For next year’s ninth and tenth grade students, the discussion
by Morgan Hill School District trustees regarding choice placement
or open enrollment may turn out to be irrelevant; the decision to
move from their
“home school” of Live Oak High or Sobrato High to attend the
other could very well be left up to a lottery.
For next year’s ninth and tenth grade students, the discussion by Morgan Hill School District trustees regarding choice placement or open enrollment may turn out to be irrelevant; the decision to move from their “home school” of Live Oak High or Sobrato High to attend the other could very well be left up to a lottery.
As Trustee Shelle Thomas noted during discussion at the Dec. 15 board meeting, the trustees promoted the idea of choice or transfers when deciding on boundaries for the schools.
“We tried to sell the community on the boundary,” she said. “Have we misspoken as a unit, and now say basically what we believed to be choice, the chance to attend the school that best meets his or her need, but now choice is when you have no choice because open enrollment is filled … We’re quoted in the paper as saying we believe in choice. We come across as very self-serving when we say choice matters if there is no possibility for choice.”
The reason for the confusion is that the State Education Code states that students who want to attend a school other than their home school can do so, provided there are available slots. If there are more students than openings, the code says which students are to be placed in the openings is to be determined by a fair and equitable means.
In the past, the district has used a lottery to determine which students will fill the spaces.
Assistant Superintendent Claudette Beaty said this means that the choice criteria the trustees have been discussing “becomes criteria to apply, not to be chosen, which is perhaps a little different than people understood it.”
Trustee Mike Hickey asked Beaty if the available slots could be filled by students meeting one criteria, such as having a sibling at the school.
“The law does not allow us to do that,” Beaty said.
Thomas asked, “Then do we need to set any criteria at all?” Beaty told Thomas the criteria would give students reasons to apply for available spots, but the Education Code “does not allow us to have any priority.”
Thomas asked how many openings would be available next year at Live Oak. Beaty said the choice placement period begins Jan. 8 and continues until the end of the month, and she would not know final numbers until that time. There may, for example, be students scheduled to attend Live Oak who request a transfer to Sobrato. Those spaces could be filled by students wishing to move from Sobrato to Live Oak.
District projections and current enrollment figures suggest there would be approximately 30 spaces available at Live Oak, not including students who want to leave Live Oak for Sobrato. Superintendent Carolyn McKennan suggested that trustees wait for the final numbers.
“We will know at the end of the month (January) if we have more demand that we have space for,” she said. “That’s another conversation. It seems to me that we have to find out what the numbers are.”
Trustee Amina Khemici brought up the idea that was discussed during a public forum – keeping some of the portables the district had planned to move off the Live Oak campus for another year or two during the transition time.
“If we don’t know the number of students that we will have at Live Oak, and we don’t know if we are keeping portables if we have more students wanting to go to Live Oak, we should at least have a transition time for a year,” she said. This is a very different circumstance that we’re working on now. I don’t want to limit the parents and students that want to choose.”
Khemici asked if a decision has been made about the portables.
Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Branco said there has not been a decision.
“In collaboration with Rich (Knapp, Sobrato High principal), we will determine number of classrooms we need we will to house the students, and we will make that decision prior to the summer,” she said. “Live Oak’s capacity was originally 1,500 we now have up to 1,704 with the 18 portables. (Next year’s capacity depends on) if the portables remain on campus for next year and depends on class loadings and class selections. The portables cost $114,000 per year, which comes out of capital improvement monies.”
Trustee Del Foster said he is greatly concerned about student athletes, next year’s ninth and tenth graders, who have qualified for varsity-level sports and are within the Sobrato boundaries. Varsity sports will not be offered at Sobrato next year.
“The critical item I’m concerned about, exclusive of none, is the ninth grade sports issue,” he said. “I think we need to look at a transition, a one-year policy.”
