After a summer filled with debate and threats of legal action, two Wareham students were allowed to start their senior year last week at Bristol County Agricultural High School at a reduced tuition rate.

The reduced rate, which will save Wareham about $14,000 this year, was proposed by Wareham Schools Superintendent Dr. Kimberly Shaver-Hood and was supported by the state Department of Education.

Bristol Aggie Superintendent Stephen Dempsey said that while he doesn’t agree with the reduced tuition, he wanted the students to start the school year and didn’t want to see the children used as pawns in this debate.

“We’ve never asked admitted students to leave Bristol Aggie before,” said Dempsey. “It’s a debate about interpretation.”

According to Shaver-Hood, the town is not required to pay tuition to the out-of-district Bristol Aggie if a student’s course of study is also available at Upper Cape Cod Tech, a vocational school within Wareham’s district. Because one school is in district while the other is not, the difference in tuition for Wareham is about $7,000 per student.

The issue for some students at the school is that while some programs offered at Bristol Aggie are clearly not offered at Upper Cape, others are offered in a similar way, which Shaver-Hood calls comparable.

“How do we identify what is comparable is what it comes down to,” said Dempsey.

Dempsey said Shaver-Hood is contending that Wareham students in the horticulture programs could receive a comparable education at Upper Cape, but Dempsey describes his programs as being much more specific.

He used the examples of arboriculture and floriculture programs, which fall under the horticulture umbrella. The former has students working with chainsaws in trees and the latter has students designing flower arrangements and working in greenhouses. They are two focused and distinct programs, but Shaver-Hood believes that because Upper Cape has a horticulture and landscaping program, Wareham students should have to apply there.

“Agricultural schools were created to be different from vocational schools by design,” Dempsey said. “To cluster them all together and consider them the same is wrong.”

He said the bigger problem lies with future applicants and freshman at the school from Wareham.

Freshmen at Bristol Aggie spend their entire year in general study exploratory courses. Based on academic performance and attendance, students are then put into a program of their choice, with the better-performing students getting their first or second choice of programs. Students select a preferred program on their Bristol Aggie application, but are free to choose another course of study after their freshman year.

The students who end up in the small animal sciences, large animal sciences and agricultural mechanics programs are presumably safe at Bristol Aggie. But four other programs—floriculture, arboriculture, landscaping and natural resources—arguably fall under the horticulture program offered by Upper Cape.

“If they end up in another program, it’s our contention they have to return to the Wareham Public Schools or go to Upper Cape,” said Shaver-Hood.

“To have kids have to leave because they changed their mind on what courses they wanted to take has never happened before,” said Dempsey.

There are currently four Wareham freshman at Bristol Aggie who could end up in a program outside of the three distinct programs offered at the school. This decision could call into question all future applicants from Wareham and any other towns outside of Bristol Aggie’s district.

“Vocational schools can’t set a tuition rate and start bargaining with other school districts about rates,” said Dempsey.

He said a determination has yet to be made for next year he will continue to have talks with the state Department of Education to iron out the issue.

“We’ve had a great relationship with Wareham for years and never had this issue before,” Dempsey said. “I don’t blame [Shaver-Hood] for trying to save every penny. I just don’t know if this is the best approach.”