Superintendent Tata and Task Force Update Board on New Student Assignment Plan
August 17, 2011 - Superintendent Tony Tata and Student Assignment Task Force members provided an update on the task force’s work to develop a new student assignment process to school board members in a work session August 16.
The task force is developing a proposal that will provide families the choice to select the school their child will attend.
Tata and task force leader, James Overman, reviewed the data they collected from the community online test drive of an early draft proposal in June.
In the test drive, 21,283 participants responded from 13,805 individual addresses. The simulation had responses from 1,197 of the county’s total 1,329 nodes. Twenty-three of 1,329 nodes do not have registered students living in them.
“This proposal affords every student multiple, high-quality choices,” said Tata. “One of the results from the test drive is that parents overwhelmingly chose proximity over any other kind of choice.”
From the simulation, Overman said the task force confirmed that proximity and calendar were drivers for family decisions. He said families selected the closest schools to their homes and the traditional or year-round calendar that fit their needs. He said achievement schools did not play a statistically significant role in the simulation.
Tata and Overman discussed magnet schools and achievement schools. The task force recommends maintaining all current magnet schools. For application students to continue to attend magnet schools, the choice plan must provide options for some families that live near magnet schools to select other schools.
The task force proposal would identify achievement schools as an option for all families. The schools would be determined based on high-performing teachers, growth with level I-IV students and proficiency.
Overman said the test drive revealed school utilization rates across choice lists. Some schools appeared on too few choice lists while other schools appeared on too many lists. He said these can be resolved by fine tuning the choice lists.
Task force member Susan Pullium discussed potential feeder patterns. The task force created one feeder pattern for each elementary school. The task force sought to adhere to existing feeder patterns where possible. Year-round elementary schools feed to year-round middle schools where possible. Magnet schools feed to schools on magnet pathways.
Overman said the task force would revise business rules based on modeling information, continue modeling choice proposals, simulate transportation and develop an outreach plan.
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