Three out of four West Roxbury Educational Complex schools are looking into becoming pilot schools. The Haley Elementary School in Roslindale is also interested in applying for pilot status.

Those four schools were a part of a score of schools that received pilot school planning grants from the Boston Foundation. Grants ranged from $18,000 to $20,000, with a total of $400,000 being handed out last in March.

Converting to pilot schools is attractive because of five areas of autonomy: staffing; budget; curriculum and assessment; governance and policies; and school calendar.

“Budget autonomy could help us discover ways to manage the budget, especially during deficits,” said Pamela Hilton, headmaster of the Parkway Academy for Technology and Health. “[It could help PATH] to find additional funding for positions.”

PATH has also applied to be a Discovery school, which has less autonomy than a pilot school, but still offers autonomy in curriculum and budget.

Like PATH, staff members and parents have visited other pilot schools to see how they’re run.

“As a staff, we had a lot of discussions and are exploring the freedoms of pilot status to see if that helps us improve our already strong curriculum of environment and community,” said Ross Wilson, principal of the Haley School on American Legion Highway. “[It could] help all of our learners, maybe [even more so] our students performing below grade-level expectations. We’re interested in learning about how the freedoms would do that. It’s a yearlong process [during which we are] visiting other pilot and charter schools and working with a consultants to improve programming for kids.”

Wilson said that if the Haley School were to apply, December of this year would be the earliest.

Fiscally speaking, pilot schools have a lump sum per pupil in which the school has total discretion to spend in the manner that provides the best programs and services to students and their families. As voiced by the headmasters and principals, the autonomy of the budget is one of the more interesting points of being a pilot school. For example, pilot schools could maneuver money to hire more teachers. Or the Haley School, which has an emphasis on the environment, could alter their curriculum to include more learning about the environment.

“A lot of integration of reading, writing, social studies and mathematics is more possible than it is with a traditional curriculum,” said Wilson. “If you have a reading or math series textbook you follow those series … just having the freedom to make those decisions on curriculum…”

Like the other pilot-interested schools, the Urban Science Academy has also convened a team of teachers and administrators who are exploring the possibility of applying to be a pilot school.

Said Rasheed Meadows, headmaster of USA, “It doesn’t mean for certain we are going to become a pilot school. We are looking at all the aspects of the wonderful things for the school.”

Both district city councilors John Tobin of West Roxbury and Rob Consalvo of Roslindale were happy to hear the schools received the initial exploratory grant.

“The more the better, the more the better,” said Tobin about pilot schools. “It’s the best way for the BPS system to defend themselves … or retain families from going to charters or going to METCO.”

Tobin added that pilot schools aren’t for every student; it depends upon how its run, adding that not every school should be “cookie cutter,” but that it’s good that parents and students have different models in the system to choose from.

One thing that Tobin pointed out is that a vote needs to be taken by the school’s teachers to start the process of being a pilot school. The vote needs to have two-thirds of the unionized teachers in favor of becoming a pilot school. The superintendent also has to approve the school’s desire to be a pilot school.

Paul Grogan, president and CEO of the Boston Foundation and a leading advocate for pilot schools, spoke about the score of schools that applied for and received the grants. “This is a testament to the power of a successful idea. The sheer number of applicants is exciting news for everyone who understands how critical education is for this region … Research has proven beyond a doubt how effective this school model is, and parents are demanding more of them.”

Boston already has 20 pilot schools operating with the public school system.