District parking lot becomes a campground as parents jockey for
pole position in choice placement line
More than 100 people formed a line snaking around the Morgan Hill School District office on Concord Circle Thursday morning as choice placement enrollment for students opened.
Parent Charito Abordo stood in the high school line and said she was unhappy with the sorting system.
“My daughter Alyssa wants to continue in band but will have to go to Sobrato,” she said. “My son already goes to Live Oak and had planned to drive his sister.”
Many in line expressed dissatisfaction with the way the district is handling the school selection matter. Parent Kathy Orlowski, who arrived at 6:35 a.m. along with dozens of others, was also unhappy.
“I think siblings should definitely be able to attend the same school,” she said.
Approximately 15 people spent the night outside the district office, switching off with their spouses or settling in for the whole night themselves, in attempts to be first in line when the doors opened to put in an application for transfer of their student from their home school to another of their choice.
Middle and high school students registered for next year’s classes at the beginning of December. Sobrato High School Principal Rich Knapp said 749 have registered for the district’s newest high school in its first year, with 387 ninth graders and 362 students expected in the 10th grade. Live Oak has a total of 1,742 students with 291 ninth graders, 263 sophormores, 645 juniors and 543 seniors.
According to early district predictions, made before the students registered, Live Oak would have had approximately 30 spaces open before reaching capacity for students within the Sobrato boundary desiring to transfer to Live Oak.
Thursday’s choice placement line was mainly comprised of parents wanting to choose another high school or middle school.
“As I was standing there looking at all the people, I thought, ‘It is really a shame that Carolyn (Superintendent McKennan), or someone with high visibility in the district, wasn’t there to circulate and at least just have been willing to get up early and say we are aware of your problem, and it is a problem for all of us,’” said parent Lynn Wong, who came to stand in line at 4:30 a.m.
“It would have been empowering, for them to have physically recognized that not only are parents concerned enough that we are speaking at board meetings but that we are willing to camp out to attempt to get our students into the school of their choice.”
Pat Blanar, director of curriculum and assessment, and Arlene Machado, director of education technology and education services, came out before 8 a.m. when the district office doors opened to distribute instructions on the procedure and answer questions.
Trustee Shellé Thomas was also there.
“It was good to see one of the board members,” Wong said. “We had actually discussed, very early in the morning, calling all the trustees to say, ‘Come on down and see what’s going on.’”
With the projected opening of Sobrato High School in August, the school board approved boundaries for the two high schools, after six months of meetings by the boundary committee and several public forums. When they finally chose boundaries, the trustees emphasized that the boundary option they chose would give families the most room to choose their school.
During the public forums, parents asked how the choice placement would work. Parent Ruth Detmers quoted the district’s policy, revealing that a lottery for all who wanted transfers is the method if there are more students wanting to move than there are slots. Assistant Superintendent Claudette Beaty replied that the trustees would likely need to consider the policy.
The boundaries were set on Nov. 17. At the Dec. 15 meeting, trustees were considering the criteria for choice, thinking to rank several criteria for students to receive choice placement, when Beaty told them that state law, or the California Education Code, would not allow them to set criteria.
She told trustees that the criteria they were discussing “becomes criteria to apply, not to be chosen, which is perhaps a little different than people understood it.”
The K-8 students who requested transfers will not be informed, according to district officials, until after school begins, likely 2-3 weeks after the first day in August. The high school students, however, will be notified by March 31 whether their application has been approved or whether they have been placed on a waiting list.
Many of the parents waiting in line, Wong said, were feeling frustrated because they heard other parents successfully gave the wrong address to get their children into the elementary school of their choice.
“I heard at least one mom say, ‘Can I lie and use someone else’s address?’ and then say they think that’s unethical,” she said. “There was a feeling of frustration, a feeling of, ‘I’m trying to follow their system, I really truly am, and where is it going to get my child?’ There was an overwhelming sense that it (standing in line) was academic.”
Parent George Asfour was quite angry with the district over what he sees as the latest in a series of mistakes.
“I live one mile from Britton (Middle School),” Asfour said, “ but my son will have to go miles away to Martin Murphy. Why hasn’t the district done something about this before?”
“What’s wrong with this system?” he asked. “There has to be a better way than waiting on line like this. Business and self-employed people were angry and frustrated too because they were late for work … It was bad before but worse this year.”
