Dartmouth students may not be the only ones to enjoy a Dartmouth education.

At Monday night's School Committee meeting, Superintendent Dr. Bonny Gifford presented the committee with School Choice.

Under School Choice, any public school can accept students from other school districts in return for a “tuition” payment that essentially moves state aid from a student’s home district to the district in which he or she is attending school. In this case, School Choice would permit students from other districts to attend school in Dartmouth.

School Choice would permit the Dartmouth school district to accept a limited number of students from other districts. School choice has been brought up on two separate occasions but was voted down with "little discussion," said chairperson Chris Oliver.

If Dartmouth were to adopt school choice, the committee would have control over how many seats in each grade could be allotted for towns sending students to Dartmouth. The tuition money would come from the sending district, so it would not cost the town anything to support the additional students. Dartmouth would provide transportation as part of the School Choice system.

Gifford said the system by which students would be selected could range from rolling acceptance to a lottery system. After being accepted, students would be part of the Dartmouth system until graduation, unless they should choose to withdraw. Siblings of accepted students would receive preference.

Additionally, the district has control over which schools the available seats are located at. After being accepted, the family of the sending students can decide if they are content with whatever school they are paired into.

The approximate tuition for the sending students would be $5,000, which would be put away in a revolving account. Additionally, special services required by the accepted students would be provided by Dartmouth.

The program would be voted on by the committee each year. If the committee wants to discontinue it in the future, they could simply vote not to renew it.

The School Committee, though receptive to the idea, had some reservations regarding where the sending towns' tuition would be placed, what it would be used for and any strain it may put on the district.

According to committee member Chris Garth, the $5,000 per student gained would outweigh any property taxes paid by residents. Committee member John Nunes also mentioned that, though the returning students would incur recurring costs, resources such as extra laptops or textbooks would be one-time costs.

Committee member Dr. Shannon Jenkins was optimistic of the program but wished to be assured of "only financial upsides." Additionally, she had concerns about what may happen if future school committees choose not to renew the program.

In Gifford's experience in two districts that utilized School Choice, it worked "very smoothly." There were no issues with additional costs from special education. Any problems with costs were curtailed by the district's reservoir of $500,000 in tuition amassed over the years.

Currently, the school population has not been increasing so School Choice provides capacity for growth, said Jenkins.

The committee did not take a vote on school choice but made it clear that it would be a recurring topic at upcoming school committee meetings.