Patch Facts

Five Things: Trivia, Enrollment Projection, Meetings and More

A quick look at what you need to see, do and know on Jan. 8 in Lexington.

1. Enrollment Forecasts on Tap Tonight: The Lexington School Committee is scheduled to meet at 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Town Office Building and its agenda includes four- and 10-year enrollment forecasts, the superintendent's fiscal 2014 budget recommendation and the LPS facility master plan update. 2. Other Public Meetings: According to the town website, other public meetings posted for today include the Capital Expenditures Committee at 8 a.m. at the Town Office Building, the Tourism Committee at 11:30 a.m. at the Town Office Buidling, the Fund for Lexington Board at 4:30 p.m. at the Town Office Building, a LexHAB public neighborhood meeting at 7 p.m. at the home of Jean and Bob Burbidge on Wood Street and the Sustainable Lexington …

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Week in Review, May 7 to 13

A car fire extinguished, a committee formed, a candidate emerges, a streetscape's considered and a concert is held.

This week started of with a bang -- a few of them actually -- when four tires blew out during a car fire that torched a Toyota on Monday outside of the LexMedia headquarters.  The car's owner, a sports-reporting volunteer at LexMedia, escaped with singed hair after attempting to douse the fire -- which may have started with a cigar left lit -- with a cup of water he fetched from inside the office. On Tuesday morning, we reported Lexington Police are investigating a rash of vandalism that occurred early Sunday morning, when vandals spraypainted property in the Estabrook area Later Tuesday, the Lexington School Committee heard Superintendent of Schools Paul Ash's plan to improve enrollment predictions and voted to, among other things, form …

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Lexington Looks to Improve Enrollment Forecasts

Closing the gap between LPS students and students listed on the town census should improve enrollment projections and identify nonresidents, Superintendent Paul Ash said Tuesday.

Enrollment projections are tricky business for public school districts, and most area administrators admit they would like to tighten up their numbers. According to Superintendent of Schools Paul Ash, the way to do that is to close the gap between the number of children the schools’ list as students and the number of children listed on the town census. That’s a process that will begin this year, Ash said in a May 10 report to the Lexington School Committee. Ash said he and the demographer he works with concluded that, before looking too much into their own methodologies, it’s prudent to review the quality of data they’re getting. As a baseline for this comparison, Ash got a spreadsheet with the names and addresses of children in the …

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