Live Oak seniors Jeff Schroedter, right, and Tommy Sparling use

Funding for advanced academic programs remain steady, Morgan
Hill school district says
Funding for programs benefitting Morgan Hill’s brightest students are not losing money to fund federal mandates from the No Child Left Behind Act, district officials say.

Some parents in the district have questioned if law’s ability to force the schools to provide programs for lower performing students is keeping money out of honors and advanced placement classes and Gifted And Talented Education. Though NCLB can impose sanctions, it provides little funding to cover the cost of programs intended to raise standardized scores in the lowest performing students.

“The Morgan Hill School District is a good district, we have quality programs, the teachers are fine,” Morgan Hill resident Dan Kenney said Friday. “There’s just not enough money because it is wasted on [the NCLB] program, and they don’t want to fund it. We have quality stuff here, but this is an end-around for getting us to pay for public education.”

In October, Kenney told district trustees they should file a cease and desist order against the federal government because NCLB is controlling how the district funds programs.

But the district says advanced curriculum programs are not in jeopardy due to the federal requirements.

What is affecting certain programs, according to some in the district, is overall funding at the site level.

“There is plenty of opportunity for kids to participate in programs at that level,” Live Oak High teacher Michael Sue BrownKorbel said. “We have all kinds of AP (advanced placement) courses. Many kids are taking one or two a semester; some are taking four or five.”

Fears that a lack of quality programs will send the district’s smartest students to private or charter schools and make it harder for the district to achieve its yearly standardized testing goals are unlikely, BrownKorbel said.

“I don’t see that [private schools] have any more programs than we do,” she said. “I hear, from a friend who has taught in two private high schools and one public, that particularly at the upper levels, teachers are discouraged from doing anything in the classroom that does not mimic college lecture style.”

Superintendent Alan Nishino said the District is not trying to compete with private schools, but wants to focus on improving the academic challenge in its schools.

“Choice is a part of what made America great,” he said. “But we believe that we have fine programs for our students. Still, we are going to increase our academic rigor, demand more academic excellence at all levels.”

There are some changes the district is already considering, Nishino said, that would help bring that result.

“For example, we are going to try to have Algebra be a true requirement in eighth grade,” he said. “That’s what the federal government would like it to be, and the state would like it to be, though it’s not mandated. We want to look at making biology a requirement in ninth grade, we’re trying to move that up. We’re going to increase the skill sets for student in the lower grades. Now we’re going to have Gavilan College coming to Sobrato and Live Oak to teach one course a semester. We want to push that envelope a little more. Academic rigor helps everybody, it will help all our students.”

BrownKorbel, who teaches Photography 1, digital photo, advanced photography and ROP (regional occupational program) computer graphics, said ROP teachers have worked to boost their curriculum so that their classes meet the state’s A-G requirements.

Federal requirements in NCLB are intended to bring up the students at the lowest end of the academic spectrum, to close the gap between those struggling and those who are working at grade level.

Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini confirmed that NCLB-imposed requirements don’t come with federal money to pay for them.

“We receive no additional funding,” she said Friday. “One area that we do receive some extra funding, but from the state, is to help seniors who haven’t passed the High School Exit Exam. But it’s never enough.”

There are many things the district could do to help students, with more funding, she said.

“Specifically, for the students trying to pass the exam, we could have more one-on-one tutoring with them,” she said. “But we would have to have more staff to be able to give that kind of attention.”

She said the district has not cut honors, advanced placement or GATE funding for NCLB programs.

And though the district’s budget looks better than years past, local schools still have to cut costs on supplies to keep money in the classroom. Kenney calls it a hidden tax created by NCLB.

Some of the secondary programs, particularly the science courses, are hurting because they don’t have money for equipment and supplies. For example, Sobrato High’s ag science program sells See’s Candy in order to raise money for equipment and supplies.

“I know students are being asked to pay in lab sciences for consumable supplies,” BrownKorbel said. “Some classes, like the foreign languages, are selling magazines or using other fundraisers to get money for their workbooks or other items.”

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