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A change is increasingly likely for eighth-graders from East Palo Alto assigned to Woodside and Carlmont high schools but who want to attend Menlo-Atherton High School. The high school district board is leaning strongly toward giving these students a preference, putting them ahead of most eighth-graders wanting to attend M-A but not automatically assigned there.
Superintendent Jim Lianides of the Sequoia Union High School District proposed the policy change and the board discussed it at its Sept. 25 meeting. Action to establish such a policy is likely sooner rather than later, as the period for choosing a high school for the 2014-15 school year begins in October.
The East Palo Alto students would be allowed to apply for an adjusted transfer to M-A on a space-available basis, before the start of open enrollment. In open enrollment, students also apply for a school other than their assigned school on a space-available basis, but if there are more students than seats, a lottery ensues.
For decades, East Palo Alto students have had to ride buses to Woodside and Carlmont in keeping with a now-expired desegregation-based judicial consent decree from the 1980s. East Palo Alto parents have been vocal and persistent in trying to bring this practice to an end and keep their middle-school cohort intact by having their kids attend a neighborhood school.
The wish for an intact middle-school cohort was also heard in May from parents in the Las Lomitas Elementary School District. They cited rumors and fears that the Sequoia board might divide the district between M-A and Woodside to address a coming enrollment surge in the Sequoia district of at least 22 percent by 2020.
Between 10 and 12 households from the Las Lomitas district are assigned to Woodside High, and Las Lomitas has long had an adjusted-transfer policy, but with guaranteed admission to M-A. That guarantee is not expected to change, Mr. Lianides said.
Comment
Public comment on the East Palo Alto proposal tended to differ according to geography.
“This effort to restore a high school for our children is wonderful because you are healing a community in pain,” said Assistant Superintendent James Lovelace of the Ravenswood City Elementary School District, which operates schools in East Palo Alto and part of eastern Menlo Park. The Sequoia district closed Ravenswood high school in East Palo Alto in the 1970s for reasons that included low enrollment.
“Our community really feels the lack of a high school,” said Ravenswood Superintendent Gloria Hernandez. It’s “a wound that has not healed.”
In its community outreach on the East Palo Alto proposal and enrollment growth, the Sequoia district has come under fire for its apparent inability to effectively communicate with the public, particularly with affected families in the Ravenswood district. Effective outreach is vital for students lacking advocates who are paying sufficient attention to high school choice.
There could be unforeseen consequences to ending busing. Taking a bus to school can make it easier to leave a gang, said Sequoia board member Carrie DuBois, an ardent spokesperson on the board for kids who don’t have advocates, foster children and the very poor.
“We have to remember,” board member Olivia Martinez said, “that we are an institution of learning and that our students learn to take care of themselves. I’m encouraged by the board’s decisiveness and moving forward.”
“We do have an issue of profound educational inequity in Ravenswood,” said board member Allen Weiner. “It takes some time to roll out this campaign. We want to do it in a way that is successful.”
Board President Chris Thomsen said, “I think that we are a board that fundamentally cares about equality of education.” He later said that he might also have put it as “equality of educational opportunity.”
The Sequoia district will be providing application forms preprinted with a student’s name, assigned school and choice of schools, Mr. Lianides said. “The intent would be, in all of this, to reach every eighth-grader in (the Ravenswood) district,” he said. It should also inform the district as to what Ravenswood parents want, he added.
The board took comment on the process of possibly redrawing the map that assigns neighborhoods to schools, a key factor in addressing the coming enrollment surge. Las Lomitas parents pressed the board about M-A’s strong academic reputation.
“I haven’t heard a consideration of performance (and) academic excellence at M-A,” said Greg Portugal. “M-A is a result of a very special and unique ecosystem that I don’t think any of us can figure out. … You should consider engaging experts before you consider such a major decision.”
“Is education (at M-A) going to suffer in the interim?” another parent asked. “I’m just trying to figure out what to do with my children in the interim. I may be a little selfish.”
More schools
Mr. Lianides spoke earlier of adding one or two small magnet schools that would be accessible to anyone in the district and ease the pressure on the large schools.
“People are really looking at many alternatives to a comprehensive high school,” he said. Among the important questions: Where would the schools go? Would people living nearby enroll? Who would enroll?
It seems as if this proposal could be the beginning of basic fairness for the children of Ravenswood – I think it is absurd to call this a privilege. I am a Menlo Park parent and it has always seemed as if the various school districts and towns in the area have taken a sort of ‘separate and inadequate’ approach to Ravenswood children. Ravenswood is comprised of East Menlo Park and East Palo Alto; they are an extension of our community. The children of Ravenswood are our children and they deserve an education that will give them a fair chance. It makes no sense to bus them past M-A to high schools much further away (45 mins+ to 1 hour bus ride). Simply put, this is unfair.
Furthermore, M-A already takes the greatest number of Ravenswood high school students. This means that M-A is already becoming the de facto community high school for Ravenswood. This should be formalized for all of the children of Ravenswood – it would make it easier for M-A to then coordinate with the feeder schools (in Menlo Park and EPA) and thereby improve the preparedness and transition of these students to M-A. M-A already coordinates well with the two Menlo Park feeder schools and M-A could/should do the same with the feeder schools in EPA. It is eminently possible to create excellent educational outcomes for all our children if we work at it.
On the other hand, if we continue to overlook the children of Ravenswood (ie treat them as charity cases that we allow into ‘our’ school), then we should not be surprised with the consequences as they graduate and most likely join the ranks of the working-poor. The gated communities of the future will not insulate our children and grandchildren from the challenges that will continue to grow in our society if we allow greater isolation and polarization between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’.
The children of Ravenswood and their parents want better than that and we should too. We can organize our resources and energy so that all of the children of our community have the opportunity to become strong contributors to our society. Not only would it be smart to invest in our community, it is also the right and fair thing to do.