Four-year-old policy has essentially eliminated intradistrict
transfers
Gilroy – When Lynette Lynn moved to Gilroy, she expected to have no problem enrolling her daughter in Antonio Del Buono Elementary School.
Lynn’s fiancé’s daughter attended the school and that’s where she wanted her second-grader to go. The Sacramento-area transplant arrived in the area early to enroll Jessica at ADB, but that’s where she ran into a wall.
Lynn was informed that there was no waiting list in the second grade, so she compiled all the necessary information to enroll her child at ADB. But when she turned in the packet she was informed that intradistrict transfers were no longer honored in the Gilroy Unified School District.
Lynn talked to Juanita Contin, GUSD student enrollment coordinator, and the message was confirmed.
“She said point blank ‘no, no exceptions,'” Lynn said.
There are exceptions to the rule but Lynn’s situation didn’t fall into any of those categories. Every year the district looks at enrollment projections, and if a certain school isn’t impacted, the district will allow parents living outside of the school’s boundaries to transfer for a certain period of time, Contin said.
Also, schools designated as Program Improvement due to low standardized test scores have to honor transfers to non-P.I. schools, under the No Child Left Behind law. Both Brownell and South Valley middle schools are P.I. schools and about 15 parents chose to transfer their children to Ascencion Solorsano, Contin said.
Another reason the district can’t readily grant intradistrict transfers is because in order to give parents a choice, the school has to have at least 10 seats available and the district has to allow all Gilroy residents the option at the same time.
“The law is clear, it has to be equal opportunity,” Contin said.
Lynn enrolled her daughter at Rucker Elementary School, the school in their attendance area. Now, Lynn’s fiancé has to drive the girls to two separate schools in the mornings.
“So it is a big inconvenience for parents to have siblings split up,” she said.
When contacted over the phone on Wednesday, Contin said she was quite familiar with Lynn’s case. When the district switched from magnet to neighborhood schools four years ago, students who were already attending an out-of-boundary school, were allowed to stay put, Contin said.
The fiancé’s daughter, a fourth-grader, fell into that category. But siblings who entered kindergarten after the new policy was implemented had to enroll at their neighborhood school.
The move did result in some cases of split of siblings, Contin said. Also, because they grandfathered students in, in some cases, those who moved into the area or entered kindergarten couldn’t attend the nearby school.
Since this is the program’s fourth year in existence, once fifth-graders move up to middle school next year, elementary schools will no longer be impacted.
“We have not opened up choice for many grade levels at schools, because we really haven’t had space,” Contin said.
