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Jennifer, how about a link out.

Or how about a link to sanity? That would be nice. What the.....Oh, my god,... Dot just landed on my house.

C.Boy,

Get yourself a Greensboro address ASAP!!!!

It is amazing how a school board can find more ways to spend money on magnets, divide communities spending more on buses, crying they don't have enough to spend, and not spending enough time facing the fact that they are contributing to the failure of our public schools. We have had a traffic wreck, our kids deserve better, yet the driver (school board) leaves the scene of the accident muttering “it was the other guys fault, he should have seen we were running a red light”.

Who's brainchild was it to take two elementary schools, and turn them into hybrid non-magnet experiments. We cannot afford to experiment when we cannot even fix our few traditional schools. Wouldn't it be great to have even 1/2 of our schools performing at national average? We hemorrhage money and expect nothing from our superintendent and his high priced assistants. Our Board has been duped into believing that the information they want and need isn't available, so they should drive blindly into experimentation.

Next thing you know they will want more money for bonds so they can use some of it for experimentation on “green” schools, force kids to attend non-traditional magnet programs at failing schools, bus kids all over town for “free and reduced lunch experiments… (sorry I walked into the twilight zone there for a second).

Bruce, Jennifer, you deserve battle pay for sitting through that crud last weekend. Did they have French fries?

Just thinking out loud...
Is Sumner elementary facing title 1 issues? This sure looks like a "qiuk fix" to hide another failure. When will they face the real issues?

Great editorial in High Point Enterprise today. What is going on over there? Asking for quality instead of forced "diversity"? Can there be hope?

Garth,

Yeah, I believe Sumner is a Title I school and it didn't meet federal Adequate Yearly Progress measures last year. So it is in danger of having to offer student transfers if it doesn't meet AYP this year.

No, the board didn't offer up French fries - and thank goodness. The last time they talked about French fries, they ended up in a huge debate!

C. Boy,
Maybe only a glimmer of hope. I live in the Meadows at Jamestown, where, on two remaining mpas, our neighborhood is basically singled out to swap places with other kids. We have maybe 10 middle schoolers in the whole 'hood. 3-4 of them are already home schooled or in private. Of the remaining kids, they might get 2-3 to actually attend. How is this helpful for anybody? It isn't practical (special transport for 2-3 kids), nor is it reasonable (kid swap). Map A, only if I am reading correctly, sends the whole Florence zone to welborn/Andrews, I can at least understand that concept. Picking out our neighborhood to swap kids is so unfair. Didn't Susan Mendenhall say she was against swapping kids?? OH, wait, that was Greensboro, I forgot. Anyway, like I said, only a glimmer of hope remains. I've already made the call to Welborn to take a tour of the school. I've got to see it/tour it before I can make an "educated" decision. No pun intended.
p.s. I also called a Realtor, called High Point Christian, called Wesleyan.....and so on.

By the way, Bruce, I heard that the school board/Terry Grier declined the Title I money for Andrews, (which, currently, is one of the four poorest performing schools in the STATE), and by declining that Title I money, no one can opt out of going there. Is this really true, or how can I find out?

Dear No Hope,
True, the BOE decided that no HS would have Title 1 status. Legally, if the school is 75% FRL it has to be title 1, other than that, the BOE can decide at which FRL level each school would qualify i.e., 50%, 45% or whatever. No title 1=no money=no sanctions

No hope,
The school board took the Title I status away from not only Andrews, but also Central, Dudley and Smith.

The way Title I works is that any school with75 percent of students poor enough to qualify for the federal free/reduced price lunch program must be designated Title I. The minimum is 40 percent.

School board's get a set amount of money that they distribute among their schools. They set what percentage will be used to qualify schools for a share in that pot. That number has moved around over the past couple of years. I don't remember what it was set at for this year. Generally, the number has been set lower at elementary schools so more of them qualify for the extra money. Some middle schools also receive the money.

For a brief time, the district set the bar at a level where the aforementioned high schools qualified. The board changed direction after learning that AYP sanctions would apply to those schools and principals said they would rather lose the money than deal with the sanctions and negative image AYP can convey. (Remember, schools can be improving but under AYP, if they don't meet all of the goals, they are considered failing. I believe that was the concern of the principals.)

Local money was shifted to make up for some of the loss. But some schools still ended up losing some money.

Here is a March 8 story and another from March 10.

Regarding the Title 1 ?s (from GCS website):

Title I Designations
Schools with Title I and Equity Plus status receive additional state, local and federal funds to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds reach academic goals.

At its March 8, 2005 meeting, the Guilford County Board of Education approved adjustments to the 2005-2006 Title I and Equity funding criteria. The criteria focus support on schools with the highest concentration of students qualifying for free and reduced-priced meals and where, historically, a greater percentage of students have not performed at grade level.

The following criteria will determine a school’s eligibility to receive Title I funding in the 2005-2006 school year:

Elementary schools – 60 percent or more of students qualify for free and reduced-priced meals (40 percent or more in 2004-2005)
Middle schools – 67 percent or more of students qualify for free and reduced-priced meals (49 percent or more in 2004-2005)
High schools – 75 percent or more of students qualify for free and reduced-price meals (49 percent or more in 2004-2005)

According to the federally recognized standard, a school must be designated as a Title I school if 75 percent or more of its students qualify for free and reduced-priced meals. With the Board’s adjustments for 2005-2006, Guilford County Schools moves its Title I designation criteria for elementary and middle schools closer to and for high schools in line with that standard.

I think it's obvious from above that many schools were shafted with the changes (particularly elementary schools-if you don't get kids off to a good start, there's no way for them to catch up in m/s or h/s). I sat in the meetings and heard how local funding would make up lost $s (not true). Also, I only heard one principal say they would rather not have the $ (Dudley) - the others talked about how hard it was to meet the standards.
If anyone is out there at a middle school receiving Title 1 money, be on the lookout for the shaft this year. I know in HP there's a good chance that 3 out of 4 m/s won't make AYP (including the one my kids attend) - I know Grier would try to shut down the transfer out option then. Never mind that the Title 1 $ spent for tutoring and other worthwhile things is critical to helping many of the low-income kids succeed.

OUR VIEW

Give education priority in magnet schools
Here's an important point for members of the Guilford County Board of Education to remember as they review the school district's magnet schools setup and explore the possibility of adding new and expanding or deleting existing magnet and magnet-type programs: The first priority of any magnet program is to provide a specialized educational opportunity for students, not diversify the racial or socioeconomic makeup of a particular school's student population.
Attaining diversity in school populations has for a number of years been a key factor in decisions to create and locate magnet schools in Guilford County and in other school districts across the state and nation. Some educators and school officials who equate magnets and diversity, seemingly ignore the successes of popular student programs and lament their failure to create the desired diversity in the schools.
Take for example recent media reports on magnet school programs in Forsyth County. Officials are concerned because only one school reflects the overall student population makeup of 48 percent white and 52 percent black, Hispanic, Asian and American Indian. A number of schools have minority populations in the high-60s and three schools are more than 90 percent minority.
So what? If magnet school programs are attracting students and providing them good educations in their magnet and core curriculums, why be sad just because student populations don't match the off-base notion that student bodies at all schools should reflect the system's overall population?
The principle that guides Guilford school officials as they examine the county's magnet programs should be that the county offer exciting courses of study that encourage students to learn and excel in life using the knowledge they gain. If increased diversity in student populations happens to be a result of such magnet school programs - fine.
Diversity shouldn't be main goal of speciality programs.

FYI: Under the 60% criteria for elementary schools, Sumner is a Title I school. I don't have the most up-to-date numbers, but the last figure I saw had them at 67 percent poor.

Here's a list of all the Title I schools for 2005-06.

I remember quite well about the French fries at the January 2004 retreat. I think Alan had to leave early for coaching basketball. Rhino had a field day with that story about several hours of discussion as to the fairness of poor children not being able to buy French Fries.

I say American Fries or give them all a baked potato.

And they wonder why their meetings go on until 1:00 a.m.

Johnny Appleseed

I was at that meeting. That's why I cringed when someone mentioned French fries and the school board.

To be honest, I didn't understand the point of that debate. Sure, poor kids can't afford to buy extra French fries - that's the way it works in a money-based economy. You can't get something just because you want it; you have to have the money to buy it.

For example, the Atlanta Braves are for sale and I would love to own them. But since I'm short by, oh, about $350 million, I can't. Is it unfair that some billionaire can afford to buy the team? Not in my book. But that was the argument some BOE members made.

I've never been able to look at fries the same way again!

Amy,

Bloody brilliant post. Thank you for the explanation of the Title I funding/shifts and especially the HP middle school info.

Perhaps this is why Deena was recently quoted in the newspapers (re: discussion on hiring more black contractors) something like the laws for seeking out minority contractors should be followed like they follow the NCLB laws. Her statement just makes so much sense in hindsight. I hear a little sarcasm coming out. Someone seems to always be one step AHEAD of NCLB sanctions.

Interesting.
BTW, I am the only person that is allowed to say that word!
You know what it is!
People will think it is me!

Bruce,

You better watch it there with your comentary about french fries and all. While your comments are accurate about things in this world not always being fair, you know that this school district board and administration is into equal outcomes, not equal opportunity. Here it is all about every student getting treated the same and have the same outcome. Forget that it doesn't work that way in life, nor does it recognize and reward excellence, but rather mediocrity. But then, that is what our schools endeavor to do; produce mediocrity. We sure wouldn't want someone to have a lowered self-esteem because someone else excelled, would we! Get those excellent students out of public school and into private schools where they belong.

Whew, got caught up in the Chalkboard moment. Okay "really brilliant post". I sure sounded good the first time.