Publicly Funded Schools Need to Serve Disadvantaged Students
Town Crier Advertorial (4/21/2020)
In a recent Town Crier advertorial titled “BULLIS CHARTER SCHOOL IS A DISTRICT-WIDE SCHOOL, NOT A NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOL”, we discussed the need for our elected education leaders and BCS to work together to make our charter school a greater asset to the entire community, in part by creating an enrollment reflective of our district’s student population. We made two comments that have generated follow-on questions.
First, is BCS under-enrolling disadvantaged students compared to the district-wide population? Sometimes an image can help answer a question. The graph below is based on data reported by BCS and LASD to the California Department of Education (CDE).
Second, how can BCS change its enrollment to serve these children? A simple numerical model suggests that if BCS could, over the next three enrollment cycles, attract, admit and retain approximately 25% to 30% of new enrollees who are from these three disadvantaged groups, then BCS enrollment would reflect the district population for these groups.
An opportunity to consider: During three enrollment cycles, approximately 45% to 60% of BCS’s enrollment will be replaced as students leave and graduate. In those three years, BCS enrollment could proportionally change to reflect the enrollment of the entire population of students within LASD boundaries.
A tool to consider: Lottery preferences are used by other schools/districts/states to help address similar unreflective enrollments. Legally allowable lottery preferences include higher admission priorities offered to in-district economically disadvantaged students, in-district students with disabilities, and in-district limited English language students.
For example, the current third lottery preference for BCS is ”Children who reside within the boundaries of the Los Altos School District.” This could be replaced with “Children eligible for Free or Reduced Price Meals (FRPM), English Language Learners and children with special needs, who reside within the boundaries of the Los Altos School District.” Then the next priority could be all other children in the district.
A Leadership Challenge: A bold, two-part approach to resolve the current inequities might be to reorder the lottery, prioritizing these three disadvantaged student groups as the 3rd highest priority, and then focus outreach efforts on these three disadvantaged groups. This will be a big challenge for the leadership of BCS and our elected officials with LASD and the Santa Clara County Office of Education. However, we believe it is a challenge worth undertaking for the good of our community and its school children.
We are all in this together. Now is the time to accept our shared challenge and begin making our charter school work for the entire community.
Steve Brown & Sam Harding