More unfair perks for alternative schools.

Byline: Nancy Willard For The Register-Guard

Hopefully, the lessons of Hurricane Katrina have not been lost on this community. When middle- and upper-class people can get into their cars and drive away from a dangerous situation, but those disempowered by poverty cannot, bad stuff happens.

`Bad stuff' has been happening in the Eugene School District. The alternative school system is aggregating wealth and privilege in certain schools, which are then provided with unfair advantages, and aggregating poverty in other schools.

The only factor that is preventing this situation from disintegrating is the excellent teachers who choose to work in more difficult learning environments to ensure that more disadvantaged children are well served. This corrupt and unjust system must be rapidly changed!

In August, the Eugene School Board made a decision that undermines the district's ability to address the situation. Last spring, Superintendent George Russell delivered an excellent report documenting significant concerns related to the alternative schools. The board agreed to review these schools. Russell and his leadership team crafted sound review criteria and six possible outcomes, ranging from no change in status to closure.

The board, however, ruled out three of the six options - merger, relocation or closure - as possible outcomes for the reviews. No alternative school will be merged, relocated or closed, even if a review finds that its program no longer meets the district's requirements. No other school has this kind of protection. The board has prejudged the facts and guaranteed that the segregation and unfair benefits will continue.

The district and the board must face the facts, answer the questions and engage in systemic change to address the inequities inherent in the current system. As a Sept. 26 Register-Guard article on schools in Raleigh, N.C., demonstrated, economic integration is the path to high student achievement. The Eugene School District is walking down the opposite path.

One of the issues to be addressed in the review is whether the alternative schools have a `distinctive educational strategy' - that is, whether they are doing something that could not be done in a neighborhood school. Alternative schools are rewarded with enrollment caps, which allow them to control class size, class groupings and admissions. But if an alternative school's educational approach could be implemented in a neighborhood school, then there is no justification for its designation as an alternative school and the reward of enrollment caps.

The board suggested that the schools deserve the opportunity to reinvent their programs because this is the first time they have been reviewed. These schools have had ample opportunity to reinvent their programs. The Schools of the Future report, issued in 2000, recommended review and closure of nondistinctive alternative schools. Isn't five years enough time to address a known concern?

The current situation is even more complicated. The district is providing funds for disadvantaged neighborhood schools to develop new, distinctive `attraction' programs. But these neighborhood schools will not be rewarded with enrollment caps. Only one set of schools will receive such benefits. Which ones? The schools that are segregated and serve higher-income students.

What justification is there for allowing segregated alternative schools serving privileged children to `reinvent' themselves to retain unfair benefits, when the disadvantaged integrated neighborhood schools cannot be offered such advantages?

Worse, the board is not focusing on the most significant underlying problem - the clear and obvious segregation based on race, disability and class that is demonstrated in the enrollment profiles of the alternative schools. That giant `sucking sound' you hear in this community is the sound of white, middle- and upper-class parents pulling their academically competent children out of neighborhood schools in mixed-income regions and enrolling them in alternative schools. Such discriminatory impact is a violation of district policy, state law and federal law.

Alternative school proponents claim that the primary reasons for the segregation are housing patterns, lack of busing and lack of parent education about choice. But interestingly, Magnet Arts School is fairly well integrated. So how come the alternative schools that are close by or in regions with higher poverty and racial minorities are not? How come none of the alternative schools are as integrated as the neighborhood school they are located with or near?

The obvious explanation for the segregation is that alternative schools have developed social class-based communities that are simply not as welcoming to families that are living in poverty (unless parents are university students), families of color (unless they are middle class) or children with disabilities.

Further, most families living in poverty, which includes many families of color, simply do not have, and will never have, the time, resources, social power or inclination to participate in the district's choice program.

Schools that serve only one class of students are not distinctive; they are discriminatory.

The school board appears to have accepted the idea that segregation is inevitable and, therefore, acceptable. The board appears committed to continuing unfair benefits for segregated alternative schools that are serving more privileged students. This is unconscionable!

Even more questions should be asked:

How can the district justify having one enrollment standard for neighborhood schools and one for alternative schools?

The district's enrollment standard for elementary schools is 250 to 500 students. In recent years, the district has closed or merged the smallest neighborhood schools. But four alternative schools have fewer than 150 students. It is not cost-efficient or effective to continue these schools as separate schools. The district cannot justify the different treatment. These schools should all be closed or become programs within a larger school at the end of the current school year.

How can some alternative schools justify the exclusion of children with learning disabilities?

The following is from the superintendent's report to the board: `I have heard numerous anecdotes from both teachers and parents that some alternative schools discourage (special education) students from attending their schools.'

Such discouragement, often in the form of subtle `counseling out,' is intentional discrimination - a violation of federal and state laws. The impact of such `counseling out' is clearly evident when looking at the percentages of children with mild learning disabilities in the schools. These schools must be publicly identified and their discriminatory actions condemned. They should be considered for closure or required to develop an intensive and closely monitored plan for remediation.

How can the district justify continuing the co-location of alternative schools with other schools?

In the buildings where two schools are co-located, the principals have their hands full with the management responsibilities. The demand of managing two small schools is interfering with the conditions necessary to support student achievement.

River Road neighborhood school is reportedly proceeding with plans to establish a dual-language immersion program and another innovative program to be operated as two programs within one school.

Many middle and high schools successfully operate multiple programs as one school. It is not necessary to continue the alternative school programs as separate schools for their educational programs to continue.

It is also clear that the relationship between schools in some buildings is extremely unhealthy. Some alternative school parents believe that their school - its teachers, parents and children - is superior to the neighborhood school and regularly communicate these perceptions in hurtful ways.

The teachers at some of the co-located neighborhood schools have written the board to express their concerns about the unhealthy relationship. Teachers rarely rock the boat. For them to go public means the concerns are significant and should not be ignored. But that is just what the school board is doing.

Deep and systemic change is necessary to address these issues. This does not require that all of the programs of the alternative schools be eliminated. The problem is not the programs; the problems are segregation, unfair advantages, co-location and the small size of some schools.

Here are some creative suggestions for systemic change:

Continue to allow students to transfer to other schools, but closely monitor the impact to ensure the result is not more segregation, and implement control on choice, if necessary.

Require that any alternative school that is continued in any form to address the characteristics of its program or community that have resulted in segregation. Those schools should develop closely monitored plans to address this concern. Any school that does not become integrated within a reasonable time should be closed.

Merge several of the smaller alternative schools with the schools with which they already share buildings, preserving the best parts of the programs of both.

Establish a `regional schools' approach in the North region.

Move the Fox Hollow French immersion school to the old Willard school building so that it can become more integrated. Sell the Fox Hollow property for redevelopment as low-income housing.

Eastside School's enrollment is too small, its relationship with the Parker community is miserable, and its program is not financially self-sufficient. Charge the Eastside community with the responsibility of finding a building where it would be welcome as a program within the school.

The Eugene School District's policy reads: `We believe that every child within district boundaries, whatever his or her ability, school neighborhood, social memberships, or any other variable, should have an equal chance to benefit from the best educational program we can provide.'

Unfortunately, the policy as currently implemented is: `All children are equal, but some children are more equal than others.'

We must focus our efforts on ensuring that all Eugene schools have high-quality programs that effectively serve all students, from learning challenged to gifted.

Deep systemic change will be necessary to accomplish this - but our children and our community will be richly rewarded. Nancy Willard, a former educator and attorney, has children attending Adams Elementary School and Roosevelt Middle School. She served on the Adams Site Council and as parent representative on the Eugene School District's Access and Options Committee.