Brockton Public Schools

In 1993, 142 students living in Brockton attended school in the Avon School District of Avon as part of a voluntary school choice program of the State of Massachusetts. 22 were previously students in parochial or private schools and never attended BPS schools, so the move of those students did not result in lower costs of fewer students of BPS but only resulted in fewer state aid dollars for BPS. By 1993, under the first year the voluntary school choice program, BPS lost almost $222,000 of state aid funds to the Avon district. BPS expected to lose $286,000 in state aid funds in 1993.[6]

In 1998 the school district spent $300,000 in education reform money to pay for its police officers, while in a five year period ending in 1998 it did not spend any reform money on after school programs made to make students busy and to keep them away from trouble. That year, BPS had the state's only armed school police officers. They had semiautomatic Glock pistols that use hollow point bullets and were equipped with bullet proof vests.[7]

On March 21, 2011 law enforcement agencies accused a tutor of inappropriately touching an 8-year old girl at the Angelo School. The school department did not conduct a required background check on the tutor when he was hired in 2009. Since 2007 Massachusetts state law required school district employees to undergo background checks. When a check did occur, it was found that the information discovered would not have prevented his hiring. In April 2011, after a grand jury was unable to find evidence against the man, charges were dropped. After the incident the district took measures to ensure that background checks would be done.[8]

The district has students from Spanish-speaking countries, Albania, Angola, Brazil, Cambodia, Cape Verde, China, Haiti, India, Korea, Laos, Lithuania, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Vietnam.[9]

• Brockton Public Schools