The school board will face difficult and confusing problem
Monday night: Balancing educational opportunities and student
choice with district finances and state law.
The school board will face difficult and confusing problem Monday night: Balancing educational opportunities and student choice with district finances and state law.
Based on capacity at Live Oak High School and student population projections, there will be fewer than 30 slots available for Ann Sobrato High School students who want to transfer to LOHS in the 2004/2005 school year. However, because Sobrato initially won’t offer a marching band, varsity sports, or fully chartered clubs, it’s likely that many more than 30 students living within Sobrato’s boundaries will want to attend Live Oak.
The number of slots available to Sobrato students is projected to increase to more than 100 for the 2005/2006 school year.
So that students won’t miss out on important educational experiences such as band or varsity sports, we urge the school board to find ways to increase enrollment slots at Live Oak. One way is to keep at least some of the eight portable classrooms on the LOHS campus that were scheduled to be removed by the start of school this fall. The buildings are leased for between $4,800 to $6,000 each per year and house an average of 32.5 students.
By retaining these portables for a relatively modest cost, the district can offer many more students the chance to transfer to LOHS during this difficult transition year than it otherwise could. The downside is that these funds come from the Live Oak renovation account.
Also, we urge parents to keep in mind that it’s never an easy process to transfer to two high schools, and adding in the extra wrinkle of also switching from a 10th- to 12th-grade configuration to a ninth- to 12th-grade configuration makes the process even more difficult.
We encourage parents to be reasonable about high school transfer requests. If your Sobrato student will miss important educational opportunities, or you need to keep siblings at the same school, then by all means, apply for a transfer to Live Oak.
But if you’re just unsure about Sobrato, or you just want your kids to attend Live Oak, think again. While there are drawbacks to attending a new high school with just freshmen and sophomores, there are also many advantages.
Sobrato students will get to create many facets of their high school that other students have to accept that they’ll inherit. For example: What are our school colors? How about or team name and mascot? What clubs, culture and traditions do we want to establish at our school?
An opportunity like that is rare, indeed, and ought to be valued by the students and parents lucky enough to live within Sobrato’s attendance boundaries.
Finally, a word about choice criteria. According to district staff, state education code requires that the school board establish criteria to determine how students will be selected for transfer request approval. We urge the school board to adopt three criteria as its highest priorities for approving transfers: missed educational opportunities – such as music programs, sports and keeping siblings together.
That said, district officials say that they interpret another portion of state law – one that says that if more students request transfer than slots available, that a fair and equitable method must be used to decide on transfers – to mean that criteria won’t be used if requests outstrip transfer slots.
That makes no sense. If there are more slots than student transfer requests, the criteria aren’t needed. If there are fewer slots, when criteria might be useful, the district won’t use them and will instead adopt some sort of lottery system.
The whole confusing and senseless situation leads us to believe that the district’s “interpretation” of the state education code is not the only valid one. We urge district administrators to investigate with state education officials and other school districts alternate interpretations of the applicable laws so that meaningful transfer decisions can be made. It’s important that students with greater need be given first priority on transfers.
If the parents look at the advantages of helping to create Sobrato’s culture, if the school board changes its plans to remove portable classrooms from the Live Oak campus and if district administrators find alternate interpretations for state law, the difficulties associated with the upcoming transition year can be greatly eased.
