Students at Luigi Aprea Elementary School are adjusting to bigger issues this fall, apart from the usual dreaded homework assignments, waking up early and getting back into the academic groove.
More than 60 students transferred to the campus almost 10 weeks into the school year, causing class sizes to swell, forcing dozens of children to be assigned to a new classroom and prompting the Gilroy Unified School District to spend an estimated $180,000 hiring three additional teachers to accommodate the influx, Superintendent Debbie Flores says.
Parents have the California Department of Education to thank, according to Flores, who explained the CDE was late in providing GUSD with critical data that’s supposed to arrive at least two weeks before the school year kicks off.
“We get it late every year. We never get it before the start of the school year,” said Flores, who recalled that the list came out even later in 2012.
This year, an unprecedented seven of eight Gilroy elementary schools were identified by the CDE for “Program Improvement,” a designation assigned to a school if any of its various subgroups – including ethnic, socioeconomic, English Learners or students with disabilities – fail to make their Adequate Yearly Progress goal for two consecutive years in the same content areas, such as English-language arts or mathematics. Commonly referred to as “PI,” the classification falls under the controversial No Child Left Behind Act of 2011 – a piece of legislation enacted during the Bush administration that politicians on both sides of the House are actually working to dismantle or reform.
When an elementary school is placed in PI, parents have the legal right to transfer their child to another campus in the district if the school that corresponds to their address is identified under NCLB as “underperforming.”
Under NCLB, only Title I schools – which are classified as having high percentages of children from low-income families and receive financial assistance to help ensure all of those students meet state academic standards – can be placed in PI. Had Luigi been a Title I funded school, it would probably also be in PI just like the other schools, since Luigi’s AYP scores have declined in recent years, Flores added.
On Oct. 11, Principal Richard Rodriguez sent a letter to all Luigi parents informing them of a number of changes taking place. This included the addition of classes at the kindergarten, first and second grade levels, which saw 21, 13 and 12 new students, respectively.
“As Principal of the school, I realize that opening new classes and adding new students while moving others from existing classes is challenging,” he wrote. “The school and district will take measures to support a smooth transition at every turn.”
The influx of students meant district staff had to shuffle desks, books and furniture from other schools in order to turn three empty portables into working classrooms at Luigi, whose student body grew overnight when 65 new faces showed up Oct. 21.
When asked why the enrollment changes at Luigi were concerning, Joe Correa, whose oldest son graduated from Luigi and whose first grade son has attended the school since kindergarten, said his biggest concern “was the quality of education for my child, because the quality of education that we had experienced at Luigi Aprea has been fantastic. And for this wrench to be thrown into the mix – it sparks a little fear that quality of education would be sacrificed.”
Another reoccurring parental concern was that transferring students after the school year started was disruptive and unnecessary. But some are sympathetic to the problem.
“After hearing Flores’ comments I understand the dilemma the board is under,” said Jolanta Marzec, a Luigi parent who spoke during the public comment section of the Oct. 17 Board of Education meeting.
Others, like Melissa Vernon – the mother of a first- and third-grade student at Luigi – were less forgiving. Vernon read a prepared speech to the seven-member School Board.
“The option to move children seven weeks into the school year should be off the table at all costs,” she said. “Do not forget that school for some children is the only stability they know.”
GUSD issued a Sept. 9 letter to all elementary school parents (except for those attending Luigi) explaining the situation and the option for transferring.
Flores noted this is the first time all but one of GUSD’s elementary schools have been placed in PI, making the situation all the more difficult since there’s usually at least two transfer options.
On that note, the superintendent – who on a number of occasions has expressed frustration with the flaws of NCLB – isn’t surprised that all of GUSD’s Title I Elementary Schools are in PI.
NCLB was designed to have ever increasing standards, making its benchmarks more unrealistic with every passing year, Flores points out.
About a year ago, she remembers reading that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan estimated climbing NCLB standards would mean 80 to 85 percent of all public schools would be in PI by 2013.
“We certainly fit the national model of his prediction of what was going to going to happen,” Flores said.
Last year, NCLB required public schools to have 89 percent of each student subgroup score “proficient” or “advanced” on the English/Language Arts and Math sections of the California Standards Tests in order to escape designation as an “underperforming” school. The benchmark has jumped higher and is now at 100 percent.
The ironic fact of the whole matter is that Standardized Testing and Reporting assessments, which are known as STAR and include the CST’s, are officially going away altogether this year. Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this month signed Assembly Bill 484, signifying a massive overhaul of the way California has traditionally assessed its students’ academic progress. This means that the NCLB law, which measures success based on CST scores, may vanish as well, Flores explains.
However things play out at the national level, Flores said GUSD will abide by PI plans set in place for its seven elementary schools and strive to focus on achievement for all students.
From at least one first grade student’s perspective, it’s classes as usual. Correa asked his first-grader if classes seem different after the recent enrollment changes.
“He hasn’t noticed any change,” said Correa. “But then again, he is 6 and it’s only been a week.”
