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JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEKState and federal standards for six schools mean transfers to schools with better scores are allowed. But priorities and crowding might make that impossible.
Officials confirmed Wednesday that students at one middle and five elementary schools are eligible to transfer to campuses that had better results on state and federal annual assessments released a day earlier.
The affected schools are Brooksville, Eastside, Moton, Pine Grove and Spring Hill elementaries and West Hernando Middle. Each has a preponderance of low-income students, qualifying for federal Title I money, and each failed to meet "adequate yearly progress" standards in the same academic area for two consecutive years.
About 60 students from these schools asked to move before the district's June 11 deadline.
Just because the requests are in, though, does not mean they automatically will be granted.
Families already attending schools outside their attendance zones have their school choice granted and will not be given another selection, said Diane Dannemiller, the district's supervisor of federal programs.
The district also must prioritize transfers according to student need, with those children who scored Level 1 or Level 2 on FCAT, which is below grade level, and those from low-income families considered at the top of the list, Dannemiller said.
That's especially important because of space constraints in the district's top-performing schools.
An initial review of applicants showed that only one scored at Level 1, though.
"So there's not much need there, as defined by the law," Dannemiller observed.
In fact, she said, at least one parent admitted to having skipped the application lottery for Chocachatti Elementary - the magnet school for which the vast majority of "adequate yearly progress" transfer requests were submitted - after figuring out that the federal law might offer a better chance of getting to the front of the line.
Chocachatti principal Michael Tellone has said he will resist any effort to readjust his school's admittance waiting list. But Dannemiller remained unsure whether simply putting a student on a list represented any choice at all.
She said she was investigating whether magnet schools must be included in the choice plans, but suggested that the issue probably was a policy matter best left to the School Board.
The board does not have another meeting scheduled until July 27.
Classes begin Aug. 9.
Dannemiller noted that most of the schools that must allow transfers failed to meet the federal guidelines primarily for students with disabilities. The law does not distinguish among the different student groups when granting transfers, though.
Even if just one group caused a school to miss adequate yearly progress goals, all groups must be given the chance to transfer, a Department of Education spokeswoman explained.
Dannemiller questioned the wisdom behind that concept.
"Why should I hire someone for a Level 5 kid who wants to go to Chocachatti instead of spending money on lower-performing kids whose parents maybe weren't savvy enough to fill out the paperwork?" she wondered.
Still under review is whether the district might offer school-within-a-school programs at the six campuses, rather than granting transfer requests.
Superintendent Wendy Tellone said she hopes to resolve the issue quickly, in order to give principals, teachers and families adequate time to prepare for the new academic year.
In related news, Brooksville Elementary principal Sue Stoops said she planned to fight for a better grade for her school, which received a B this year.
The school earned enough points to nab the top score, but missed because it did not have at least half of its lowest-performing children show sufficient improvement on FCAT reading. It had 49 percent, missing by one, maybe two, students.
Last year, Brooksville Elementary missed an A because three students' scores were missing. Stoops scoured the data until she proved the state wrong, and the school ultimately got its A.
"I'm going to do it again," Stoops said. "It just hurts so badly. The teachers worked so hard, and the kids worked so hard. . . . I'm definitely going to, as Dr. Tellone puts it, do an autopsy on the data."
Westside Elementary was in a similar situation, missing an A because 47 percent rather than half of the lowest-performing students made acceptable FCAT gains. Principal Chuck Johnson was not available for comment.
- Jeffrey S. Solochek can be reached at 352 754-6115 or solochek@sptimes.com