

How does the city plan to provide a smaller school environment for children whose learning styles need and benefit from such an environment if both Brown and Winter Hill, two of Somerville’s smallest schools, no longer exist as small schools?   

A school that accommodates close to 925 children will not have the educational benefits of a small school, such as school leaders and administrators knowing students’ and families’ needs personally or even allowing kids to know everyone in their grade.  For children that need smaller school environments, having to be reshuffled between 6 classrooms per grade every year would be disorienting and undermine educational benefits from learning in a smaller environment.

What alternative uses for the Brown School facility have been explored?  And would the facility be preserved for community use, owned by the public and for the public’s benefit?

The city does not have a good track record when it comes to adaptive reuse of former school buildings.  Look what happened to the Cummings School, the 1895 building, the Western Junior High, Powderhouse Community School, and Edgerly. Do not let the Brown school facility meet the same demise, left as another abandoned or underutilized building in the city.