Chalkbeat

More Republicans than Democrats file for school board races in central Indiana

2026-07-01T11:00:00+00:00

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A plurality of school board candidates in central Indiana did not declare a party affiliation ahead of the general election in November, when school board races across the state will be partisan for the first time.

But those who did declare a party tended to declare themselves Republican, with about one-third of candidates identifying with the GOP in candidate filings.

In the nine-county region, about one-third of the 211 candidates are Republicans, while roughly 13% are Democratic and 9% are independent. About 45% of candidates did not declare a party affiliation. Incumbent candidates were more likely to identify as Republican or not have a party listed. Only incumbents in Marion County identified themselves as Democrats.

The filings for central Indiana could shed light on how political partisanship affects school board races. In Marion County, Democratic candidates outnumber Republican candidates. Yet in the more conservative counties that surround the state’s capital, Republican candidates outnumber Democratic ones.

State lawmakers approved partisan school board races last year despite significant opposition from educators and advocates who argued that partisan politics would disrupt inherently nonpartisan activities left to the school board, like selecting a superintendent and approving an annual budget. But some Republican lawmakers who backed the legislation said it would help voters support candidates who align with their values.

The new state law allows candidates to include a political party after their name, leave their political affiliation blank, identify as independent, or state that they do not identify with a party. But candidates who identify as Democrats or Republicans could gain a key advantage.

Under a state law adopted this year, the party whose candidate received the most votes in the county in the most recent election for secretary of state will be listed first on ballots. The party with the second-highest number of votes for that office will be listed second, followed by independent candidates or those affiliated with parties that did not have a secretary of state candidate. Finally, candidates who do not disclose any political affiliation will appear last.

That means in Democratic-leaning Marion County, for example, Democratic school board candidates will be listed before their Republican opponents. But elsewhere in the state, Republican school board candidates will be first on the ballot — which some research suggests could give them an advantage over other candidates.

The move toward partisanship comes as national political polarization has begun to affect state and local races that have typically been less partisan, said Michael Wolf of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at Purdue University Fort Wayne. In K-12 education, this shift has fueled divisive debates over book bans and mask mandates.

The change could have upsides and downsides, Wolf said. While fewer candidates may be interested in running in partisan races, more voters may cast a vote for school board candidates if they’re aware of the candidate’s party.

“One of the benefits, certainly, of partisan elections is that you probably would have more participation at least in people not skipping that race when they’re voting,” he said.

Party affiliation could bring ballot advantage

Some incumbents say voters have often wanted to know what political party school board candidates belong to.

When Zachary Smith Howard knocked on doors in his first bid for the Franklin Township Community School Corporation board in 2018, the most common question people asked him was his party affiliation, he said.

“I would tell people, ‘This is a nonpartisan race, but I identify with the Republican Party,’” said Howard, who is on the board of the Indiana School Boards Association but spoke to Chalkbeat in his personal capacity. “Most people don’t do the homework on the school board elections, they just don’t.”

Howard is seeking his third term as the sole candidate for the northeast portion of the district. But this time, he filed as a Republican.

Howard considers his Republican affiliation as just another piece of information for Marion County voters in Franklin Township to consider. But he also wishes voters would do more research on what candidates stand for, he said, because there’s more to a candidate than a partisan label.

“My fear is that people will just look at the label and that’s how they’ll make a decision,” he said.

In Westfield, the partisan school board law spurred Gabriel Crawford-Paree to run as a Democrat for the at-large seat on the Westfield Washington school board — even though he opposed making school board elections partisan.

“Filing as a Democrat is my shorthand way to signal to the likely many voters I won’t be able to reach during my campaign that I do support public education,” he said.

His opponent in Hamilton County, Republican incumbent Amber Huff Willis, said she’s seen voters struggle to understand why the school board races are nonpartisan when she’s run for her seat in the past.

Although she declared a party affiliation, she said lawmakers shouldn’t have introduced political partisanship into school board races because it shouldn’t matter.

“I would say nine out of 10 times if you’re involved in a community, you probably understand who does what and who falls where,” she said.

The general election is on Nov. 3.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Waiting to learn: How Chicago’s approach to staffing bilingual education programs falls short

2025-06-05T10:00:00+00:00

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This story was reported and published in collaboration with Block Club Chicago. Sign up for their newsletters here.

A few years ago, Nash Elementary was thrown into disarray when dozens of English language learners — largely migrant kids from South and Central America — began enrolling at the West Side school.

Teachers had to scramble to find ways to help the new arrivals.

They used Google Translate and turned to resources online. One struggling teacher assigned her students “busy work” and eventually decided to travel abroad to learn Spanish.

And every day, students — like one Ecuadorian fourth grader who struggled to read and write in English — were left without the support guaranteed to them in state law.

“He shouldn’t have had to suffer for almost three years before he was able to receive the type of help that he needs,” said Sylvelia Pittman, a 20-year teacher at Nash who advocated for more bilingual resources in the new Chicago Teachers Union contract.

English language learners in bilingual programs are often waiting for what they’re legally entitled to — instruction in their native language — and teachers feel their schools are ill-equipped to serve large shares of these students, according to interviews and a Block Club and Chalkbeat analysis of public records.

Since an influx of migrant students began arriving in Chicago in 2022, the number of Chicago Public Schools required by state law to open a bilingual program increased by about 20%, according to records obtained by Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago through a Freedom of Information Act request. This school year, 57 additional schools, including charters, must meet state requirements.

State law requires schools to launch a bilingual education program after 20 students who are English language learners and speak the same native language enroll.

But under the district’s funding formula, CPS provides a school with a full-time bilingual coordinator when it enrolls 50 or more English language learners. That person is meant to help schools carry out extra services for English language learners, a group that’s grown by 25% in district-run schools since 2022. The state declined to comment on the district’s formula.

CPS officials said bilingual coordinators are not meant to be the sole individuals in the school providing additional support to English learners. District and state officials say there’s no predetermined number of how many bilingual teachers are needed for a bilingual program.

Using data obtained through an open records request, Chalkbeat and Block Club conducted its own analysis to explore what staffing looks like in schools required to teach English learners in both English and their native language.

Across the district, there are on average about five bilingual teachers per every 100 English language learners. But that picture looks different on the school level. The district-run schools newly required to have bilingual programs, on average, have half as many certified teachers per English learner compared to more established programs.

Of the district schools required to have bilingual programs, 1 in 4 enroll more than 40 English learners for each bilingual-certified teacher on staff, according to Chalkbeat and Block Club’s analysis. Nearly 40 schools enroll more than 60 English learners for each certified bilingual teacher. A handful of schools have no one certified to teach bilingual education on staff, despite legal requirements to provide bilingual services.

In a statement, CPS said bilingual programs vary in size and don’t necessarily require full classrooms at every grade level overseen by bilingual teachers.

At Nash, where there are now two certified bilingual teachers and more than 70 English language learners, teachers say it’s taken multiple years to see any growth in some of their newcomer students. The school has been required to have a bilingual program for the past two school years.

And at schools newer to bilingual education, like Nash, bilingual coordinators are sometimes the only people certified to teach in a child’s native language, Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago found.

The analysis included 3,400 staffers certified to teach bilingual education. It does not include teaching assistants, a position the district has agreed with the teachers union to beef up but is not certified to teach bilingual education.

In addition to bilingual coordinators, the district said it provides guidance to schools that are supposed to launch bilingual programs. Officials also contend that CPS has significantly increased the number of bilingual teachers and that it’s up to principals to hire the right people for their schools.

Yennifer Ruiz walks her daughter Gabriela, 12, to school most days in their South Shore neighborhood. Both of them are from Venezuela.

But the issues at Nash reflect broader challenges in CPS. Last year, Block Club and Chalkbeat found that many migrant students from South and Central America were struggling to learn after landing at segregated schools on the South and West sides that had not previously served children with language needs.

In recent years, nearly all bilingual programs have failed audits conducted by the district. And the number of investigations conducted by the Illinois State Board of Education into alleged violations of bilingual education at Chicago schools has increased, Block Club and Chalkbeat found.

And as President Donald Trump declares English the official language of the U.S. and guts the office meant to serve the country’s 5 million English learners, the state could play a bigger role in holding districts like Chicago accountable for failing to provide enough support to kids learning English as a second language.

Schools that are out of compliance are “out of step with the research” on what works for English learners, said Conor Williams, a senior fellow who studies English learners at The Century Foundation, a progressive leaning policy think tank.

“If we’re not going to fund helping schools become bilingual, as the state mandates us to do, we should own that that’s something we’ve decided we don’t care enough about to fund,” Williams said.

Sylvelia Pittman, a 20-year teacher, speaks to her grandson Cahari at Nash Elementary School in Austin on June 3, 2025. Pittman said her principal is trying to encourage more staff to get certified in bilingual education.

Nash’s new bilingual coordinator only the ‘tip of the iceberg’

Pittman, who has taught in CPS schools for 24 years, is currently an interventionist at Nash, 4837 W Erie St. The district created the role in response to the pandemic to provide extra support to struggling students.

As Pittman and her colleagues worked to help students recover from the public health crisis, however, Nash began to face a new challenge.

In the months before the 2022-23 school year, busloads of migrant families began arriving in Chicago from the southern border. The school had 230 students at the time, fewer than half what the district calculates Nash’s building could enroll. Historically in CPS, fewer students have meant smaller budgets.

The surge of newcomer students boosted Nash’s enrollment. By the end of September 2023 — about a year after migrants began arriving — Nash had enrolled 48 English language learners, according to preliminary enrollment data from that time pulled by Chalkbeat and Block Club. Some time that month, CPS said it gave the school a part-time bilingual coordinator position, but Chalkbeat and Block Club were unable to verify exactly when that person was hired.

In the meantime, teachers felt they didn’t have adequate tools to teach the school’s English learners.

Staff relied heavily on Google Translate to communicate with the new students and their parents — a practice educators at other schools have told Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago they have also adopted.

Corinne Lydon, a middle school English teacher at Nash, said she felt like a “deer in headlights” when a lot of English learners first began enrolling at Nash a couple years ago.

The school didn’t have a Spanish language curriculum available for Lydon to use, so she tried to find help online and assigned her newcomer students a lot of “busy work,” she said. (CPS has developed a Spanish language arts curriculum for bilingual programs, a spokesperson said.)

Before the 2023-24 school year, the district only provided schools with a full-time bilingual coordinator if the school had at least 100 English learners. Officials said they dropped that threshold to 50 English learners starting last school year.

Teacher Corinne Lydon poses for a portrait at Nash Elementary School in Austin on May 28, 2025. Lydon said the need at her school for Spanish-speaking staff was so great, she traveled abroad to learn Spanish.

By March 2024, Nash had enrolled 61 English learners, according to preliminary enrollment data.

Now, more than a year later, Nash has two staffers certified to teach bilingual education, including the bilingual coordinator, and five others who can teach English as a second language but not bilingual education, according to district staffing records. The school today enrolls more than 70 English learners, the most for Nash in at least 15 years.

CPS said it allocated an additional part-time bilingual coordinator position to Nash this school year, but it’s unclear if that position has been filled.

Lydon recently finished her courses to teach English as a second language after encouragement from Nash’s principal. The district covered half the cost of the certification and Lydon financed the remaining $1,300. (This was before the new teachers union contract, which would have afforded Lydon full coverage.)

But Lydon also felt it was critical to learn Spanish, so she traveled on her own dime to Guatemala last August and Mexico over this spring break to learn the language through immersion, in part by living with local families.

“I felt so unprepared, so I just wanted to do all the things possible to be able to best service my kids,” Lydon said.

Lydon thinks her ESL training and Spanish lessons are helping her students. For example, one of her sixth grade students is finally completing assignments and saying full sentences in English — but that’s two years after first enrolling at the school.

Corinne Lydon, an English teacher at Nash Elementary, poses for a photo with two of her Spanish teachers during a trip to Guatemala to learn the language.

Despite the challenges Nash has faced, Karime Asaf, chief of multilingual and multicultural education at CPS, touted the school as a good example of how the district helps a school create a new bilingual program, in part by providing a bilingual coordinator who can train other teachers working with English learners.

Pittman said the bilingual coordinator has made a difference at Nash by being able to talk to students and their parents about their needs. And Pittman said she has seen some academic growth in students.

But as a part-time staffer, the coordinator hasn’t had enough time to spend with all the new English learners, particularly in middle school, Lydon said.

Pittman said bilingual coordinators are just “the tip of the iceberg.” One bilingual coordinator plus a couple of staffers who speak Spanish don’t add up to an actual bilingual program, she said.

Sylvelia Pittman, a 20-year teacher, speaks to her grandson Cahari at Nash Elementary School in Austin on June 3, 2025. Pittman says the school has not had enough certified staff to provide additional services to English learners.

A challenge to launch bilingual programs

More than three-quarters of the 57 CPS and charter schools now required to launch bilingual education programs are on the city’s South and West Sides in communities that don’t have predominantly Latino populations, according to the records obtained by Chalkbeat and Block Club through an open records request. Only seven of those schools had previous bilingual program requirements anytime in the last five school years.

But both CPS and the state said bilingual programs can’t be created immediately, and they don’t look the same at every school.

By state law, a bilingual program requires teaching students language arts, math, science and social studies in both English and their native language. Schools will still also provide English as a Second Language — or English only — instruction. The state gives schools “time to implement necessary programs” and links each district with a state expert to help them create the programs, said Lindsay Record, spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Education.

“It’s a multi-year program,” Asaf, from CPS, said. “It doesn’t mean that if you receive 30 students, next month, you can have a full, established bilingual program.”

Under the district’s funding formula, CPS provides positions to schools, and principals hire people to fill those roles. Schools get more positions if they have greater needs.

CPS officials said they’ve prioritized recruiting more bilingual certified teachers. But when it comes to ensuring individual schools have the right staff, officials described a largely hands-off approach.

Asaf’s office works with bilingual coordinators to “identify gaps in services” for English learners and recommends solutions to school leaders, said Sylvia Barragan, a CPS spokesperson, in an email to Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago.

Nash Elementary School, 4837 W. Erie St., in Austin on May 28, 2025.

One principal whose school has dozens of English learners said the district is offering “less advice” than before on how to serve English learners, even though the school is still trying to figure out how to meet legal requirements and student needs.

“Normally when I advocate [for resources], I get heat” from the district, said the principal, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

The principal takes issue with the district’s bilingual coordinator formula, saying the needs of individual English learners, not the total number of English learners, should be the determining factor.

“You don’t know the needs of those 75 kids or those 40 kids or those 50 kids,” the principal said.

Research has shown that English learners grow better academically in bilingual education programs than when they’re taught in English, according to three experts who have studied English language learners and immigrant communities.

But a shortage of bilingual teachers can make setting up a bilingual program difficult.

“If you’re a school and you’re fully staffed, you’ve got all your teachers, and suddenly you trigger a bilingual education mandate, you can’t just fire half of your teachers because they’re English-speakers only and hire a bunch of new Spanish-dominant or bilingual staff,” Williams, from The Century Foundation, said.

And it’s not easy for schools to convince longtime staffers to get bilingual certification.

For example, at Tarkington Elementary School in Chicago Lawn, the principal told seventh grade teacher Vivian Perez she would be laid off because the school needed more bilingual-certified staff. Perez then scrambled to get a temporary bilingual license.

But CPS says the school’s efforts to encourage other staff to get certified haven’t been successful — and Tarkington still needs bilingual teachers for seventh grade.

Perez now teaches her class in English and Spanish, which she believes makes students “feel like they’re not forgotten.”

The district views its role in solving the problem as “really dramatically increasing the supply” of bilingual teachers, who often seek jobs in predominantly immigrant school communities, said Ben Felton, chief of talent for CPS.

Felton said the district recruits and provides early offers to teaching candidates at the city’s hardest-to-staff schools, which disproportionately exist on the South and West sides and are seeing a “higher need” for bilingual teachers, he said.

CPS will now cover 100% of costs of getting a bilingual certification for up to 300 teachers in high-need areas each year as part of the new Chicago Teachers Union contract.

As of April, 3,400 of the district’s roughly 20,000 teachers were certified to teach bilingual education — a 22% increase since just before migrants began arriving in Chicago in spring 2022, according to data CPS shared with Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago.

But how those teachers are deployed across the district is uneven, especially among schools newly required to provide bilingual services in the 2024-25 school year.

On top of that, it’s not clear how many of those certified educators are actually teaching in a bilingual program or are certified to teach their students’ native language.

Teacher Sylvelia Pittman stands outside of Nash Elementary School in Austin on June 3, 2025. Pittman said that having a bilingual coordinator at the school, which now serves dozens of English learners, is far less than what Nash actually needs.

Schools caught in the middle

The district’s policies for staffing bilingual programs are also flawed in a practical sense, according to teachers and other school leaders.

A few miles east of Nash, Morton School of Excellence, 431 N. Troy St., is an example of district policy failing to keep up with the unpredictable nature of mass migration.

Like Nash, Morton teachers and administrators were completely unprepared when the Humboldt Park school received an influx of newcomer students last school year, according to Local School Council president and parent Cori Bradley.

Historically, most of the school’s students have been Black native English speakers. The school had 18 English learners at the start of the 2023-24 school year. By that March, the school had more than 80 English learners, almost doubling the student population. The staff had to respond on the fly.

“The school was operating in emergency mode for four or five months,” Bradley said.

“We didn’t have books for them. You had classrooms that had 35 kids. … The concern was: Are students learning? Can teachers adequately teach? Are there enough chairs and desks? It felt like the school had become a shelter.”

The hallways at Morton School of Excellence display flags from various different countries. After enrolling dozens of English language learners, Morton was newly required to launch a bilingual program this school year.

But by the time the district gave Morton a full-time bilingual coordinator at the start of this school year, the situation had completely changed. Morton’s English language learner population had shrunk by more than half to 35 students as of late February.

Because of that, Morton’s bilingual coordinator is slated to be part-time next year.

Barragan, the district spokesperson, said schools that don’t qualify for bilingual coordinators typically “nominate” an existing staffer to take on the role for an additional stipend.

Morton currently has five teachers certified to teach English as a second language and one who is certified to teach bilingual education — the current bilingual coordinator — according to the district’s April staffing data.

When Bradley asked if the part-time bilingual coordinator will be sufficient at a recent Local School Council meeting, Morton’s principal, Zachary Korth, told her he’s discussing the issue with staff and plans to advocate for more resources if necessary.

Korth said there are “rumblings” more newcomer families are planning to move. Two city-run shelters near the school have closed, driving families to other parts of the city and elsewhere, school leaders said.

School districts generally can’t easily respond to rapidly changing student populations, said Williams, from The Century Foundation. They fund schools based on a certain enrollment count or projection.

The district has a pool of bilingual teaching assistants that it can deploy to schools that are seeing more English learners enroll, according to district officials.

Chicago schools under state oversight for bilingual education

CPS is currently under state oversight for failing to meet bilingual education requirements.

The state requires corrective action any time an investigation finds that a CPS school is not in compliance with bilingual education requirements, officials said. When investigators find evidence of wrongdoing, the district is put on an action plan.

If a district doesn’t properly address the action plan, it can be subject to “sanctions” including loss of state or federal funding, said Record, the state spokesperson. State officials did not say when CPS must meet goals outlined in its latest corrective action plan.

Since the 2021-22 school year, ISBE has conducted no more than two investigations annually of alleged violations of bilingual education requirements at CPS schools. But this school year, the state has nine open investigations and has already completed two others — one of which found violations at Catalyst Charter School.

At Catalyst, an undisclosed disagreement among staffers led to the principal asking a teacher to stop offering English learner services to a group of fifth graders for about a month. Teachers were also not taking students’ English proficiency levels seriously, potentially impacting the type of services they received, according to the investigation notes.

The spike in complaints could be due to heightened awareness of the problem and advocacy for solutions. The Chicago Teachers Union made a big push for compliance and hosted workshops to train school staff how to file state complaints around bilingual education.

Others say the surge is a reflection of the state and school district’s longstanding inability to meet the needs of English learner students.

Audits that CPS conducted of bilingual and ESL programs from 2018 to the beginning of 2024 found that all but two programs did not comply with state law, according to public records obtained last year by Chalkbeat and Block Club Chicago.

Complaints about CPS schools failing to provide proper bilingual education also prompted federal oversight in the past.

From 1980 to 2009, Chicago Public Schools was under a federal consent decree that ordered the district to desegregate its schools and ensure English language learners were getting enough support. The decree had to be updated twice, in part because CPS was failing to provide enough staffing and materials to English learners.

The American flag waves outside Nash Elementary School in Austin on June 3, 2025. The school enrolls more than 70 English language learners, the most in at least 15 years.

Experts say that sort of oversight is highly unlikely under the Trump administration.

In March, the federal government fired nearly every employee responsible for ensuring that districts were properly using federal funds meant to support English learners.

Patricia Gándara, a UCLA research professor who co-authored a book about the impact of immigration enforcement on schools, said the president’s executive order to make English the nation’s official language suggests the administration is not interested in bilingual education.

As a result of these moves, state and local officials will likely be tasked with ensuring those students are getting the support they need.

Pittman, the Nash teacher, said her principal has encouraged teachers to earn their bilingual certification. The principal is also planning to create virtual programming for some grades of students who need to learn English and Spanish, she said. The principal declined to be interviewed.

Newcomer students at Nash “are growing academically, but it’s taking them longer because they do not have all the bilingual support they’re supposed to have,” Pittman said.

Nash Elementary School in Austin has been required to have a bilingual education program for the past two school years.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Mina Bloom is an investigative reporter for Block Club Chicago. Contact Mina at mina@blockclubchi.org.

Kae Petrin is a data & graphics reporter who covers data related to K-12 education, voting rights, and public health for Civic News Company. Contact them at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

As Colorado’s district-run schools shrink and charters grow, their demographics are converging

2025-04-01T19:57:06+00:00

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The number of students in Colorado public schools is declining. But enrollment in Colorado’s publicly funded, privately run charter schools is heading in the opposite direction.

Charter schools enroll approximately 136,220 students this year, up nearly 13% from 120,740 students in 2017, according to numbers from the Colorado Department of Education. In that same period, district-run schools had a 5.6% decline in enrollment. And altogether, the state’s total public school enrollment shrank 3%. The number of charter schools is up too, from 250 schools in 2017 to 262 this year.

The vast majority of Colorado’s approximately 880,000 public school students — 85% — still attend public schools run by school districts. But the trend of rising charter school enrollment, even as total enrollment drops, shows that more families are interested in and ultimately choosing charter schools, which sometimes have unique models or programming.

As charter school enrollment increases nationwide, tensions can rise between district-run schools and their teachers unions on one side, and charter schools and their parents on the other over student enrollment and the funding that comes with it. Critics have wondered if allowing new charter schools, especially in communities with declining overall enrollment, could lead more district-run schools to shrink dramatically or close.

In some cases, school districts are feeling the pressure to diversify their own options, reimagining schools, or creating new magnet schools, or themed programming, though often with fewer resources to do so.

Colorado was one of the first states to pass a law allowing charter schools. School choice, or the ability for students to apply to attend any public school in the state, has also been protected by state law for decades. And while a ballot measure that would have enshrined a child’s right to school choice in the state constitution failed in November, its supporters may bring it back.

Charter school fans say families are looking for more choices and different models of learning that can keep children engaged. In some cases, families are following programming that has been cut from district-run schools.

As Latin fades in Colorado’s big public high schools, educators want to disrupt the status quo

People want “more options out of public education. It’s a fact that was exacerbated by the pandemic,” said Dan Schaller, president of the Colorado League of Charter Schools. “That is ultimately what charter schools represent.”

But to critics, charter school growth represents a threat to district-run schools. That threat is especially big because charter schools can raise money from wealthy donors to help market their schools and recruit students, opponents say.

“I just think there’s a false narrative that our public schools are failing,” said Judy Solano, chair of Advocates for Public Education Policy, a Colorado advocacy group. “But it’s a matter of unequal resources and marketing. Many of our larger chain charters are funded by very large wealthy families.”

State lawmakers are considering a bill that would add new financial reporting requirements about district-run and charter schools’ private funding, money they spend on marketing, and their teacher salaries.

Some have also criticized charter schools for not always serving populations of higher needs students such as students with disabilities like district-run public schools do. A state rule change in 2022 makes it more clear that charter schools can’t ask about disabilities in enrollment applications.

But as more students enroll in Colorado charter schools, their student demographics are moving closer to matching those of district-run schools, data shows.

Charter schools now serve the same percentage of English learners as district-run schools. In addition, more than 50% of students in both types of schools identify as students of color. Charter schools reached that percentage last year, while district-run schools reached it this year.

But district-operated schools are still more likely to enroll students with disabilities than charters. And charters remain less likely to enroll children from low-income families, although that gap is closing.

Some charter schools cater to unique interests

There are many reasons why a new charter school might open and why students might choose it. Sometimes, as in Park County, it’s a matter of variety and geography.

The South Park County Re-2 school district only has one elementary school and one that combines middle and high school grades. There are also two charter schools. But for people in some parts of the district, such as Fairplay, those choices are about an hour’s drive away.

It was top of mind when Laurel Dumas left her job as principal of a district-run school and decided to create a new micro charter school focused on outdoor learning. High Rockies Community School will open next fall.

“A lot of people live here to be outdoors and enjoy skiing and doing outdoor activities, and people wanted the same for their kids,” Dumas said.

The High Rockies program calls for multi-age classrooms, students collaborating on projects, and learning from the community. Each day will start with outdoor activities.

“It looks like recess at first, but then you see the kids are playing whatever they’re learning,” Dumas said. “If they’re learning about the beaver ecosystem, suddenly there’s 15 beavers running around.”

The school is currently testing out some of its programming through a homeschool enrichment program. High Rockies already has 31 students enrolled for next year and has started a waitlist.

Dumas said that the school’s unique model is attracting teachers to the area. Schaller, in turn, also pointed to other charter school models in Colorado that focus on topics like aerospace and agriculture.

Colorado foundation bets on new charter and private schools seats

“In my experience being a principal in a rural area, we were lucky if we got enough applicants for the positions we had,” Dumas said. But now, she said, “we’re able to find people who fit the model” because “we’re working on something we really believe in.”

High Rockies Community School was not authorized by the South Park County school district like the other two existing charters in the area, but by a state agency called the Charter School Institute, or CSI. While most charter schools are authorized by the school district in which they’re located, CSI can authorize charters when districts are unsure how to support a charter, or uninterested in doing so.

Dumas said she wanted the support of CSI, which has more experience to support her small school.

CSI has also expanded and now authorizes more schools. Its 46 charter schools enrolled more than 21,000 students this year, an increase of over 20% from 2017.

Some worry charters can lead to school closures

As charter enrollment rises and total student population falls, school districts that authorize charter schools can face especially tough decisions.

Of Colorado districts that authorized charter schools in both 2017 and 2024, 76% saw enrollment decrease in their district-run schools in that time period. Only 63% of districts that don’t authorize charters saw enrollment decrease.

Some parents and district officials have questioned whether it’s wise to authorize new charter schools when enrollment is declining.

School board members in Jeffco Public Schools lamented in 2016 that they were not able to reject the application for a new charter school, Great Work Montessori, due to concerns that the school would not enroll enough students to be financially viable.

Great Work Montessori opened in 2017. But it closed in 2023 due to low enrollment and the district’s concerns about its performance.

Months earlier, the board had voted to close 16 district-run schools for low enrollment, including a couple just miles from the charter school.

Charter school enrollment in Jeffco has declined since 2017, but not as much as enrollment in district-run schools. In the 2017-18 school year, Jeffco charter schools enrolled 9,763 students. That enrollment is down to 9,236 in the current school year.

In the same period, enrollment in district-run schools has declined more than 13%, down to 66,259. Last year, the district closed another school but worked with a charter school to have it take over serving the community.

Denver Public Schools is also closing district-run schools for low enrollment. Charter schools in Denver have been affected by declining student counts, too.

Earlier this year, Denver’s GALS all-girls charter school — which focuses on physical education — announced it would close its high school grades, after enrollment in them fell to just 58 students.

At least 14 other Denver charter schools have closed in the past seven years, most because of declining enrollment. Without “sufficient demand,” said Schaller of the Colorado League of Charter Schools, “the finances are not going to be there either.”

In Douglas County, enrollment is growing in some parts of the district but falling in others. That has sparked debate about how to serve students in the parts of the district that are growing.

As in other districts, the number of Douglas County families choosing charters is rising. Enrollment in Douglas County charter schools is 16,445 students, about 1,200 students more than in 2017. Over the same period, overall enrollment in district-run schools has fallen by about 6,900 students to 45,406.

Now, there’s concern that the growing Sterling Ranch neighborhood won’t be able to support both a charter and a district-run school. A new district-run school is expected to open in that area in the fall of 2027. But some residents are concerned that the John Adams Academy charter school may open there first.

Douglas County parent Suzanne Collins said she’s not against charter schools. Her daughter actually attends one, because it was where Collins could find full day preschool in 2019. But she worries that the projections for the number of students in Sterling Ranch, where she lives, won’t be enough to allow the two schools to be sustainable.

“I believe charter schools and neighborhood schools can both thrive when they’re part of a thoughtful, coordinated district plan that ensures high-quality education for all students,” Collins said. “In this case, I’m concerned that the JAA proposal could undermine our long-awaited neighborhood school before it even opens.”

Sixth graders listen to a math lesson at Vega Collegiate Academy in Aurora during a September 2018 class.

Charters, district schools can coexist well, some say

Not all parents or school districts see charter schools as adversaries.

Aurora Public Schools Superintendent Michael Giles said that charter schools are part of the district’s “portfolio of learning opportunities.”

Total enrollment in Aurora Public Schools has been going up since the 2021-22 school year and the number of students is close to what it was pre-pandemic. But even before that, when the district was losing students, charter schools were expanding in the area.

While charter school growth wasn’t enough to offset overall district enrollment declines, Giles said that from his district’s standpoint, “it’s always great when we can keep our kids in our community.”

In the fall of 2017, Aurora charter schools served 5,073 students. That figure rose to 6,530 students in the fall of 2023, before declining for the first time in eight years because a charter school closed.

As charter schools grew in Aurora, the district decided to diversify its own options.

The strategic facilities plan the district voted on in 2019 called for expanding thematic magnet programs to provide in-house school choices. That part of the plan came in response to communities asking for more choice.

One of the envisioned schools is opening next fall, a health and sciences high school near the Anschutz medical campus. It will be the district’s sixth magnet school. The district is working on a new facilities plan, but it’s unclear how it will handle magnets.

Vega Collegiate Academy is one of the Aurora charter schools that has grown rapidly. The school this year serves 583 students, up from 310 in the fall of 2020 and 96 in 2017, its first year.

Executive Director Kate Mullins said that growth stems from her staff’s work during the COVID shutdowns, when they made weekly deliveries to families and were able to retain most students.

Then two years ago, when there was concern that enrollment was going to decline, she spent $50,000 paying staff to go out canvassing. Staff, along with some volunteers, ended up recruiting 140 students from the neighborhood that summer.

Many of the families they encountered were new immigrants who responded to Vega’s free busing to the school, free school supplies, before- and after-school care, a four-day school week with optional Saturday school, and shorter summer breaks.

“For our families, that provides a lot of consistency,” Mullins said.

The school didn’t have to spend much of its $50,000 marketing budget last year, because many of those migrant families spread the word to other newly arriving families, she said.

“The kids are there,” Mullins said. “They just have to believe you’re the right place for them.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Kae Petrin is a data & graphics reporter who covers data related to K-12 education, voting rights, and public health for Civic News Company. Contact them at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

Trump likes Indiana schools. Are they winning the war on ‘woke’ he wants to fight?

2025-01-28T12:00:00+00:00

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President Donald Trump’s plan for schools nationwide is a familiar one to observers of Indiana education policy.

Since 2021, the state has taken steps each legislative session to limit content in schools and minors’ access to gender-affirming care and social transition procedures, while expanding access to vouchers and school choice. That push continues in the 2025 session, with dozens of bills filed that expand on similar issues.

Advocates for these laws say they’re necessary to protect parents’ rights to choose how to raise their children — rights that they say need to be on par with constitutional rights, and which they hope to see reflected in national legislation.

“When parents drop their children off at school, they want to know what’s going on,” said Matt Sharp, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group.

But the laws’ critics say they haven’t led to mass bans of content or revelations of indoctrination in schools because schools weren’t teaching objectionable content to begin with. Instead, they say the primary effect has been increased anxiety among educators and already vulnerable students.

Jessica Heiser, an attorney with Imprint Legal group, which helps districts understand educational civil rights laws, said that these curriculum laws often oversimplify the difficulty of running a classroom, which can cause problems for the districts left to implement them.

“They really don’t want laws around what they’re allowed to teach and not teach,” Heiser said of school administrators, regardless of their politics. “When you get into the nitty grittiness of you shall teach this, or you shall not teach that … legislators are out of their depth.”

To apply some of these laws on a national scale might require the kind of heavy-handed federal enforcement Trump — who praised Indiana schools as “well run” last year — professes to dislike, or else leave schools to police themselves with inconsistent results. Still, Trump’s attacks on “woke” beliefs before his second term and his actions immediately after his inauguration suggest his desire to fight particular cultural battles through American schools has not subsided.

The available evidence doesn’t clearly show that the statutes targeting curriculum, library books, and transgender students have accomplished their stated goals. But there’s reason to believe they’re increasing families’ interest in vouchers.

Some observers say it’s no coincidence that a major consequence of the new laws about public schools has been a surge in private school enrollment and voucher use. Discussions this year about making Indiana’s voucher program universal also often center around parents’ rights to choose a school for their children.

Fights over social issues can lead to citizens losing “trust and confidence in public schools,” Heiser said.

“You end up creating an atmosphere where public schools are so unpredictable and public schools are such a place of confusion and such a place of dissatisfaction, that you open up a conversation better for vouchers and for privatization,” Heiser said.

But some Indiana lawmakers have characterized concerns about how such laws affect the state’s broader reputation as overblown, as evidenced by what they say is Indiana’s ongoing economic and population growth.

In remarks late last year, Republican House Speaker Todd Huston chided doomsayers who had told him that “if we pass this bill, no one will ever come to Indiana again.”

“All that extreme hyperbole didn’t age well,” Huston said.

Classroom content bans seem slow to catch on

Lawmakers have made several attempts over the years to restrict the teaching of certain kinds of content in Indiana classrooms. It’s part of a nationwide push to ban “divisive concepts” related to race, racism, gender, and sexuality.

There are new versions of this legislation this year in Indiana. One bill would prohibit instruction on American history from promoting the idea that the national identity or culture has been established by racial identity or racial discrimination, gender identity or gender discrimination, victimization, class struggle, a hierarchy of privileges, or systemic exclusion. Others would require schools and state agencies to prohibit certain statements in training and curriculum related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

But the push began in Indiana in 2022, when lawmakers considered a wide-ranging bill that sought to restrict how teachers teach about race and racism. It failed in the state Senate following an outcry from a broad coalition of educators, parents, clergy, and others.

The following year, lawmakers scaled back their ambitions and passed narrower restrictions on content in schools. One new law required schools to adopt procedures to challenge books that contain material deemed harmful to minors. Another banned teaching human sexuality to students in preschool through third grade.

Since then, there have been instances of complaints at local school board meetings about books and lessons in schools. One example is the community uproar last year over a class discussion about gender identity in an elementary school classroom in East Noble Schools.

But there have not been widespread reports of public backlash to classroom material leading to curriculum changes. And Chalkbeat and other outlets’ reporting have found few formal complaints about books, and even less action taken to move or remove them.

Supporters of the laws like the Alliance for Defending Freedom say this simply means the legislation is working, and schools have taken care to purge their curriculum of objectionable material.

Other observers say the effect has been a chilling one. Some teachers have told Chalkbeat they or their colleagues avoid topics related to politics due to fears about how some parents might react.

Even relatively straightforward events in national politics that students might encounter independently can be affected by this environment. Kevin Melrose, a social studies teacher in Washington Township schools, said he avoided instruction about national politics in order not to be partisan, per district policy, even as the class held mock debates for class president on the same day of the 2024 vice presidential debates.

One thing that makes Indiana unique is Eyes on Education, said Christopher Lubienski of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University. That’s a portal launched last year by Attorney General Todd Rokita for people to file complaints about how schools teach race, gender, and political ideology. (Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin launched a similar tip line, but it has since shut down.)

If the Trump administration launched such a tip line launched nationally, it would require large-scale monitoring and investigation, which might conflict with Trump’s plans to run a smaller, leaner federal government.

So far, Rokita has posted complaints from just 18 out of the state’s 300 school districts and more than 150 charter schools, as well as from two universities. The substance of these complaints ranges from the material available in a school library catalog, to an invitation for Black students to meet with a college representative.

And records show that even a politically charged event like the 2024 presidential election didn’t lead to complaints about inappropriate or politically biased instruction. A Chalkbeat request for material submitted to “Eyes on Education” that was related to the election yielded two complaints that were apparently jokes.

Student pronoun law yields murky data, inconsistent approaches

Indiana has passed several laws that affect transgender students, including a prohibition on

transgender girls playing on girls’ sports teams at the K-12 level.

When the law was passed in 2022, the Indiana High School Sports Association, which had procedures in place for transgender athletes’ participation, said just one student had gone through the outlined process to play on a girls’ team in recent years. The association did not return a request for comment on whether there have been any additional instances since the law passed.

Data shows that trans students are a tiny fraction of school enrollment. Researchers estimate that 1.4% of youth ages 13-17 nationwide are transgender. In addition, very few openly trans students compete in U.S. school sports.

The author of the law, Rep. Michelle Davis, said at the time that the legislation was important whether it affected one student or 100. Davis this year has filed an expansion of the law that would affect collegiate and out-of-state teams. She did not return a request for comment.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit challenging the law on behalf of a transgender Indianapolis Public Schools student. But the group dropped the lawsuit in early 2023 after the student transferred schools.

Lawmakers then passed a law in 2023 requiring schools to inform a parent of a student’s request to use a different name, nickname, pronoun, title, or word to refer to themselves. Supporters say parents have a right to know about such cases.

“It’s been helpful and effective in putting school officials on notice that when a child is asking questions about gender, or any mental or physical issue, the first call should be to mom and dad,” said Matt Sharp, the ADF attorney.

But without specific guidance from the Indiana Department of Education about how districts should notify parents, or whether they should categorize such requests in any way, the result has been a lack of transparency and a grab-bag of local approaches.

From a legal perspective, this inconsistency can open districts to lawsuits and other conflicts, according to Heiser, the attorney who consults with districts.

In addition, such laws can affect students, even — and sometimes especially — when they are applied inconsistently, said Brian Dittmeier, director of public policy at GLSEN, a nonprofit focused on supporting LGBTQ+ students.

“When hostile laws are passed, and especially hostile laws that are vaguely drafted, it leads to a chilling effect on LGBTQ free expression,” said Dittmeier. “It leads to self-policing that harms students’ free expression and inclusion in the school community.”

A Chalkbeat survey of Indiana’s 10 largest districts found little willingness to share or discuss their policies.

Some districts use the notification requirement to hold a meeting with parents about how to support their students. Another district requires parental permission to use a nickname or pronoun that a student has requested.

Some districts’ policy interpretations obtained by Chalkbeat focus on students making a request related to their gender identity. Others applied the policy to all nicknames, including nicknames that cisgender students had used for years, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Some districts informed students that their parents would be notified about such changes, and gave them the chance to rescind their name or pronoun change request. But it’s unclear how widespread this practice is.

From 2023 to 2024, three districts — Perry Township, Fort Wayne, and Tippecanoe — each sent between 56 and 67 notifications to parents to inform them of a student’s desire to use a nickname or different pronoun, title, or word.

Students later rescinded some of their requests, indicating that the law may have pushed some transgender students away from publicly expressing their identity.

But it also isn’t clear from the districts’ data how many such requests or notifications were related to gender identity to begin with. The law doesn’t require schools to collect or share that specific information.

In all three districts, the notifications involved fewer than 1 in 200 students, or less than 0.5% of enrollment. The notices were most common in high school.

Several districts, including Indianapolis Public Schools, said that only individual schools track the notifications.

School voucher use surges as wealthier families qualify

If Indiana policymakers want to change schools’ approach to social issues, the stats don’t really say clearly whether they’ve succeeded.

But with private school choice, numbers tell a plain story — one that poses a different long-term challenge to public schools than culture war clashes, albeit a related one.

Over the last few years, as conservatives nationwide have pushed back on transgender student rights and certain classroom content, their reasons to support school choice nationwide have also begun to focus less on helping just students from low-income households or struggling schools, and more on giving choices to all families.

Private school enrollment in Indiana has surged since 2020, reaching an all-time high of 92,000 students in 2023-24.

The growth has been partly driven by Choice Scholarship Accounts — Indiana’s decade-old school voucher program. Though vouchers began as a targeted program offering state funding for private school tuition for low-income families, the qualifications have incrementally expanded.

Last year, the program saw a statewide 32% increase in enrollment, driven largely by wealthier families who became eligible for the program in 2023. Families can now make 400% of the amount required for students to qualify for federally subsidized meals — or around $230,000 for a family of four.

This year, lawmakers could remove the final income limit on which families can receive vouchers to make the program fully universal. That’s a priority for GOP Gov. Mike Braun and legislative leaders.

“I’m not going to apologize that our caucus will be very supportive of universal vouchers,” said GOP Rep. Bob Behning, chair of the House Education Committee, at a December legislative conference. “I think letting parents make that choice as to what’s best for their son or daughter is the best way to move forward.”

Since 2021, lawmakers have also added new voucher-like programs to pay for special education expenses and career training. Both of those programs reached maximum capacity this year, and some lawmakers have pushed to make the former available to all families to purchase classes and services using state funding.

It’s unlikely that many Indiana politicians believe in the complete privatization of the education system, said Lubienski of Indiana University. But the implicit effects of the social issue laws include raising questions about the public education system.

“The social issues put a target on public education and create a narrative that they’re serving special interests, or students who feel they’ve been ignored, at the expense of the wider population,” Lubienski said.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Kae Petrin is a data & graphics reporter who covers data related to K-12 education, voting rights, and public health for Civic News Company. Contact them at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat Indiana Bureau Chief MJ Slaby contributed to this article.

IPS enrollment falls by over 3% in district-run schools after middle school changes

2025-01-08T17:21:47+00:00

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Indianapolis Public Schools enrollment has dropped by roughly 3.7% in schools it manages directly since last school year.

The decline of roughly 800 students was driven almost entirely by falling middle school enrollment. IPS enrollment in the district’s non-charter schools now stands at 21,055, according to state data released last month. In grades 6-8, the decline was 778 students.

Enrollment in charter schools that are part of the district’s Innovation Network of autonomous schools grew by 717 students, shoring up the district’s total enrollment across all school types. Yet total enrollment including Innovation charters still dropped slightly, from 32,212 to 32,126.

The enrollment loss turns up the pressure on IPS in several ways. It means less per-pupil state funding for a district already facing a challenging future. IPS already grapples with a robust school choice environment that is only growing. It faces a fiscal cliff once additional property taxes from the 2018 operating referendum expire in 2026. The decline could draw more scrutiny of the district’s Rebuilding Stronger reorganization that relies heavily on changes to middle schools.

And as the state’s legislative session begins, charter advocates and lawmakers are calling for changes that could wreck the district financially — or even force the district to dissolve entirely, as one bill calls for. The school board, meanwhile, has been meeting regularly in executive session to discuss school consolidation since November.

Still, the district said in a statement that it believes middle school enrollment will rebound, just as high school enrollment has increased to a higher figure than before the 2018 closure and consolidation of several high schools.

And while the district said it expected a decrease in the number of middle school students due to the creation of standalone middle schools, it said middle school enrollment has been trending upward since the statewide count day in October. The data released last month comes from data from count day, the day when schools must record enrollment under state law.

“We’re going to be working very hard to make sure our families continue to see the value of what those middle schools are offering,” said Deputy Superintendent Andrew Strope.

IPS hopes to examine middle schooler departures

Even before the pandemic that exacerbated enrollment declines nationwide, IPS steadily lost students annually at rates of around 3% to 4% from 2016 to 2020.

The district’s Rebuilding Stronger plan adopted in 2022 represents an attempt to right-size the district and spread resources more equitably amid enrollment declines. It includes breaking up K-6 and K-8 schools to once again create standard middle schools for grades 6-8.

But the reconfiguration sparked opposition, particularly from parents of the district’s choice magnet schools who favored the K-8 model. The middle school configuration had a rocky rollout this year — most notably at Broad Ripple Middle School, where over 100 students left after parents complained of an unsafe environment, a lack of communication, and general disorganization.

Still, officials consider Rebuilding Stronger’s expansion of popular academic programs and extracurricular offerings a positive change.

“It is difficult that we lost that many students,” said Patrick Herrell, the district’s director of enrollment. “But in my mind, it is much more important that now all students get this opportunity, and we can build on that success and start growing our numbers.”

At district-run schools, there was a net gain of six students at the elementary school level from last year, in part due to growth in prekindergarten. IPS lost 24 students at the high school level.

The district also considers enrollment at its Innovation Network charter schools as a positive. The district counts the enrollment and test scores at these schools as part of its own, although the Indiana Department of Education separates the two.

IPS said in its statement that schools are increasing recruitment and retention efforts for rising middle school students, including field trips to potential schools for fifth graders.

“Middle school principals have been meeting with families at 5th grade feeder schools, and the district is following up with all middle school families who left the district to better understand their experiences and ensure the improvements we make address families’ needs and concerns as we try to bring families back into IPS,” the district said.

Charter school enrollment is stagnant

Enrollment at charter schools not affiliated with IPS changed minimally, dropping by 46 students from 2023-24. The figure includes charters in IPS borders or those outside of the district that still enroll a majority of IPS students. It excludes adult high schools and blended or virtual schools.

The demographics between charter schools and traditional IPS schools continue to differ slightly. IPS educates a lower percentage of Black students and students receiving free or reduced-price meals than the charter sector, but has a higher rate of students with disabilities.

Upcoming legislative session could pose threat to IPS

Several proposals in the state legislature could compound the district’s problems.

A bill from Republican Rep. Jake Teshka of North Liberty would require districts in which more than half of students living within the district boundaries enroll in a school not operated by the district to dissolve. It would also require those districts’ schools to transition into charter schools. The bill, HB 1136, would in practice dissolve IPS and four other districts statewide, according to its latest fiscal impact statement.

And a new charter advocacy group, the Indiana Charter Innovation Center, will push for charters to receive the same amount of funding from property taxes as traditional district schools receive. IPS is already required to share a portion of property tax revenue with charters — a cost previously estimated at $4 million for this school year — but the proposal would reduce the district’s operating revenue even further.

School board members decried the bill to dissolve the district, saying in a statement on Tuesday that it would destabilize the district’s financial foundation and jeopardize the education of tens of thousands of students.

Teshka’s bill “threatens to cause massive disruption to our public school system, diverting attention and resources away from the vital education and support our students need to succeed,” Board President Angelia Moore said at the meeting.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

NYC girls outperform boys in academics. But they’re unhappier in school.

2024-08-12T21:43:55+00:00

By nearly every academic measure, girls in New York City’s public schools are outperforming boys.

Their four-year graduation rate is 10 points higher. After graduating, they attend college at a rate 11 percentage points higher. They far outpaced boys on 3-8 grade English state tests, while performing similarly to them in math.

Yet despite their academic success, girls report far less satisfaction with their school experiences. A Chalkbeat analysis of responses to the 2023 New York City school survey, a massive annual questionnaire in which more than 350,000 middle and high school students participated last year, found girls report significantly lower levels of satisfaction across a range of questions about students’ classroom experiences and their interactions with peers and adults.

Four in five girls reported feeling stressed during learning in the past year, compared to around three in five boys. And girls were 10 percentage points less likely than boys to report that their teachers noticed when they have trouble learning something, or support them when they’re upset.

While there has been a growing awareness of the school achievement crisis among boys, girls’ struggles at school can be less obvious – and more likely to go unaddressed.

For girls, there’s an “unsaid pressure” to perform well in school, said Camila Sosa, a 17-year-old rising senior at Uncommon Collegiate Charter High School in Brooklyn. For boys, she believes, the message is often, “Thank you for doing us this favor.’”

It’s not just in an academic context that girls report being unhappier in school: They were also seven percentage points more likely than boys to say students at their school harassed, bullied, and intimidated each other, both online and in person.

The problem is particularly acute for Black girls, who reported the lowest level of satisfaction of any race and gender group in 55% of survey questions. Black girls were most likely to say students at their school bullied each other.

By contrast, Asian American girls reported feeling the most academic stress and pressure, and were the least likely to say a teacher would notice when they had struggled in class.

Meanwhile, students who are neither male nor female, a category the Education Department only recently began tracking, reported worse outcomes than male or female students across nearly every question, though only 41 respondents identified themselves to the district as nonbinary.

Experts say the New York City school survey data speaks to broader national trends showing girls suffering disproportionately from the ongoing youth mental health crisis in the wake of the COVID pandemic.

“Girls tend to have higher levels of anxiety and depression,” said Tamar Mendelson, a professor of American health and director of the Center for Adolescent Health at Johns Hopkins University. “And these levels have been increasing.”

A survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 60% of teenage girls reported feeling persistent sadness or hopelessness in 2021, compared to 30% of boys – disparities that inevitably show up in school too, according to educators.

“We can’t feel surprised girls are feeling less safe, less seen, less heard, less treated fairly in school because we live in a society where that’s true,” said Emily Paige, the principal of Urban Assembly Unison middle school in Brooklyn.

Some other students and educators questioned whether some of the divergence in the school survey results could stem from the different ways boys and girls approach questions about mental health and happiness in school.

“Men, a lot of the time, they don’t want to be perceived as weak,” said Mia Gabriella-Bedoya, a 17-year-old rising senior at the Brooklyn High School for Law and Technology. “So they just say like, everything is fine.”

But, whatever the cause, students said the results should serve as a wakeup call for schools to do more to support their female students – and to remember that success in the classroom is no guarantee girls are doing okay.

“You have to acknowledge just the overall biases … in school,” said Sosa. “The normal expectations towards women about how they should dress and how they should act. It needs to be addressed as a whole.”

The Education Department has guidelines for schools on gender inclusion, a citywide gender equity coordinator, and a newly formed Gender Equity Team that will provide schools with professional development on “gender-related access and equity,” according to a spokesperson.

“Ensuring that every student of every gender, [sic] is heard, affirmed, and supported in their educational journey is a priority for New York City Public Schools,” wrote spokesperson Jenna Lyle in an email.

More success in school, but less support

In many cases, girls learn from a young age how to be compliant students — a skill that can bring academic success, but doesn’t ensure their needs are being met, said Chris Emdin, a professor of science education and Maxine Greene chair for distinguished contributions to education at Columbia University Teachers College.

“What we’re finding is that girls, Black girls in particular, learn by the time they get to middle school and high school that their role, in order to be seen as a good student… is actually to enact certain behaviors that are a detriment to [their] mental health, their emotional health,” said Emdin, who is currently conducting research on gender and classroom experiences in New York City schools.

“Even if you‘re getting good grades, you’re still not having your needs met. [You’re] still being ignored. [You’re] still not being paid attention to,” he said.

Boys, by contrast, can soak up a disproportionate share of classroom attention, educators and students said — even if that attention is negative.

“We definitely see that we have boys in our school who make their presence known, make connections with staff and make their needs known really, really well,” said Paige, the Brooklyn middle school principal. “Then we have students who are girls who are much quieter, much less likely to volunteer that kind of information.”

There can be downsides to the disproportionate attention. Boys were twice as likely as girls to be suspended from school during the 2022-23 school year. They were also twice as likely to be classified as having a learning disability, a designation that can sometimes carry a stigma but also brings extra support, including smaller classes and additional teachers.

By contrast, female students craving more attention and understanding from school staff often feel like they have to fight for it, said Sosa, the rising senior at the Brooklyn charter school.

“Most of the time they [girls] have to speak out for themselves,” she said.

Girls bear the brunt of ongoing youth mental health crisis

Girls’ negative experiences in school often begin with the pressures and expectations they face outside of it.

Derry Oliver, a 17-year-old who graduated last spring from Cobble Hill School for American Studies in Brooklyn, said her female friends deal with the “pressures that come with being a woman, such as safety, or what they are wearing, who they can be around, and because of that, it’s harder for them to be in the classroom and focus.”

Derry Oliver, 17, poses for a portrait in Brooklyn in February, 2024.

Those social pressures can be particularly intense and damaging for Black girls, who deal with a combination of racism and sexism in many facets of their lives, said Krystal Folk, a former school social worker in the Bronx.

“What is the idea of beauty? It’s not Black girls,” Folk said. “If you’re not meeting that standard, there’s a lot of internalization happening.”

Girls, particularly Black girls, have also reported feeling disproportionately targeted by school dress code policies.

The rapid growth of social media and the lingering effects of the pandemic have likely worsened the mental health crisis facing girls, educators and experts said.

Some schools reported an uptick in incidents of sexual harassment when students returned to school following COVID-19 school closures, a trend one staffer attributed to kids spending more time online.

But educators said it can also be hard to tell how much of the gender disparities in the school survey data comes from boys and girls experiencing different things in school, and how much comes from the two groups interpreting and talking about those experiences differently.

Anna Nelson, an assistant principal at Bronx Latin, a 6-12 public school, said in her experience there are differences in how male and female students approach the survey. “Girls are more thoughtful and take their time with the [school] survey,” she said. “Sometimes the guys will go through and answer things just like whatever.”

The results also raise questions about whether boys and girls have different definitions of bullying and harassment. Girls and boys who attended the same schools often had very different perceptions about how much bullying takes place in their schools, potentially indicating that they either witness different behaviors, or perceive the same behaviors differently.

Some schools look for solutions

Education Department officials said they began breaking down school survey data by demographics in 2021 to give schools a more granular look at disparities – and allow them to take action.

At Urban Assembly Unison Middle School in Brooklyn, educators, with the help of survey data, noticed that female students were less likely to speak up when teachers simply threw out a question to the entire class, said Paige, the principal.

“The mental health crisis hit particularly with adolescent girls,” Paige said. “If you’re in a group of 25 and are allowing impulse to rule who speaks, those who have more social anxiety might be less likely to speak.”

To address those gender disparities, the school revamped how teachers solicit student participation in class, building in time for students to think about an answer and to share with classmates in smaller groups before opening the discussion to the full class.

Some educators pointed to single-gender settings as another promising approach. New York City has a range of public schools designated for just girls and just boys. The city’s high schools across the board are unusually gender-segregated compared to other large districts. And even within schools, clubs like My Brother’s Keeper or female empowerment groups that provide single-gender spaces can also help, educators and students said.

There are also new efforts to create schools that are affirming for LGBTQ+ and gender nonconforming students, though one such proposal to open a charter school was not greenlit this year.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Liza Greenberg is a senior at the Bronx High School of Science and a student journalist for The Science Survey.

Kae Petrin is data and graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee issues its first letter grades for schools, after revamping formula

2023-12-21T18:31:43+00:00

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The typical Tennessee school received a high C under a new formula the state used to assign its first-ever letter grades to schools, according to data released Thursday.

The long-delayed letter grades from the Tennessee Department of Education satisfy the requirements of a 2016 school accountability law, which has been embraced by Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds as a simple, familiar way for families to assess local schools.

But just before the first grades were issued, Reynolds led a revamp of the grading formula to emphasize academic achievement, or proficiency, over academic growth. The earlier formula, which was never used to publicly assign grades, was more focused on growth.

The late change angered many educators across the state. Schools serving lower-income families in rural and urban communities have been particularly concerned about the prospect of earning lower marks under the new formula.

Schools that receive D’s or F’s do not receive any additional support from the state, but they are expected to face more scrutiny.

Among Tennessee’s 1,690 schools that received letter grades, 3 out of every 4 received a C or better. A Chalkbeat analysis showed that the median grade-eligible Tennessee school earned a 3.2 out of a possible 5 points, or toward the higher end of the C range.

For now, there is no way to directly compare this year’s letter grades with what they would have been under the old formula. The education department has not yet published the state testing data it used to calculate its letter grades.

An analysis from Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the state’s largest district, showed that sticking to the original formula “would have been more favorable,” said Bill White, the district’s director of planning and accountability. He said the district’s analysis also showed that low letter grades matched up to schools with higher proportions of low-income students.

“Many of our students face significant challenges outside of the classroom …,” said MSCS interim Superintendent Toni Williams. “So we need a more comprehensive assessment system that recognizes student growth, family engagement, and the unique context of each school and its students.”

The education department stood by its new formula when announcing the letter grades Thursday. Reynolds called it a “clear rating system” that gives families “a snapshot of how their child’s school is performing.”

Student academic growth is still a component of the new formula, but it is measured differently now. In the new calculation, Tennessee removed the option for schools to increase their grade by meeting individualized academic benchmarks, rather than the statewide targets.

Only 5% of Tennessee’s graded schools received F’s. Half of these schools are located in Memphis, a Chalkbeat analysis found. Most are within Memphis-Shelby County Schools, and six are charter schools operated under agreements with the state-run Achievement School District or the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission.

MSCS accounted for the largest share of F’s among districts with at least 50 schools, but the most common grade for district schools was a C, according to Chalkbeat’s analysis.

Metro Nashville Public Schools received mostly B’s, C’s, and D’s.

School letter grades are published on Tennessee’s State Report Card website. The dashboard offers additional information about how each school scored across the three or four categories that contribute to the overall grades.

Some schools were not graded because they lacked sufficient test data or served only adults.

You can search for grades by school in the table below.

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Kae Petrin is data and graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

Dual credit courses growing in Illinois, but students of color less likely to take them, report says

2023-12-08T12:59:53+00:00

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To help students get a head start with college credits without having to pay college tuition, Zion-Benton Township High School District 126 lets its students take college-level courses on everything from history and political science to culinary arts and cybersecurity.

The courses are a part of the small suburban district’s dual credit program, in which the district’s two high schools partner with College of Lake County to offer courses to students. And there’s significant demand for it: Melissa DiGangi, executive director of academic excellence at District 126, said that the district set up the program because more than half of its students say that they want to attend a two- or four-year college after high school.

“We can provide that first college experience in a safe supportive learning environment,” said DiGangi.

Zion-Benton is far from alone. Due to recent changes in state law in 2021, Illinois high schools were encouraged to expand their dual credit courses. And the share of students who are taking these advanced classes has been on the rise over the past several years: Participation in dual credit courses grew from 10.2% of high school students in the 2017-18 school year to 14% for 2021-22, according to a recent report from the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative.

A separate Chalkbeat analysis of Illinois’ high school students’ participation in dual credit courses between the 2017-18 and 2022-23 school years also found disparities in participation rates between different student demographics

However, the report also found that in Illinois, students of color, students from low-income families, and English learners do not have the same level of participation in dual credit courses as their white, Asian American, and affluent peers. (The report was funded by the Joyce Foundation, which provides funding to Chalkbeat.)

Even within school districts, on average, white and Asian American students have higher participation rates than other racial and ethnic groups, students with disabilities, English learners, and those from low-income families the report found.

Sarah Cashdollar, the report’s author, said that often when schools take steps to expand access, participation increases but gaps along racial and socioeconomic lines tend to widen. She said there are benefits for all students taking advanced coursework in college, but they can be especially helpful for students of color and low-income students.

“There is some evidence suggesting that impacts are especially beneficial for students who historically have been underrepresented as college attendees and college graduates,” said Cashdollar.

Meg Bates, director of Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative, said one reason for disparities could be that school counselors and teachers used to frequently recommend to students that they take advanced courses. Since state law changed in 2021 to automatically enroll students in advanced courses, those disparities might change, but it is too early to tell, Bates said.

State law requires public universities and colleges to accept the credit if a student passes the course. For students from low-income families, this could help them save money on college tuition or prevent them from borrowing student loans. Research also shows that high school students who take college level courses are more likely to attend college in the future.

The report found some bright spots in the state’s participation data between school years 2018 to 2022. For instance, participation rates for Native American, Latino, and English learners grew over that time.

Cashdollar’s research also uncovered a geographic divide. On average, school districts in southern Illinois had a large number of students participating in dual credit courses in comparison to districts in Northern and Central Illinois. Also, there was higher participation in districts located in rural areas and towns than in urban and suburban districts.

State data indicates Chicago Public Schools, the state’s largest district, offers fewer dual credit courses than Advanced Placement courses. A spokesperson for the district said CPS is working to expand opportunities to advanced courses for all high school students, but it is easier for the district to offer Advanced Placement courses.

“There are significant cost and instructional preparation differences between AP and Dual Credit courses with AP courses being more accessible, established, and affordable and still offering students more depth and rigor than traditional high school classes,” said the spokesperson.

Through partnerships with community colleges, high schools can offer dual credit courses in multiple models.

Dual credit courses can be taught by qualified high school teachers, college professors, or college adjuncts at a local high school, on a college campus, or virtually. “In Illinois and nationally, over two-thirds of (dual credit) students attend courses located within their high schools,” the report says.

Sometimes high school teachers are teaching dual credit courses and are labeled as “adjunct college professors.”

DiGangi said that finding teachers with a credential to teach a dual credit course is difficult for school districts. To teach dual credit, a teacher may need to go back to school for additional graduate-level credentials.

“For a math teacher that teaches AP Calculus, they don’t need that,” said DiGangi. “For a math teacher to teach dual credit math, they need to get around 18 graduate hours of mathematics coursework completed.”

Right now, Zion-Benton is working with the College of Lake County to prepare an educator to teach a dual credit math course next fall.

In the past, the district worked to credential three teachers to teach dual credit courses in English and History. Providing these opportunities is easier when school districts partner up with local community colleges.

Zion-Benton’s community college partner, College of Lake County, has found that dual credit courses can be beneficial to institutions of higher education as well. For example, students are more likely to return to the college where they took classes in high school.

The community college with five locations throughout Lake County, works with 24 schools, and provides dual credit courses to about 3,000 high school students.

Sarah Stashkiw, the director of P-20 educational partnerships at Colleges of Lake County, said that of the class of 2022 seniors who took a dual credit course, 30% of those students came back to take at least one course from the community college.

“The more early exposure we can give students to a college experience and college coursework, the more likely they are to be successful long term,” said Stashkiw.

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Los estudiantes inmigrantes están aumentando en Chicago. ¿Las escuelas están preparadas para ellos?

2023-08-24T00:10:00+00:00

Read this story in English.

¿Mami, estamos en casa?

Eso es lo que escuchó Baltazar Enríquez el año pasado mientras repartía comida a migrantes en Union Station: Quien hizo la pregunta fue una pequeña niñita: “Mami, ¿estamos en casa?”

“Estaba a punto de darle unas manzanas”, dijo él. “Su pregunta me impactó. Entonces recordé que yo le hice la misma pregunta a mi mamá cuando llegamos”.

El momento hizo que Enríquez, presidente del Little Village Community Council, se remontara a cuando tenía 3 años y emigró de México a Chicago.

“La respuesta fue la misma: sí, estamos en casa”, dijo Enríquez. “Así que ahora que están aquí, y que están haciendo de Chicago su casa, ¿cómo les ayudamos para asegurarnos de que entienden el sistema?”

Esa niñita era sólo una de los miles de nuevos inmigrantes que estaban llegando a la ciudad. El pasado agosto, el gobernador de Texas, Greg Abbott, empezó a enviar inmigrantes en autobús a Chicago y otras ciudades santuario, una medida que algunos demócratas, incluido el gobernador de Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, tildó de truco político. Desde entonces, más de 12,000 inmigrantes han llegado a Chicago, muchos de ellos en busca de asilo.

Las Escuelas Públicas de Chicago (CPS) no dijeron exactamente cuántos estudiantes inmigrantes se han incorporado al distrito. Sin embargo, CPS experimentó un aumento de poco más de 5,400 estudiantes de inglés durante el año escolar pasado, según los datos de matrícula obtenidos por Chalkbeat.

Gabriel Páez, que empezó a trabajar en el distrito hace una década, dijo que nunca había visto una llegada de estudiantes de este nivel. Actualmente trabaja como coordinador bilingüe en una escuela primaria de Humboldt Park y preside el Comité de Educación Bilingüe del Chicago Teachers Union.

“Tenemos que tratarlo con la urgencia que merece”, dijo. “Los maestros que están intentando prepararse para el próximo año escolar tienen que estar listos para que continúe la ola de llegadas”.

En un comunicado, un portavoz de CPS dijo que el distrito trabaja con cada estudiante para “identificar las necesidades de apoyo sin importar su país de origen”. Pero múltiples maestros y defensores de los inmigrantes afirman que muchos estudiantes terminan sin los recursos adecuados.

Antes de que empiece el año escolar, Chalkbeat Chicago analizó los datos de matrícula y dotación de personal para examinar el panorama de aprendizaje para estos niños. Estos son los puntos clave.

El año pasado la cifra de estudiantes de inglés aumentó en más de 5,000 estudiantes

El distrito determina quiénes son estudiantes de inglés evaluando el dominio de inglés de los estudiantes que proceden de hogares donde no se habla ese idioma.. El aumento en los estudiantes de inglés es contrario a la tendencia general de reducción en la matrícula en CPS.

El aumento del año pasado elevó la cifra total de estudiantes de inglés en el distrito a más de 77,000 el 7 de junio, el último día del año escolar 2022-23. Según estos datos, los estudiantes de inglés representan casi una cuarta parte de la población estudiantil total de CPS.

Es difícil saber cuántos son inmigrantes recién llegados. Los funcionarios del distrito señalan que algunos estudiantes pueden emigrar y ya hablar inglés; otros estudiantes quizás hablan un idioma que no es inglés y son clasificados como “estudiantes de inglés” sin haber emigrado recientemente a Chicago. Por lo tanto, el aumento en estudiantes de inglés no refleja necesariamente la cifra real de estudiantes inmigrantes, pero puede ofrecer una aproximación del tamaño de esa población.

Niños con las mochilas que recibieron en un evento de regreso a la escuela en 2022. Al matricularse, los estudiantes pasan por una evaluación para determinar si hablan otro idioma que no es inglés.

Cuando una escuela matricula a 20 o más estudiantes con el mismo idioma de origen, la ley estatal requiere que la escuela establezca un programa de Educación Bilingüe de Transición, o TBE. Los programas TBE a tiempo completo requieren que los educadores enseñen las asignaturas básicas tanto en inglés como en la lengua materna de los estudiantes. La escuela también tiene que proporcionar enseñanza del inglés como segundo idioma.

El estado monitorea los programas bilingües para determinar si cada escuela está cumpliendo los requisitos. Un análisis de WBEZ en 2020 encontró que más de un 70% de los programas bilingües de las escuelas se quedaron cortos según las evaluaciones del propio distrito.

Pero es complicado cuadrar los datos de matrícula de los estudiantes de inglés con la cantidad de personal que realmente enseña educación bilingüe.

Los maestros bilingües designados se reducen, pero las acreditaciones bilingües aumentan

Páez dijo que muchas escuelas tienen personal que puede hablar con los estudiantes de inglés en su idioma natal y apoyarlos, pero que eso no sustituye un programa bilingüe. En el año pasado, dijo, muchas escuelas han estado operando con un plan de emergencia para atender las necesidades de los estudiantes.

“Eso quizás ayuda a un niño que necesita traducción, a un niño que necesita ayuda para pasar de un salón a otro, o para saber cómo es el edificio escolar”, dijo. “Si tenemos empleados que no son maestros certificados, entran a los salones, y se espera que eso sea la forma para lograr que un niño participe, eso no es lo que él o ella necesita”.

Según un portavoz de la Junta de Educación del Estado de Illinois, para enseñar a los estudiantes en su idioma materno se requiere que el maestro o maestra cuente con una acreditación bilingüe. Otro tipo de acreditación — la certificación de maestro de inglés como segundo idioma — permite que un educador con licencia les enseñe inglés a personas cuyo idioma materno no es inglés, dijo el portavoz.

Un programa de Educación Bilingüe de Transición tiene que lograr ambas cosas: enseñarles a los estudiantes en su idioma materno, y enseñarles inglés.

Los datos disponibles públicamente e internos sobre la contratación de personal muestra una combinación de cosas en las Escuelas Públicas de Chicago. La cantidad de maestros designados como bilingües ha disminuido desde 2015.

Pero según el distrito, en los datos de contratación del CPS se refleja que no todos los educadores que dan clases bilingües han sido designados como maestros bilingües. Este análisis tampoco incluye las escuelas chárter ni las de contrato, porque el distrito no llega cuenta de toda la información de contratación de estas escuelas.

La mayor parte de esa reducción se debe a la disminución en el número de puestos de maestros bilingües a tiempo parcial, según un análisis de datos hecho por Chalkbeat.

Mientras tanto, en octubre de 2022 más de 6,000 maestros tenían acreditaciones en Educación Bilingüe o Inglés como Segundo Idioma (ESL).

Los maestros pueden obtener estas acreditaciones tomando cursos y mediante experiencia docente. Las acreditaciones en educación bilingüe también requieren que el maestro obtenga un diploma en un idioma que no sea inglés o pase un examen de dominio de ese idioma.

Sin embargo, no está claro cuáles de estos maestros utilizan activamente sus acreditaciones en el salón de clases.

El número de maestros con acreditación ha aumentado en los últimos años. El distrito subsidia parcialmente el costo de las acreditaciones de ESL y educación bilingüe, una disposición en el contrato actual del sindicato de maestros de Chicago (Chicago Teachers Union).

Ben Felton, jefe de talento de CPS, dijo que el distrito tiene como objetivo seguir aumentando la cifra de maestros con acreditaciones.

CPS también usa su programa de Residencia Docente para capacitar a maestros bilingües durante un año, atrayendo a personas que quieren cambiar de profesión o a personal de CPS que desea transferirse a un puesto de enseñanza.

“Nuestro programa de Residencia Docente es nuestra forma más segura de invertir en personal bilingüe para asegurar que se conviertan en maestros bilingües”, afirma Felton. “Este año también hemos sentido esta sensación de urgencia, sabiendo que hay recién llegados y necesitamos talento bilingüe, y estamos invirtiendo en eso”.

También es posible que haya personal en las escuelas que habla otro idioma, pero no cuenta con ninguno de estos títulos o acreditaciones.

Los servicios bilingües varían según la escuela y el idioma

La oleada más reciente de inmigrantes a Chicago procede principalmente de Venezuela, donde una crisis humanitaria y económica ha expulsado del país a millones de personas. El idioma oficial de Venezuela es español, pero los estudiantes están llegando a las escuelas con una gran variedad de idiomas y trasfondos culturales.

Por eso, incluso en los barrios donde hay más recursos en español y escuelas con más personal bilingüe, todavía hay retos, afirma Enríquez, el organizador de Little Village, una comunidad predominantemente mexicanoamericana.

Por ejemplo, dijo él, algunos estudiantes migrantes recientes hablan Kʼicheʼ, un idioma hablado por algunos indígenas de Guatemala, y estos estudiantes tienen que desenvolverse en la escuela sin mucho apoyo. Páez también señaló que los estudiantes llegan hablando Kichwa o quechua, el idioma indígena más hablado en las Américas.

El estado también requiere que los programas bilingües enseñen a los estudiantes la historia y la cultura de sus países de origen. Este tipo de currículo es crucial, dijo Andrea Ortiz, directora de organización del Brighton Park Neighborhood Council.

“Como distrito, tenemos que encontrar la manera de invertir y escuchar a nuestros maestros e incorporarlos en la creación de un currículo culturalmente relevante que hable del aumento de familias que se están mudando a la ciudad”, dijo. “Muchas de las familias que vienen son de Venezuela, y hay grandes diferencias culturales entre los venezolanos y otros latinos que están aquí”.

La traducción del currículo también puede ser un problema. El currículo universal opcional Skyline del distrito cuenta actualmente con cursos de ciencias sociales e historia universal traducidos a español para estudiantes desde PreKinder hasta octavo grado. CPS tiene planes de empezar cursos de matemáticas en español a finales de este mes. Este otoño, el distrito dijo que CPS comenzará a desarrollar clases de la lengua española.

Pero eso no resuelve las necesidades de aprendizaje de todos los estudiantes, dijo Kathryn Zamarron, maestra de música en CPS.

“No lo tenemos en urdu, en árabe, en amárico, en vietnamita”, dijo. “Ni siquiera es suficiente en español”.

La maestra sustituta a tiempo completo de CPS, Rebekah Amaya, dijo que los servicios bilingües son necesarios para los niños recién llegados, pero que también ayudarán a otros estudiantes. Ella trabaja en una escuela de Brighton Park, una comunidad predominantemente hispana y latina del Southwest Side.

“Va a beneficiar a los estudiantes que ya han carecido de esos recursos durante mucho tiempo, especialmente aquí en el South Side”, dijo ella. “Esto solo crea un catalizador para que trabajemos más duro para mejorar y aumentar nuestros servicios bilingües”.

Se necesitan servicios de apoyo para trauma y de salud mental

Amaya dijo que las escuelas pueden ser algo más que un lugar de aprendizaje: también son un medio para que los estudiantes se conecten con apoyo social, como comidas gratuitas y servicios de salud. Ella es voluntaria en la estación de policía del Distrito 9 y dice que en su inmensa mayoría, los padres esperan que sus hijos reciban servicios de salud mental en las escuelas.

Pero Amaya también dijo que no todas las escuelas tienen suficientes recursos para satisfacer esa necesidad, por lo que los planes de matrícula necesitan ser intencionales.

“A la larga, va a ser más beneficioso para los estudiantes y su entorno y su salud mental enviarlos a escuelas que puedan recibirlos y sí tengan esos servicios para ellos”, dijo Amaya.

En los últimos años, CPS ha duplicado la cantidad de trabajadores sociales y en el último expediente público de contratación ha presupuestado más de 630 puestos de trabajo social. El distrito también asignó $13 millones en nuevos fondos para enfermeras escolares, trabajadores sociales y administradores de casos en su presupuesto para el año fiscal 2024.

Pero según un análisis de Chalkbeat de la lista proporcionada por el distrito que muestra los maestros con acreditación en agosto, solamente un trabajador social tiene acreditación bilingüe o de ESL. Aproximadamente un 5% de los más de 800 consejeros del distrito y un 28% de los más o menos 250 administradores de casos tienen acreditación en educación bilingüe o de ESL; algunos quizás tengan ambas.

Los estudiantes inmigrantes tienen derecho legal a matricularse, pero aún pueden enfrentar inestabilidad

Este verano, CPS puso en marcha un centro piloto de bienvenida en la Roberto Clemente Community Academy, abierto a los estudiantes inmigrantes que viven en las comunidades de West Town y Humboldt Park. Las familias pueden matricular a sus hijos en CPS, y también conectarse con atención médica, apoyo de idioma y recursos de transporte.

Ese centro de bienvenida es un paso en la dirección correcta, dijo Amaya. Pero dijo que muchas más comunidades necesitan esos servicios. Ella dijo que una buena solución podría ser tener equipos móviles de matrícula, sobre todo teniendo en cuenta los problemas de vivienda y transporte a los que se enfrentan las familias.

“Muchas familias han tenido que viajar en dos o tres autobuses — durante varias horas — para llegar a un trabajo o a un centro médico”, nos dijo. “Es más importante ir a donde las familias están y hacérselo un poco más fácil”.

El alcalde Brandon Johnson habla en una conferencia de prensa en la Roberto Clemente Community Academy antes de la apertura del centro de bienvenida para familias recién llegadas a las Escuelas Públicas de Chicago. Este centro piloto atiende a las comunidades de West Town y Humboldt Park.

CPS trabaja con el Departamento de Servicios Humanos de Illinois y el Departamento de Familia y Servicios de Apoyo en los refugios para coordinar la matrícula de algunos estudiantes en refugios y hoteles, según el distrito.

Pero para las familias que están durmiendo en el piso de estaciones de policía y albergues, sin saber cuándo podrán vivir de forma permanente en otro lugar, matricular a sus hijos puede ser intimidante. Todas tienen la misma pregunta: ¿Qué ocurre si se matriculan en una escuela y luego se mudan al otro lado de la ciudad o hasta fuera de Chicago?

Según las leyes federales, los estudiantes en situación de residencia temporal tienen derecho legal a matricularse, aunque carezcan de los documentos necesarios, como prueba de residencia o historial médico.

Una vez matriculados, los niños también tienen derecho a permanecer matriculados en la misma escuela durante todo el año escolar y a recibir transporte, aunque se muden a otro lugar.

Pero permanecer en la misma escuela podría no ser algo práctico para todos los estudiantes. Zamorran, maestra de música en CPS, también trabaja como voluntaria en los distritos policiales del South Side, y dijo que la amenaza constante de mudarse afecta a los estudiantes. La idea de trasladar a un niño — después del largo viaje que ha tenido que soportar y después de matricularlo por fin en una escuela — puede ser dolorosa, nos dijo.

“Existe esta gran pregunta de: ¿Es esto otro trauma para mi hijo?,” dijo ella. “O sea, decirles: ‘Esta es tu comunidad y tú perteneces aquí’, ¿y luego sacarlos de ahí?”

Se necesita educación, recursos y vivienda, pero, según los defensores, también se necesita un hogar.

Enríquez — el organizador de Little Village — recuerda lo importante que fue ese sentimiento de hogar cuando de niño se mudó de México a Chicago. Por eso, Enríquez dijo que él y otros organizadores continuarán presionando al distrito y a la junta escolar para que les den suficientes recursos y apoyo a los recién llegados.

“Vamos a luchar para asegurar que tengamos una educación de calidad y una representación racial equitativa”, dijo Enríquez. “Y si no nos invitan a la mesa, traeremos nuestras propias sillas plegadizas”.

Chicago is seeing an influx of migrant students. Are schools ready to serve them?

2023-08-16T10:00:00+00:00

Leer en español.

¿Mami, estamos en casa?

That’s what Baltazar Enriquez heard last year as he passed out food to migrants at Union Station: The question came from a toddler: “Mommy, are we home?”

“I was about to give her some apples,” he said. “Her question just hit me. It dawned on me — I said the same question to my mom when I arrived.”

The moment of déjà vu brought Enriquez, president of the Little Village Community Council, back to when he was 3 years old and migrating from Mexico to Chicago.

“The answer was the same: ‘Yes, we’re home,’” Enriquez said. “So now that they’re here, they’re making Chicago home, how do we assist them to make sure they understand the system?”

That toddler was just one of thousands of new immigrants arriving in the city. Last August, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott started busing migrants to Chicago and other sanctuary cities, a move that some Democrats, including Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, called a political stunt. Since then, more than 12,000 migrants, many of them asylum-seekers, have come to Chicago.

Chicago Public Schools did not say exactly how many migrant students have joined the district. However, CPS saw an increase of just over 5,400 English learners during the course of last school year, according to district enrollment data obtained by Chalkbeat.

Gabriel Paez, who first started working in the district a decade ago, said he’s never seen an influx of students at this level. He currently works as a bilingual coordinator at a Humboldt Park elementary school and is chair of the Chicago Teachers Union Bilingual Education Committee.

“We need to treat it with the urgency that it deserves,” he said. “Teachers who are trying to prepare for the upcoming school year really need to be ready for the onslaught to continue.”

In a statement, a CPS spokesperson said the district works with every student to “identify support needs regardless of country of origin.” But multiple teachers and immigrant advocates say many students are stuck without adequate resources.

Ahead of the coming school year, Chalkbeat Chicago analyzed enrollment and staffing data to examine the learning landscape for these kids. Here are the takeaways.

English learners increased by more than 5,000 students last year

The district determines English learners by screening students who come from non-English-speaking homes for their English proficiency. The increase of English learners bucks the overall trend of declining enrollment in CPS.

Last year’s increase brought the total number of English learners in the district above 77,000 as of June 7, the last day of the 2022-23 school year. Based on that data, English learners are nearly a quarter of the total student population in CPS.

It’s difficult to know how many students are recently-arrived migrants. District officials note that some students may migrate and already speak English; other students may speak a language other than English and are classified as English learners without having recently migrated to Chicago. So the increase of English learners doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual number of migrant students, but it can offer an estimate of the size of that population.

Kids wear backpacks they received at a back-to-school giveaway in 2022. As students enroll, they are screened for whether they speak a language other than English.

Once a school enrolls 20 or more students with the same language background, state law requires the school to implement a Transitional Bilingual Education program. Full-time TBE programs require educators to teach core subjects in both English and the native language of those students. The school must also provide instruction of English as a second language.

The state monitors bilingual programming to determine whether each school meets requirements. A WBEZ analysis in 2020 found over 70% of schools’ bilingual programs fell short based on the district’s own evaluations.

But it’s complicated to square the data on English learner enrollment with the number of staff actually providing bilingual education.

Designated bilingual teachers decline, but bilingual endorsements grow

Paez, the CTU Bilingual Education Committee chair, said schools may have staff that can speak with and support English learners, but that’s not a substitute for a bilingual program. Over the last year, he said, many schools have been operating on an emergency basis to address students’ needs.

“It can help a kid who needs translation or a kid who needs help transitioning from one classroom to the next or learning the school building,” he said. “If we have miscellaneous employees who aren’t certified teachers who are coming into classrooms and expected to be the way that child gets to participate, it doesn’t do right by the child.”

To teach students in their native language in a TBE program, a teacher must have a bilingual endorsement, according to an Illinois State Board of Education spokesperson. Another endorsement – in English as a second language — allows a licensed educator to teach English to non-native speakers, said the spokesperson.

A Transitional Bilingual Education program must do both — teach students in their native language and teach them English.

A review of publicly available and internal staffing data shows a mixed bag in Chicago Public Schools. The number of teachers designated as bilingual teachers has declined since 2015.

But not all educators who provide bilingual instruction are designated as bilingual teachers in CPS staffing data, according to the district. This analysis also doesn’t include charter and contract schools, as the district does not track their full staffing data.

Most of that decrease comes from a drop in the number of part-time bilingual teaching positions, according to a Chalkbeat data analysis.

Meanwhile, more than 6,000 teachers have endorsements in bilingual education or English as a second language (ESL) as of October 2022.

Educators can earn these endorsements through coursework and teaching experience. Bilingual endorsements also require the teacher to earn a degree in a language other than English or pass a language proficiency test.

However, it’s not clear which of these teachers actively use their endorsements in the classroom setting.

The number of teachers with endorsements has been on the rise in recent years. The district partially subsidizes the cost of ESL and bilingual endorsements, which is a provision in the Chicago Teachers Union’s current contract.

Ben Felton, chief talent officer for CPS, said the district aims to continue increasing teachers with endorsements.

CPS also uses its Teacher Residency program to train bilingual teachers over a one-year period, bringing in people changing careers or CPS staff wanting to move into a teaching position.

“Our Teacher Residency program is our most surefire way to invest in bilingual staff to make sure they become bilingual teachers,” Felton said. “We also felt this sense of urgency this year, knowing that there are newcomers that we need bilingual talent and we’re investing in that way.”

There also might be staff at schools who can speak a different language, but have none of these titles or endorsements.

Bilingual services vary by school and language

The most recent wave of people migrating to Chicago primarily come from Venezuela, where an economic and humanitarian crisis has driven millions out of the country. The official language of Venezuela is Spanish — but students are walking into schools with a variety of language and cultural backgrounds.

So even in neighborhoods with more Spanish-language resources and schools with more bilingual staff, there are challenges, said Enriquez, the organizer in Little Village, a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood.

For example, he said, some recent migrant students speak Kʼicheʼ, a language spoken by some Indigenous people in Guatemala, and must navigate school without much support. Paez also pointed to students coming in speaking Kichwa or Quechua, the most-spoken Indigenous language in the Americas.

The state also requires bilingual programs to teach students about the history and culture of their homelands. That kind of curriculum is crucial, said Andrea Ortiz, director of organizing for Brighton Park Neighborhood Council.

“As a district, we have to figure out ways to invest and listen to our teachers and incorporate them in creating culturally relevant curriculum that speaks to the increase of families that are moving in,” she said. “A lot of the families that are coming are from Venezuela, and there’s huge cultural differences from Venezuelans and other Latinos that are here.”

Translating curriculum can be an issue too. The district’s optional universal curriculum Skyline currently has pre-K-8th grade courses in social science and world history translated into Spanish. CPS plans to roll out math courses in Spanish later this month. This fall, the district said CPS will begin developing Spanish language arts courses.

But that doesn’t address every students’ learning needs, said Kathryn Zamarron, a music teacher in CPS.

“We don’t have it in Urdu, in Arabic, in Amharic, in Vietnamese,” she said. “It’s not even enough in Spanish.”

CPS full-time substitute teacher Rebekah Amaya said bilingual services are needed for children recently arriving, but will also help other students. They work at a school in Brighton Park, a neighborhood that is predominantly Hispanic and Latino on the Southwest Side.

“It’s going to benefit the students that have already been lacking in those resources for a really long time, especially here on the South Side,” they said. “This just creates more of a catalyst for us to work harder to improve and increase our bilingual services.”

Trauma support and mental health services needed

Amaya said schools can be more than a place of learning – they also are a way for students to connect with social support, such as free meals and health services. They volunteer at the 9th district police station, and they said that overwhelmingly, parents are hoping for their children to get mental health care in schools.

But Amaya also said not every school has enough resources to meet that need, so enrollment plans need to be intentional.

“In the long run, it’s going to be more beneficial to the students and their environment and their mental health to send them to schools that can receive them and do have those services for them,” Amaya said.

In the past few years, CPS has doubled the number of social workers and budgeted for over 630 social work positions in the most recent public staffing file. The district also allocated $13 million in new funding for school nurses, social workers, and case managers in its fiscal year 2024 budget.

But according to a Chalkbeat analysis of the list provided by the district showing teachers with endorsements in August, only one social worker has bilingual or ESL endorsements. About 5% of the district’s 800-plus counselors and 28% of roughly 250 case managers have bilingual or ESL endorsements; some may have both.

Migrant students legally entitled to enrollment, but can still face instability

This summer, CPS launched a pilot welcome center at Roberto Clemente Community Academy, open to migrant students living in the West Town and Humboldt Park neighborhoods. Families can get their students enrolled in CPS, as well as connect with medical care, language support, and transportation resources.

That welcome center is a step in the right direction, said Amaya. But they said so many more neighborhoods need those services. They said mobile enrollment teams could be a good solution, especially given the housing and transportation challenges that families face.

“A lot of families have had to travel on like two or three buses – multiple hours – just to get to a job or just to get to a health care location,” they said. “It’s more important to meet families where they’re at and make that a little bit easier for them.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson speaks at a press conference at Roberto Clemente Community Academy before the opening of a Chicago Public Schools pilot welcome center for newly arriving families. The center serves the West Town and Humboldt Park neighborhoods.

CPS works with the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Department of Family and Support Services at shelters to coordinate enrollment for some students in shelters and hotels, according to the district.

But for families sleeping on police station floors and in shelters, unsure of when they might live permanently, enrollment in school can be daunting. A question looms: What happens if they enroll in a school and then move across the city or even out of Chicago?

Under federal law, students in temporary living situations are legally entitled to enroll even if they lack the required paperwork, such as proof of residency or health records.

Once a child is enrolled, they are also entitled to stay enrolled in the same school for the entire school year and receive transportation, even if they move.

But staying in the same school might not be practical for all students. Zamorran, the music teacher in CPS, also volunteers at police districts on the South Side, and she said the constant threat of movement takes a toll on students. The thought of ultimately transferring a child — after the long journey they’ve endured and finally settling them into a school — can be a painful one, she said.

“There’s this great question of: ‘Is this another trauma to my child,’” she said. “To…tell them: ‘This is your community and you belong here,’ and then take them from there?”

There’s a need for education, resources, and housing — but, advocates say, there’s also a need for a home.

Enriquez — the organizer in Little Village — remembers how important that feeling of home was when he moved from Mexico to Chicago as a kid. So Enriquez said he and other organizers will continue putting pressure on the district and the school board to give newcomers enough resources and support.

“We’re gonna fight to make sure we get a quality education, we get equal racial representation,” Enriquez said. “And if we’re not invited to the table, we’re bringing in our folding chairs.”

Max Lubbers is a reporting intern for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Max at mlubbers@chalkbeat.org.

Kae Petrin is data and graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s TCAP test scores climb for second straight year after pandemic

2023-06-29T19:00:00+00:00

Tennessee’s third set of test scores from the pandemic era improved again across all core subjects and grades, even exceeding pre-pandemic proficiency rates in English language arts and social studies.

State-level results released Thursday showed an overall increase in proficiency since last year for public school students, and a surge since 2021, when the first test scores from the pandemic period declined dramatically across the nation.

But the performance of historically underserved students — including children with disabilities, those from low-income families, and students of color — still lags. Those groups of students, who already trailed their peers before disruptions to schooling began in 2020, also spent the longest time learning remotely during the public health emergency caused by COVID-19.

The latest scores continue the state’s upward trend of pandemic recovery, based on standardized tests under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, also known as TCAP.

The academic snapshot suggests that Tennessee’s early investments in summer learning camps and intensive tutoring are paying off to counter three straight years of COVID-related disruptions.

Gov. Bill Lee called the results “encouraging,” while interim Education Commissioner Sam Pearcy praised educators, students, and their families for their hard work.

“These gains signal that we’re focused on the right work to advance student learning,” Pearcy told reporters during a morning call. “And as a result of that, we know that we will all continue to keep our foot on the gas to keep this momentum rolling.”

Beginning in the third grade, Tennessee students take TCAPs in four core subjects. This year’s students exceeded pre-pandemic levels in English language arts and social studies, while improving in math and science.

As previously reported, Tennessee’s third-grade proficiency rate jumped by over 4 percentage points to more than 40% on tests given this spring. Many of the other 60% have to participate in learning intervention programs to avoid being held back a year under a new state law.

Results for historically underserved student groups reflected both good and bad news.

The good news: Improvement for students of color, children from low-income families, those with disabilities, and those learning to speak English mostly paralleled the gains of their more affluent, white, or nondisabled peers.

The bad news: Tennessee isn’t closing those persistent gaps. Our analysis below focused on overall performance in English language arts.

The statewide data is available online by clicking “2023 State Assessment” on a new dashboard of the Tennessee Report Card.

District-level results, which are being reviewed by district leaders, are scheduled to be released in July.

And for the first time under a long-delayed change to the state’s accountability policies, this year’s TCAP results will be used to help calculate A-to-F grades this fall for Tennessee’s 1,700-plus public schools. The state has deferred the new accountability measure for five years because of testing and data disruptions, most recently caused by the pandemic.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with graphics and analysis.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Kae Petrin is a data and graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

Using charters to fix ailing IPS schools yields instability and inconsistent academic results

2023-04-03T14:51:14+00:00

Early in the 2022-23 school year, Morrise Harbour walked the hallways of a school that he had completely rebranded.

The “Liberty Grove” sign outside the Elder Diggs School 42 building and the new interior paint job marked the latest effort to turn around the K-6 school with roughly 230 students.

But Harbour isn’t the first charter leader who has tried to change School 42’s trajectory. The other one’s tenure didn’t go so well.

In 2017, Ignite Achievement Academy took over School 42 as part of the Indianapolis Public Schools so-called “restart” initiative to improve its academic performance. But five years later, just 4% of students were proficient in English and 4% were proficient in math on Indiana’s ILEARN tests.

Indianapolis Public Schools ended its agreement with Ignite at the end of 2021-22, following a decline in student performance and enrollment. Harbour’s group took over the school last August.

“It’s surprising, to a certain extent, that there are so many students that are just not meeting the expectation,” Harbour said. “And then I also think about, ‘Well, where as the adults did we let the families and students down?’”

Liberty Grove Schools became the new charter operator to take over Elder Diggs School 42 in August 2022 after another charter operator, Ignite Achievement Academy, failed to turn the school around.

Since 2015, IPS has brought on 10 charter operators to turn around nine of its chronically low-performing schools, categorizing them as restart schools within its Innovation Network of schools that are part of the district but have greater autonomy than traditional schools. But their test scores, even when COVID’s disruptions are accounted for, have for the most part improved only slightly or not at all. Two restart operators have been replaced. One restart school has closed. And no school has actually exited restart status.

As local charter schools increase in number and size, the district’s restart model is one way to examine whether the autonomy provided charter schools truly does turn around poorly performing schools. And the 2023 state assessments — which are ramping up in March and April — will provide another stress test for these restart schools.

Before the pandemic hit, passage rates on the state’s third grade IREAD test for the four restart schools that had operated for more than one year increased in some years and decreased in others. The share of students reaching proficiency in both English and math on state exams increased at most restart schools from 2021 to 2022, although the same is true in general for schools statewide as test scores rebounded from pandemic-driven declines.

The state’s switch to a new ILEARN test in 2019, along with the pandemic, affected schools too much to allow for straightforward answers about whether restart schools are working, said Joshua Glazer, associate professor of education policy at George Washington University. Yet he said some things about the effort, like the “vast majority” of students who aren’t proficient on state tests, are clear.

“I don’t think it would be responsible to say, ‘Oh look, these guys have failed,’” said Glazer, who has studied Tennessee’s initiative to pair low-performing schools with charter operators. “But I think what is right to do and what is fair is to ask them [is]: What are you doing to respond to these numbers?”

IPS has no uniform set of goals to decide whether to renew Innovation Network agreements for its restart schools. Instead, the district relies on factors like enrollment and staff turnover when making recommendations about their status to the school board. Innovation agreements for these schools generally include a section on accountability metrics — yet those also vary from school to school.

Reaching a sweeping conclusion about the success of restart schools is complicated, IPS officials say. They argue that each turnaround effort brings its own challenges that might not neatly fit one narrative or set of objectives.

And the Mind Trust, a nonprofit which has helped incubate restart charter operators, argued that restart schools are collectively still outperforming the district’s internal turnaround effort for its lowest-performing schools known as Emerging Schools.

At Liberty Grove, Harbour is trying to change the experience dramatically for students.

“What we want is for the students to know what good teaching and learning feels like, looks like,” he said. “And when they’re going on to high school — or middle school in this case — they’re informed about those things.”

Measuring success varies between schools

IPS has been using the Innovation model as a turnaround strategy since 2015, when it reached a restart agreement with Phalen Leadership Academy to run Francis Scott Key School 103.

‘Restart’ charter schools in IPS

Below is a list of the district’s restart charter schools and the year each operator took over.

Phalen Leadership at Francis Scott Key School 103 (2015-16)
Global Prep Academy at Riverside School 44 (2016-17)
Kindezi Academy at Joyce Kilmer 69 (2016-17 to 2021-22): Not renewed.
Ignite Achievement Academy at Elder Diggs School 42 (2017-18 to 2021-22): Not renewed.
Matchbook Learning at Wendell Phillips School 63 (2018-19)
Urban ACT Academy at Washington Irving School 14 (2018-19 to 2022-23): Not renewed. A non-charter operator will take over School 14 in 2023-24. It’s unclear if the school will be classified as a restart school.
Adelante Schools at Emma Donnan Elementary and Middle School (2020-21): Replaced Charter Schools USA (CSUSA) as operator. From 2015-16 to 2019-20, CSUSA ran Emma Donnan Elementary, which was created to complement the Emma Donnan Middle School that had been taken over by the state and was also run by CSUSA. Emma Donnan was not technically classified as a restart school but constituted a unique turnaround effort. The Innovation agreement for the elementary school was not renewed due to poor staff retention, declining enrollment, and a lack of instructional rigor.
Phalen Leadership Academy at Louis B. Russell School 48 (2020-21)
Path School at Stephen Foster School 67 (2020-21)
Liberty Grove at Elder Diggs School 42 (2022-23): Replaced Ignite as the operator.

Each decision to start or renew an agreement with a restart charter school looks different.

When the school board approved the Innovation agreement with Phalen Leadership Academy to run Louis B. Russell School 48, IPS did not yet have performance goals for the school finalized. Its agreement with Global Prep, however, referenced performance goals set forth in the school’s charter.

When staff recommended the renewal of Kindezi Academy, which became a restart school in 2016-17, they highlighted below-average attendance and staff retention, but also a “strong building culture.” After Kindezi backed out of the district’s one-year renewal option, the district closed the school.

When the district chose not to renew its agreement with Urban Act Academy in 2022, which ran Washington Irving School 14, the percentage of students proficient in both math and English on the ILEARN had risen to above pre-pandemic levels. Even so, just 1.6% of students were proficient in 2022.

Each school has unique factors that officials must consider, said Brian Dickey, the district’s director of Innovation schools.

“All these pieces come together to inform a recommendation that is not just one resolute data point,” he said.

To some, the disparate fates of these schools demonstrate that the restart charter process hasn’t worked as well as it could.

The renewal process has been inconsistently applied from school to school, said Brandon Brown, the CEO of the Mind Trust.

“There needs to be a comprehensive process that is well articulated and consistently used,” he said. “Because if not, there is less trust in the consistency of the renewal decisions if they’re not using a common process each time.”

A bill in the legislature may make the renewal process more uniform. House Bill 1591 would require Innovation agreements to include the process by which the board would follow when determining whether to renew an agreement.

For some restart schools, though, success amounts to more than just numbers.

At Phalen 103, the district’s oldest restart school, Principal Matt Rimer oversaw a culture shift, a change that district staff highlighted when they recommended renewing the agreement with Phalen in 2019.

Yet the percentage of students reaching proficiency in both English and math stood at just 2.1% in 2019, four years after Phalen became a restart school. And Phalen’s IREAD test scores over the years have been up and down.

Still, among the restart schools, Phalen 103 had among the highest growth rates in IREAD pass rates and combined reading and math ILEARN scores from 2021 to 2022.

This year, the school has a new motto: “Never be satisfied.”

“Obviously our goal is to be the same academically as our counterparts in every part of the state,” Rimer said.

Parents attend an open house at Phalen Leadership Academy at Francis Scott Key School 103 before school starts in August 2022.

Navigating the changes new school operators can bring

When Mariama Shaheed talks to Global Prep Academy students, she switches easily between English and Spanish.

The dual-language school joined the Innovation Network in 2016-17, and its test scores have improved recently.

IREAD pass rates are the highest they’ve been in four years at 63%. And the percentage of students scoring proficient in both English and math has inched above pre-pandemic levels, rising from roughly 5.6% to 7.3%.

But that progress hasn’t been easy.

Global Prep took over Riverside School 44, a pillar in the primarily Black community of Riverside that generations of residents had attended.

“When you talk about Spanish immersion, there’s all these fears associated with: What does that mean for the history and culture of Riverside 44?” Shaheed said. “And so a lot of listening was a part of that process.”

Amid the mistrust, Shaheed had to turn around a school that frequently had been rated F on the state’s A-F accountability system.

“It was the hardest work I’ve ever done as an educator,” she said. “You’re changing culture, you’re changing mindsets. The only thing that was stable was the student body — We were all new. They were not.”

Elementary school students walk in the halls of Global Prep Academy in December 2022. Global Prep was tasked by Indianapolis Public Schools with turning around Riverside School 44.

Shaheed attributes the school’s success to a mission-driven approach and a focus on recruiting the right people.

“It was the first time I felt like I had the real freedom to recruit for mission,” she said.

Since Global Prep’s launch, the demographics at School 44 have shifted from a majority of Black students to about 62% Latino and 35% Black, she said. Shaheed hopes to still attract more Black families to the dual-language school through community outreach, letting families in the area know that this school is still open to them despite a change in programming.

Seven miles away, on the district’s south side, Adelante Schools took over Emma Donnan as a K-8 restart school in 2020-21, during the middle of the pandemic.

But Eddie Rangel, Adelante’s executive director, also had to rebuild community trust in the school following problems with the previous operator. Eighth graders, for instance, did not have any foundation in basic math operations, such as multiplication or division, he said.

Two and a half years later, Rangel feels Adelante has established the trust it was seeking.

Ja’Quan Keys, center, reviews science work with eighth grade English language learner students at the Emma Donnan K-8 school on Feb. 15, 2023.

Academic results on IREAD and ILEARN have also improved. Rangel attributes the growth to teacher and professional development, not just a good curriculum.

“It started with the foundations of selecting high-quality instructional materials, but then it also went to developing teachers and then progress monitoring,” he said.

Getting parents and teachers to believe

The data on restart charter schools, though somewhat limited, can provide different conclusions for charter allies and critics.

Restart schools are still outperforming Emerging Schools on state tests, the Mind Trust said: Roughly 3% of students in all Emerging Schools reached proficiency in both English and math last year, compared to about 5% of students in restart schools, according to the group’s analysis.

Dickey of IPS said he hopes that there will be more clarity going forward as the pandemic’s effects recede.

”We are now hopefully in a state where we are now moving out of that and need to be able to ascertain where our schools are trending in that regard,” he said.

At Liberty Grove, Harbour wants longer class times and uses what he calls a “highly vetted curriculum” that he has adopted in the past. He’s also focused on hiring well and monitoring progress throughout the year.

Like other restart schools, Liberty Grove is starting from a place of struggle. But some parents and staff are sticking with Harbour because they’re impressed with his experience.

Makeba Averitte, an art teacher, worked at Ignite for five years but chose to stay on through the transition to Liberty Grove.

“Definitely the relationships with the kids and family is very important,” said Averitte, whose fifth grade daughter attends the school. “They see someone who is there for them.”

Harbour has a clear plan to create a successful school at Liberty Grove. Whether the restart charter model is the surefire panacea for underperforming schools, though, is not so clear to him.

“Is the solution to bring in a whole bunch of new charters to change?” Harbour said. “I think that’s still to be determined.”

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Marion County schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

A hidden divide: How NYC’s high school system separates students by gender

2023-03-22T10:00:00+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

The two schools sharing the Paul Robeson High School campus in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, have much in common. Both serve predominantly Black, Latino, and low-income students. Both focus on equipping students with vocational skills through career and technical education.

But on one measure, the two schools are nearly opposites.

Pathways in Early Technology, or P-Tech, is 72% male, while the Academy for Health Careers is 74% female.

“It’s like we basically can’t have a prom without the other school,” joked Lisa Grevenberg, the principal of the Academy for Health Careers.

The divide in the Paul Robeson campus reflects a striking pattern that has persisted across New York City’s high schools for decades, and sets New York apart from other large districts: High school students in the five boroughs are unusually likely to attend gender-skewed schools.

A whopping 17% of New York City public high schoolers go to a school that’s at least 65% male or 65% female — or, in other words, where boys outnumber girls by at least 2 to 1, or vice versa, a Chalkbeat analysis found. Students here attend gender-skewed high schools at a minimum of three times the rate as any of the next four largest school districts in the country.

In Los Angeles, the country’s second largest district, just 4% of students attend a gender-skewed high school. In Chicago, the figure is 3%.

While the causes of the city’s gender imbalances are complex, Chalkbeat’s analysis shows a large portion of students in gender-skewed high schools attend CTE schools like those in the Paul Robeson campus. About three-fourths of dedicated CTE high schools across the city are highly gender-imbalanced, with the majority of those enrolling more boys, Chalkbeat’s analysis found.

Schools Chancellor David Banks is now poised to expand CTE even further through the rollout of two programs that help schools set up students with paid job experiences before they graduate. The education department hopes the new programs will help ease longstanding gender divides in CTE.

“It is true, our society has pushed boys and girls towards different types of jobs for decades, most notably in the traditional trade programs,” said education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer, noting that the city’s CTE landscape most likely drove the trend uncovered by the data.

The education department is hopeful that the new CTE programs Banks is rolling out along with an existing Computer Science for All initiative can help tackle gender disparities, Styer said.

Overall, 51% of New York City high school students are male, and 49% are female, according to federal data from the 2021-2022 school year. Across New York state, 142 high school students were listed as “not specified” for gender, which could mean they are nonbinary, or data is missing. New York City didn’t record any “not specified” high school students.

The gender imbalances have profound effects on how high schools operate, presenting opportunities and challenges for educators and students.

In some cases, particularly in the roughly dozen schools across the city that are explicitly designed to be single-gender, proponents say the model can create safe spaces to address gender-specific challenges.

It’s “no secret” that Banks, who founded the all-boys Eagle Academy schools, believes “in the experience that single-gender high schools can provide students,” Styer said.

At the Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women, which was created to help propel more girls into math and science, alumni have consistently praised the “community and sisterhood” that developed in a single-gender environment, said Principal Kiri Soares.

In programs that are all or predominantly male, educators like P-Tech Principal Rashid Davis say the gender imbalance allows them to zero in on the specific barriers facing Black and Latino boys, who continue to log the city’s lowest graduation rates.

“My starting point is further away from the spear of success,” Davis said of the population he serves. “It’s a completely different ballgame.”

Some proponents of CTE education argue it’s okay – and even helpful – if vocational training disproportionately helps boys, since boys face yawning gaps in educational achievement compared to girls.

The graduation rate for boys in New York City was 9 percentage points lower than that of girls in the most recent cohort.

Nationally, girls get better high school grades than boys, and now make up roughly 60% of students enrolled in college.

Richard Reeves, a Brookings Institute fellow and author of the book “Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It,” calls for federal subsidies to create 1,000 new vocational high schools as part of a plan to boost boys’ outcomes.

But gender imbalances also can present thorny problems for schools, particularly when it comes to supporting students in the minority group.

“It is tricky in a school that’s predominantly one gender or another,” said Grevenberg, the principal of the Academy for Health Careers. “How do you make sure the other gender feels like they have advocates… How do we make sure they feel they’re not boys at a girls school?”

Critics of gender segregation have for decades voiced concerns that the city’s vocational schools unintentionally reinforce gender divides in the labor market and disproportionately exclude girls from schools that could help lead to higher-paying jobs in fields like technology and computer science.

In a 2008 report titled “Blue School, Pink School: Gender Imbalance in New York City CTE High Schools,” former public advocate Betsy Gotbaum argued “young women are not equally represented in CTE programs, especially those that prepare students for higher-paying occupations.”

Evidence from other countries suggests that gender imbalance in schools is not just a reflection of gender segregation in the labor market, but actually helps create it.

There are also social ramifications of the extreme gender skews.

At one District 75 school for students with significant disabilities that, like much of the rest of the district, enrolls almost exclusively boys, a staffer expressed concerns about the impacts of the gender balance on both boys and girls.

“For our young men, socially it makes it difficult because they’re not interacting with females on a regular basis,” said the staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “And when they do interact with them it’s super aggressive… It’s unfortunate because we’ve had a lot of young ladies transfer out of our schools.”

The pattern has persisted for decades

Gender segregation in New York City’s high schools is not a new phenomenon.

The National Women’s Law Center traced the origins back to the early 1900s, when the city’s Board of Education explicitly prohibited boys and girls from enrolling in the same vocational schools, according to Gotbaum’s 2008 report.

Over the past two decades, New York City’s high school system transformed profoundly through the shuttering of dozens of troubled larger high schools, the opening of scores of smaller high schools, and the introduction of a choice system that allows rising ninth graders to select up to 12 choices from a list of more than 400 options.

Those changes have done little to dent the city’s unusual levels of gender segregation – and have perhaps fueled it.

“The more options you have, the more opportunities there are for sorting on many different dimensions, and gender is just one of those areas that hasn’t gotten as much attention,” said Sean Corcoran an associate professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University, who’s extensively studied New York City’s high school system.

It’s not just CTE schools contributing to the city’s high school gender imbalances.

Arts and music-focused schools that require auditions also lean heavily toward girls, with 11 of 14 audition-only schools across the city qualifying as gender-imbalanced – all in favor of girls, Chalkbeat’s analysis found.

Academically selective schools mostly don’t rise to the extreme levels of gender skew Chalkbeat targeted in its analysis, but they’re not balanced either.

Highly competitive screened schools like Beacon, Townsend Harris, and Eleanor Roosevelt that have traditionally used multiple academic measures to admit students are disproportionately female, with 16 of 27 enrolling at least 55% girls. Specialized academic schools like Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, and Bronx Science that use a single admissions exam, by contrast, lean male, with six of eight enrolling at least 55% boys.

The names of schools alone could play an important role in driving the gender disparities, observers said.

Eighth graders may not have the time or wherewithal to deeply research each school choice, and may end up choosing schools with names that relate to their interests.

“If you look at any of the small schools that have computer and engineering in their name,” they tend to skew heavily male, noted Davis, who led the Bronx Engineering and Technology Academy before taking the helm at P-Tech.

A Chalkbeat review found 24 highly male-heavy schools with names related to computers, technology, or engineering. Another six male-heavy schools had names related to construction or sports. Among highly female-skewed schools, 15 had names relating to the arts or music, while seven had to do with health care.

Gender imbalances create challenges and opportunities

For students and educators in gender-skewed schools, the imbalances can shape everything from academic and extracurricular offerings to the school’s culture and social life.

Jaymee Warren, 18, is the only girl in the welding program at Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, which prepares students for maritime careers, and she has faced her share of challenges.

“If we’re having an open group discussion and I’m about to say an idea, someone will cut me off, and it becomes more about what the guys were saying and their group banter,” she said.

But Warren noted that the school’s staff has worked hard to make girls feel included. Supportive female staffers, in particular, make the student gender balance feel “almost equal because of the way women are empowered.”

On the other end of the gender imbalance spectrum, administrators at the Academy for Health Careers have spent significant effort and resources supporting the school’s male population.

“When I came, the success of the male students didn’t match the success of the girls,” said Grevenberg. “We had a 92% graduation rate for females and 68% for boys.”

Grevenberg brought in community-based organizations experienced in working with boys, offered extra training for her male staffers to act as mentors, and set up after-school workshops specifically for boys. Partly as a result, the graduation rate for boys at the school is now 81%, she said.

Chalkbeat’s analysis only examines gender balance at the school level, which may obscure further gender sorting that happens within schools. But gender imbalances at the school level can be particularly tricky for administrators to manage.

At one District 75 program, for example, there were so few girls that the school couldn’t justify the resources to fund a girls basketball team, said a staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Research on the academic effects of gender segregation isn’t extensive, but a 2017 California State University dissertation found most of the existing evidence points to “a higher proportion of females improv[ing] the classroom and learning environment” for both boys and girls.

Principals have also gone out of their way to attract more applicants from underrepresented gender groups. Gravenberg makes sure to tap male-student tour guides when eighth grade families visit, while Harbor School Principal Jeff Chetirko makes sure to showcase female students at open houses.

But there’s only so much principals can do. While the city education department allows schools to prioritize for admissions purposes applicants from some underrepresented groups, including students from low-income families, homeless students, and English language learners, schools can’t prioritize applicants by gender unless they’re single-gender schools.

An education department spokesperson said the agency is focused on giving students “early and frequent access to careers and workspaces that were not previously on their radar.”

Officials said they’re making progress through the Computer Science for All program, noting 42% of city students who took at least one Computer Science AP exam in 2021 were girls, higher than the national average of 30%.

Warren, the welding student, has no regrets about her high school path and says she’s learned some valuable skills from being the only girl, including “realiz[ing] it’s okay to stand up for myself.”

But Warren’s college plans have taken an ironic twist: One of the schools she’s most interested in, Fashion Institute of Technology, is 82% female.

“Thinking about going to a school with mostly girls really scared me,” Warren said. “But I’ve been able to figure out who I am more, what I want to stand for, and I feel like that really helps me make connections with people now.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Kae Petrin is a data & graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

58% of NYC charter schools shrank during COVID, even as the sector grew overall

2022-12-05T11:00:00+00:00

Before the pandemic, Principal Laurie Midgette’s Brooklyn charter school maintained a waitlist 300 names deep. But over the past three years, demand has receded, and her school’s enrollment has dropped by 16%.

It’s forced her to dial up recruitment efforts, advertising in movie theaters and on bus stops. With more open seats, the school is in the process of enrolling about 35 asylum-seeking students who recently arrived in New York.

“This is definitely, for us, a new phenomena,” said Midgette, who runs Cultural Arts Academy Charter School in Brownsville, referring to enrollment drops.

For years, New York City’s charter schools have been known for their steady growth and long waitlists. Even as the number of K-12 students in the city’s district schools plunged about 9% since 2019, charter schools grew by 8% over the same period.

But that overall growth obscures an important part of the story: 58% of the city’s charter schools shrank over the past three years, not including schools that opened or closed during that time. (The official enrollment data sometimes groups multiple campuses under the same charter school.) Some of the city’s flagship networks are also struggling to fill all their campuses, including Uncommon Schools and Success Academy, the city’s largest charter operator.

“There’s a misconception that charter schools aren’t getting hurt by enrollment during the pandemic. But we clearly, clearly did — no question,” said Ron Tabano, the principal and CEO of John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy Charter School, which saw its enrollment decline 26% over the past three years. (Tabano said enrollment rebounded somewhat this year, though official counts are not yet available for the 2022-23 school year.)

The declines on many campuses also may complicate the sector’s push to lift the current state cap on charter schools in New York City, as new schools would compete to attract a shrinking student population.

The reasons for enrollment declines are complex, and there likely is not one cause. Multiple charter leaders said they’ve seen an increase in families leaving the city, a claim consistent with district data that showed a spike in the number of students who left last year. Others pointed to broader demographic trends, including falling birth rates, and even competition from new charters in certain neighborhoods.

Principal Laurie Midgette

Midgette, the charter school principal, said her staff surveyed the families who left during the pandemic. The same answer came up again and again: The high cost of living, especially rent, “is driving people away,” she said.

Still, the charter sector — which educates about 14% of the city’s public school students — is adding students overall. One source of that growth are grade expansions, such as a K-5 school that launches with kindergarten and adds a new grade each year. Charters that have added grades or opened have seen enrollment increase 37% since 2019, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of state data. About 4 in 10 charter schools expanded or opened over that period.

Among charter schools that are fully built out, however, enrollment has contracted by 4% over the same time frame. (Unlike charters, few district schools are adding new grade levels. But even among those that are, enrollment has fallen overall.)

Falling enrollment can have financial consequences — forcing staff layoffs or cuts to other programs such as clubs or extracurriculars. Charters are privately managed and typically fundraise, sometimes commanding hefty donations, but they depend on public funding that is largely tied to enrollment.

James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center, said maintaining enrollment is crucial, noting that the city’s education department kept school budgets steady for much of the pandemic despite enrollment declines, a boost that charters generally did not have.

“Enrollment is especially important in the charter sector, because in our world there are no hold harmless clauses, supplemental appropriations and legislators won’t be riding over the hill to save us,” Merriman wrote in a statement. Still, he added, “despite the challenging environment, the fact is that charter enrollment grew overall.”

Some NYC charter school networks struggle with enrollment declines

Some of the city’s largest charter networks, which have helped propel the sector’s growth, are also grappling with cooling demand and enrollment declines.

Uncommon Schools, which operates 24 schools in Brooklyn, has seen its enrollment fall by nearly 4% since the 2019-2020 school year. Barbara Martinez, a spokesperson for the network, said that families leaving the city was a “primary reason” for the drop.

“We have seen declines in enrollment like most other NYC schools,” Martinez said in a statement. “We are hopeful that as the world returns to ‘normal,’ that we will see enrollment figures stabilize.”

Success Academy, the city’s largest network with 47 schools, saw enrollment dip about 1% last school year, a notable decline for a network that often boasts of its lengthy waiting lists and whose leaders have previously outlined ambitious plans to reach 100 schools. Still, Success’ enrollment over the past three years has increased nearly 12%, according to state figures. (Success officials said the state data differed from the network’s own enrollment tallies. The network’s data, which Chalkbeat could not verify in state or city reports, still shows a 1% enrollment dip last year and a 9% gain over the last three years.)

“We’ve seen demand slacken in some areas, but we have many schools that are wildly oversubscribed such as our schools in Queens, Bensonhurst and areas of the Bronx,” Ann Powell, a Success Academy spokesperson, wrote in an email. “We intend to expand in those areas.”

In a significant change, Success is also altering its admissions policies next year in ways that could help fill more seats. For the first time, officials are allowing new students from other schools to transfer to Success in the fifth and sixth grades. Network officials previously argued they could not accommodate new students beyond the fourth grade because they might be too far behind.

Powell said the network is making the admissions change because “we’ve gotten more skilled at remediating” and noted that the network has incrementally expanded its backfill policies, though Success remains an outlier as other networks typically backfill across most grade levels.

Ray Domanico, a senior fellow and director of education policy at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, said tweaks to admission policies on top of aggressive recruitment weeks after the school year started indicates that charters are competing for a shrinking pool of students, especially as birth rates have declined.

“They’re getting fewer kids and they want to maintain the size of their network and they want to get the funding they need to keep their teachers in place,” Domanico said. “It suggests that something has changed in the environment, which is that there are fewer kids to go around.”

Enrollment drops raise questions about the NYC charter school cap

Loosening demand for seats complicates a long-simmering argument about whether charter schools should be allowed to continue adding campuses in New York City. Opening new charters while the number of students stagnates or shrinks could create significant financial pressure on existing schools or even lead to closures.

For now, the sector is constrained by a quota on the number of charters that can be issued — 290 — which was reached in 2019. But many charter leaders and advocates have pushed to raise the limit, arguing that families should have many schools to choose from.

“Our goal is to provide an excellent education to the highest number of students possible — and in order to do that, we need to lift the cap,” wrote Jane Martinez Dowling, a spokesperson for KIPP, which has seen its enrollment grow during the pandemic and opened three new schools last year that were approved before the cap was reached.

That argument recently gained a powerful ally: Gov. Kathy Hochul said during a gubernatorial debate in October that she supports raising the cap, a position also held by her (since-defeated) Republican opponent, Lee Zeldin.

Raising the cap may still be a longshot, as many Democratic state lawmakers, who hold majorities in Albany and must approve the change, have resisted the idea. A spokesperson for Hochul did not respond to a request for comment about whether raising the cap is a priority.

Meanwhile, others in the charter sector have been more circumspect, including some small charter operators.

Franklin Headley, the principal of VOICE charter school in Queens, said demand for seats has become less predictable than in the past. With less certainty that all seats would be filled, the school admitted about 70 asylum-seeking children after the school year started.

Headley said it’s important that new charter schools continue to take into account where there is the most desire for seats in the application process.

“Is there parent demand for this?” Headley said. “Anybody who is considering lifting the cap, that’s the question they have to ask.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Kae Petrin is a data & graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

Online enrollment grows in Colorado but some say more accountability is needed

2022-10-11T21:30:52+00:00

When the pandemic first sent Colorado students home from school, Rachael Sheetz worried about the chaos of remote learning, but as the caretaker for her elderly grandmother, she also worried about COVID.

In her search for options for her two teenagers, she landed on Colorado Connections Academy, an online school. She figured they’d been doing online learning for a while and would be better prepared than traditional schools had been.

Today, 2½ years later, her son has returned to brick-and-mortar schooling at a popular local charter with high vaccination rates. But her daughter has stayed online, where she’s getting lots of teacher support and doing work that to Sheetz seems several grade levels ahead.

“I found that kids excel better when they can achieve academics at a pace that is comfortable for them,” Sheetz said. “My daughter has always been a decent student, but giving her more flexibility has helped her excel even more.”

Enrollment in online schools in Colorado grew steadily before the pandemic, then surged as schools shut down in spring 2020, despite overall enrollment in public schools dropping.

In fall 2021, the most recent complete data available, Colorado enrolled 30,803 students in online schools, 50% more than the 20,603 enrolled in fall 2018. Online students now represent about 3.5% of public school enrollment.

Although online enrollment declined slightly from 2020-21 to 2021-22, officials expect more steady growth over time.

School districts, aware of families’ interest, are opening their own new online schools to meet the demand.

Yet much remains unknown about how online schools perform and how they’re managed.

One small district, Byers 32J, has increased its enrollment tenfold in the last decade by opening online charters. It now runs eight of them. That has increased its budget because the district keeps a portion of the state’s per student funds. Some of Byers’ schools posted the state’s biggest surges in enrollment and are the least transparent in data.

Statewide, seven in 10 online schools did not have enough data for the state to issue them a 2022 performance rating.

“It absolutely should be a concern,” said Van Schoales, senior policy director for the Keystone Policy Center. “The unfortunate irony is that online schools claim to be more connected to folks and yet a measure of connectedness is test participation and so it would suggest and reinforce a lot of the national research that online schools aren’t living up to advertising around personalizing instruction for kids.”

Schools meeting the demand

This fall, online school leaders say preliminary enrollment figures seem to show a slight dip again, but numbers still will be well above pre-pandemic levels.

Jeffco set up an online program last school year for families who weren’t ready to return to in-person classrooms, creating flexibility so that students could switch back and forth between remote learning during the year. This year, that program has converted into its own online school, here to stay.

Unlike the district’s Jeffco Virtual Academy, which has long existed, the new Jeffco Remote Learning Program school serves elementary age students too, and requires students to log in to receive live, real-time instruction from about 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

At its peak last school year, the remote school had more than 1,300 students. This year, Principal Kala Munguia expects to have around 700 students. She said last year approximately 60% of students were enrolled because of pandemic health concerns, but this year students are more likely to prefer the learning model. Students who choose her school still want the live interactions every day.

“Our students tend to need or want that collaboration amongst other students,” Munguia said. She thinks more families will be interested in the model, once they learn it’s an option.

Adams 12 also set up a districtwide online program during the pandemic that now has turned into a new school, Five Star Online Academy.

Principal Adria Moersen said that the school was started in real time, or what’s called synchronous, but has since shifted to have more flexibility. Students can choose to be fully synchronous just for the mornings, or for certain days of the week, and now have more in-person opportunities for tutoring and other activities.

The school has about 520 students in grades 2 to 12, down from about 700 last year.

“This year these are students who are choosing online because it works for them,” Moersen said.

The district’s other online option is through Pathways, an alternative education school for older students off track to graduate. Before the pandemic, Pathways was a blended learning program that required most students to attend a few hours in person.

During the pandemic, the school tried allowing all students to be fully online, but found that it didn’t work for most students.

“Ours are students who really need that extra support,” said Principal Matt Schmidt. Still, this year, about 15% of students have been allowed to choose to stay fully online. The school’s model of six-week courses allows the students to opt to be online or in person for each six-week period.

District staff tout that flexibility as they try to reengage students who have left school. Moersen and Schmidt said that for some of their students, having to work or take care of family members means the online options work best.

When Sheetz chose an online school for her kids, she wasn’t sure it was going to work, but being a stay-at-home mom, she knew she’d be around to help them.

Sheetz was thrilled at the flexibility of being able to let her kids wake up later or take a break in the middle of the day to spend time together or run an errand. Still, she encouraged them to participate in some live classes at least once a week.

These are some of the same reasons families for years have chosen online learning. Bernie Zercher’s daughter’s social anxiety made it hard for her to participate in even the limited in-person programming that her siblings used as part of their home-schooling course. The biggest draw from GOAL Academy was more flexibility for her to participate live only as much as she wanted to, and that counselors and other available services could help her through her anxiety.

In four years in high school at GOAL, she’s become more comfortable with in-person activities and interactions, and now takes concurrent college classes in person, has an internship at the school’s multimedia department, and participates in a school music group.

“The GOAL setting was just so much more accommodating for her,” Zercher said. “I don’t know that that’s typical of online schools. I think it’s kind of unique to GOAL. They really were meant as a safety net for a lot of kids that had experienced childhood traumas or other issues.”

Growth makes accountability more important

National data shows that online schools in general have lower student outcomes, including test scores and graduation rates, than do traditional in-person models. Studies of online learning during the pandemic also show students falling behind when they were learning virtually.

Of Colorado schools that tested enough students to report composite SAT scores publicly this year, online schools tested on average 25 points lower than brick-and-mortar schools, out of a 1,600-point maximum.

Of schools that tested enough students to report state CMAS scores publicly this year, online schools tested on average 5 points lower than brick-and-mortar schools on English and 21 points lower on mathematics, out of a 850-point maximum.

Advocates for online schools say that many students who seek an online education weren’t doing well in traditional settings, and may already be starting behind or facing other challenges.

But there also have been questions about the quality of education and how engaged online students are. Back in 2016, an Education Week investigation of GOAL Academy, which at the time was the largest online school in the state, cited internal school data that nearly half of students didn’t log in at all during a typical week.

Zercher isn’t just a parent. As a local business owner, he was tapped to serve on the board of GOAL as the school made much-needed reforms. He agrees with the need for more oversight.

“The whole charter school world is the wild, Wild West of education,” Zercher said. “I have seen some crazy stuff, and crazy disregard for regulations.”

Renee Martinez, supervisor for the state Education Department’s office of online and blended learning, says the state does its best to provide oversight, but has been limited by multiple changes in the law. Some issues are just relayed back to authorizers.

As it does for all schools, the Education Department audits student course loads and credits to ensure districts receive the right amount of money for students, and to ensure that students aren’t being counted as enrolled in more than one school.

There’s never been reason to believe that any school is falsely inflating their enrollment counts, she said.

But, “of course we operate on best intentions, thinking they wouldn’t do that,” she said.

Martinez said her department was also disappointed in how little data on performance there was for online schools this year. This year, online schools were more likely than brick-and-mortar schools to have insufficient data to earn a state performance rating — a growing problem among online schools.

Zercher agrees schools can do something about this and should be held accountable for it.

For example, he thinks that test participation reflects on the relationship of the school with its students.

In his daughter’s case, he said, she was willing to be at the state fairgrounds at 7:30 a.m. for testing because of the relationship with her counselor.

“She loves her counselor and doesn’t want to disappoint them,” Zercher said.

The elementary school affiliated with Colorado Preparatory Academy, an online school run by K12, a for-profit national provider, this year fell to the state’s lowest rating, known as turnaround status. Before the pandemic it had received the highest rating. But the principal cautioned that this year’s rating was based on 18% of students testing.

“This was the lowest participation I’ve seen,” said Nicole Tiley, executive director for Colorado Preparatory Academy.

She surveyed families who opted out and found the main reason families cited for not testing was concern about health and safety. “We are very proactively thinking about how to improve that,” she said.

The schools that have grown the most are the ones we know the least about

The school with the biggest enrollment increase since 2018, Astravo Online Academy High School, is one of eight schools under three brands, all under the umbrella of Colorado Education Solutions and authorized by the Byers 32J school district.

The Eastern Plains school district has made a business of authorizing online charter schools. Less than 10% of its 5,352 student enrollment attend its brick and mortar schools, while the other 90% attend one of its online charters. The district keeps 3% of state per-pupil money before passing on the rest to the schools.

Back in 2014, when the Education Department questioned Byers’ capacity to effectively manage so many online charter schools, Superintendent Tom Turrell wrote in a letter that his district was experienced, and that breaking up big K-12 schools into multiple schools would better help them evaluate how the schools were doing.

Years later, Turrell continues to defend the schools and deny that the large information gaps are problems.

The schools and their operator have existed under several names and brands since they first opened in the fall of 2012. The schools that have websites don’t list their principals or other staff or provide much information about the educational models. There’s just a phone number for a call center and a place to enter your email for more information.

According to a 2016 law, when schools change names, if they aren’t changing authorizers, meaning the district that oversees them, then they aren’t required to seek new state approval, even if they’re making significant changes to their management or learning model.

Since 2019, enrollment in Byers-authorized online schools has nearly tripled and those students now account for 16% of all the online students in the state.

In response to a public records request for the charter application and agreement between Byers and Astravo, Turrell initially said there was no contract. When the contract was provided by the state, Turrell said it had been a miscommunication. When asked again about the original charter applications, Turrell said he believed the application and the contract were one and the same. His school board did vote to approve the schools, he said.

Turrell said as an authorizer of eight multidistrict online schools, he’s not worried about the low participation rates on state tests and doesn’t feel there’s a lack of performance data.

Of the eight online schools authorized in Byers, none had enough data for state performance ratings this year, up from five of nine that didn’t have ratings in 2018. Colorado law requires state education officials to intervene in schools that have low ratings for five years or more, but the state cannot take any action when schools have insufficient data for years on end.

The district’s Astravo Online Academy High School, which experienced the state’s largest increase in enrollment among online schools from 2018 to 2021, hasn’t been issued a performance rating since 2016, in part because of low test participation. The school now has about 1,600 students.

“My kiddos are going to college, they are taking the SAT and PSAT very seriously,” Turrell said.

In fact, only 29% of Byers students pursued postsecondary education or the military after high school in 2021, compared with 55% statewide. Byers has lower-than-average test participation even among other online schools. Each of its online high schools had fewer than 10% of its eligible students take the SAT this year. Turrell said that he’s frustrated that students aren’t allowed to take state tests online.

“It really comes back to that opportunity to utilize an online platform,” he said.

Officials for Colorado’s Department of Education said that they’ve noticed that more schools overall this year had insufficient data to receive a performance rating, but officials haven’t looked into why online schools may struggle most with this, although they may in the coming months as ratings are finalized.

Turrell also doesn’t worry about Astravo Online Academy High School’s high withdrawal rate of 48.3%. In 2019-20, it was the highest in the state. These are students who leave school after the October count day. The school district still collects the money for these students but no longer has the expense of educating them.

The same state report shows that Astravo Online Academy High School also enrolls a lot of students after the state’s count day, even if the school doesn’t receive funding for them. In 2019-20, the school had 231 students withdraw and 622 enroll after count day.

“The data throughout the CDE mobility report are informed by the impact of those late-enrolling students,” Turrell said. “A thorough review of these facts is essential to consider when drawing conclusions.”

The Astravo schools in particular have high enrollment after count day, but most online schools, according to the report, also show enrollment after count day, and it’s also common among other schools.

Colorado Education Solutions has a limited public profile. A lawyer and a consultant for the group answered some questions, but could not point to where the charter network’s school board agendas, members, or meeting dates are posted online for the public.

The group, a charter network, is registered by attorney Brad Miller as a state nonprofit in good standing with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office. The charter network is not a federal nonprofit and doesn’t have to file a Form 990 that would disclose more information about its structure and finances, according to Mary Gifford, a consultant advising the charter network.

Open questions about online schools prompted lawmakers to pass Senate Bill 129 in 2019. The law aims to increase accountability for online schools by requiring that performance ratings follow a school even if it closes and reopens with a new name. It also requires the state to submit annual reports on how often students leave a school after count day, when enrollment for funding purposes is made official.

Martinez said the reports ensure State Board of Education members are more informed about online schools, but they haven’t led to much change.

“We implement the legislation and sometimes when there’s certain things like [Senate Bill] 129, it seemed like it was going to be maybe a game changer,” Martinez said. “In reality the impact wasn’t as significant.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Kae Petrin is a data & graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

How the COVID-19 pandemic is changing school data

2022-07-01T11:00:00+00:00

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted unprecedented, rapid changes in the way states collect, report, and share education data internally, according to a report from the Education Commission of the States.

Many states began gathering new or more up-to-date information on student attendance, whether students were learning online, student access to technology, and other topics.

Some of that information made it into newly created public dashboards. Pandemic relief funding also allowed states to update their data infrastructure, with some states planning to spend millions on new systems.

To understand how states responded to the pandemic’s data challenges, the commission conducted a survey in partnership with education consulting company DataSmith Solutions and the Data Quality Campaign, a national group that analyzes state education data systems.

Thirty states responded to the survey, some saying they plan to permanently change their data collection and reporting practices. However, it’s unclear which changes will stick.

Changing priorities nationwide

The pandemic meant that many of the most common kinds of education data were suddenly unavailable or less useful. In 2020, state standardized tests were canceled, and in 2021, participation was spotty. Attendance data was muddled by students learning virtually. When enrollment fell or students stopped attending class, schools were left trying to figure out where they went and who was likely to return.

Education data systems were crucial to understanding what happened to students during the pandemic, according to senior policy director Claus von Zastrow, who co-authored the commission’s report.

If the pandemic had happened 20 years ago, Zastrow said, it would have been “very difficult to get a handle on what happened, and who was most affected, and what they need.”

Of course, that was still difficult. But state data systems allowed government agencies to share crucial information during the pandemic. For instance, von Zastrow pointed to the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfers program, which provided funds to purchase food as a replacement for free and reduced priced school lunches during virtual instruction.

To administer the program, social service agencies needed detailed attendance data from schools to calculate how many lunches a student had missed. For some states, that meant gathering more specific and frequent attendance metrics.

Before the pandemic, Indiana collected attendance annually, according to John Keller, the chief information officer at the Indiana Department of Education. Indiana switched to daily attendance updates, Keller said, “essentially collecting a million records about attendance every single day.”

That effort, paired with the state’s first time recording students’ home addresses, eventually streamlined the process of sharing information with the Family and Social Services Administration to calculate P-EBT benefits. It also improved the state’s understanding of virtual instruction, which was the original purpose of the data.

Indiana had started modernizing its data system in late 2017. According to Keller, that was crucial to adding daily attendance records.

“Without the modernization legwork that had already been accomplished, there was no way we could have done that,” Keller said. The new system made submitting data quicker, but switching systems was also a time-intensive process that school staff couldn’t have started and completed during the pandemic, he said.

For states that already had a student information system fully in place, like Oregon, the pandemic still disrupted data collection and created new needs.

The state used survey tools to collect data on whether schools were remote, hybrid, or in-person during the 2020-21 school year. It also modified its systems to collect data that will answer longer-term questions about attendance, English learners, and remote learning. Marc Siegel, the state education department spokesperson, said the agency prioritized collecting data that could be used to ensure student safety and well-being.

Investment in future data collection

Pandemic relief funding also freed up resources for states to look forward, making permanent changes to their data infrastructure and exploring new research priorities.

While pandemic aid spending has been notoriously difficult to track, a review of proposed COVID aid spending by the think tank Future-Ed showed that at least 29 states slated relief funding for data systems updates.

Future-Ed noted investments in state data systems that ranged from $55,000 in Washington for tweaks to an existing system to approaching $20 million in states like Florida and Missouri, which both proposed modernizing their data systems with pandemic relief funds.

Colorado budgeted federal funding to transition to a less expensive data system that will be more financially sustainable, according to Marcia Bohannon, the Colorado Department of Education chief information officer. It also used federal funding to create a Data and Evaluation Office, which will help the public understand available data and its constraints and will help districts use their own data.

It’s unclear whether the temporary federal influx of funds went as far in other states. Out of 25 states, 17 said in the ECS survey that they do not generally have the time, funding, or staff to invest as much as they wanted in their data systems.

Nancy Smith, CEO of DataSmith Solutions and co-author of the report, said that she expects a significant number of these changes to be permanent, even in the “big behemoth systems” that tend to change more slowly. Smith hopes that states will continue thinking about data systems as powerful tools for responding in times of crisis — not just tools to collect data for mandatory reports.

Most of the states surveyed by ECS didn’t delay data projects in response to the pandemic — in fact, many projects accelerated.

“Policymakers understand better and want more updates. Hopefully, that remains, and data doesn’t become something in the background again,” Smith said.

Twenty states reported that COVID changed their research priorities for the future. Of those, 79% said they wanted to measure learning loss long-term, 71% said they wanted to look at questions of digital equity like student broadband access, and 67% said they wanted to better understand how student groups were impacted differently by the pandemic.

Keller said that he hopes that Indiana’s policymakers will use the data to drive school policy as the state continues its work to make data collection cheaper and easier for schools.

“The appetite for data is always on the rise,” Keller said.

Kaitlyn Radde is a data reporting intern for Chalkbeat. Contact Kaitlyn at kradde@chalkbeat.org. Kae Petrin is a data & graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

Nonbinary students aren’t reflected in federal civil rights data. That might change.

2022-05-10T11:00:00+00:00

When the Oregon Department of Education announced that it would allow students to record their gender as “X” instead of “M” or “F” in its state-level systems, Corvallis School District changed its own system to match.

But when the time came to report enrollment to the federal Office for Civil Rights, Corvallis encountered a problem. The mandatory Civil Rights Data Collection didn’t allow districts to report nonbinary students, just males and females.

Corvallis’ assistant superintendent, Melissa Harder, recalled receiving an email from the data specialist in the finance department: “The federal government wants me to make a decision on whether or not a student is male or female. And I don’t think I should do that.”

Several districts across the country have faced the same dilemma. But that might be about to change, as the federal Office for Civil Rights has proposed expanding its data collection to include nonbinary students for its 2021-22 report, for which submissions begin this December.

Melissa Harder, the assistant superintendent of Corvallis School District in Oregon. While Corvallis allowed students to record their gender as nonbinary, the federal Office for Civil Rights only allows two gender options: male and female.

If that change happens, it wouldn’t require school districts to collect this data. Still, it would be a significant step toward assembling data on nonbinary students across the U.S. Already, at least 10 states, plus the District of Columbia, allow districts to report a third gender category, and some districts like Denver Public Schools collect that information on their own, too.

Researchers with LGBTQ organizations say that data is crucial to understanding the school experiences of nonbinary students, who report high rates of harassment, bullying, and other forms of targeted discrimination.

Still, it remains unclear how useful the data would be in its early forms — and advocates, researchers, and school officials say even with federal support, districts who want to offer additional gender marker options will still have to navigate disjointed systems that define gender differently.

Why federal data matters

The Office for Civil Rights has required public schools to submit data to the Civil Rights Data Collection every other year since 1968. The exact content changes regularly, but data from the collection has been used to analyze chronic absenteeism, sexual assault, school safety, harassment, and bullying.

The Office for Civil Rights also uses data from the collection to investigate discrimination allegations, review whether schools are addressing nationwide civil rights problems, and develop policies and guidance for administrators. For instance, the office recently quantified continued widespread use of restraint and seclusion for students with disabilities.

Adding nonbinary students would include data on any LGBTQ students for the first time, though the data would still not reflect transgender students who are not nonbinary or LGBTQ students more broadly.

Joseph Kosciw, who directs the research institute at the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, said that the CRDC’s expansion could help answer important civil rights questions, which are currently difficult to research for nonbinary students.

“You want to see — as we do around other identity characteristics — how is school safety? And how is access to education?” he said.

Not everyone agrees the data would be useful or appropriate to gather. Parents Defending Education, a small grassroots group known for opposing critical race theory, objected to the proposal, saying it would “empower schools to actively question and engage with children on gender and sexual identification issues that fall outside of the purview of public schools and are matters to be dealt with exclusively by parents.”

Others are concerned about whether districts can responsibly collect data on nonbinary students. Student privacy advocates at the Center for Democracy and Technology have raised concerns that schools may need more time to consider nonbinary students’ safety and privacy — especially considering the recent flurry of laws passed in Florida, Texas, Alabama, and other states, which restricts LGBTQ+ curricula, trans athletes’ participation in school sports, or transition-related health care.

“This information can be powerful, but also, you have to be just as protective of those students’ rights and make sure that information can never be used against them,” said Elizabeth Laird, the center’s director of equity and civic technology.

Some don’t believe the data would be useful or appropriate to gather. Others believe that it could help answer civil rights questions.

The center also noted, like GLSEN and other organizations, that collecting only data on nonbinary students could mean missing important information about harassment of transgender students.

If the changes do happen, districts that don’t already let nonbinary students use an X gender marker could skip that section when the data is first collected. In the future, all schools would be required to fill out something for nonbinary student enrollment, even if they just indicate that they don’t collect it.

The Office for Civil Rights did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether it has specific goals for future data on nonbinary students or whether it anticipates the number of nonbinary students will be large enough to analyze.

But the office’s statement on the proposed changes argues that the new data would help identify discrimination and “provide a greater understanding of the experiences of nonbinary students.”

To Damien Lopez, the CRDC’s proposal would bolster organizations like Garden State Equality working to improve school experiences for LGBTQ students in New Jersey.

Lopez helps train New Jersey school staff on state law and general best practices for working with LGBTQ students through Garden State Equality’s Safe Schools & Inclusive Curriculum program. In his work, Lopez sometimes hears calls to support trans and nonbinary students dismissed due to limited or nonexistent data at the school level.

“People will say, ‘Oh, but there’s not really those students in the classroom.’ But you don’t know that unless you report the numbers,” Lopez said. “The more that we acknowledge that trans kids are there, then the more that we can support them and create a safe environment.”

Getting an accurate picture

New Jersey is also one of the dozen states currently collecting nonbinary student enrollment numbers. Its most recent tally of nonbinary students statewide: 85.

But estimates from academic research centers suggest there are potentially several thousand trans or nonbinary students in New Jersey. The difference makes Lopez concerned that not enough schools are creating safe environments for nonbinary students to come out.

“It’s sad to see,” Lopez said.

Researchers and experts widely say that they expect school-based initiatives to undercount nonbinary students, and there isn’t a good nationwide estimate of how many nonbinary K-12 students are in schools right now.

The Trevor Project’s 2021 survey of 35,000 LGBTQ youth ages 13-24 found that one in four LGBTQ respondents identified as nonbinary, regardless of whether they also identified as transgender. The Williams Institute also consistently estimates that roughly 0.75% of youth ages 13-17 are transgender, but does not estimate how many LGBTQ+ students are nonbinary.

State youth health surveys, which allow students to anonymously self-identify without making any official changes in their records, often find higher rates of trans and nonbinary youth than other sources.

Survey methods differ between states, so they’re hard to compare; some combine trans and nonbinary student data, while others ask for those identities separately. Across 10 states, anywhere from 1% to 12% of high school students indicate they are transgender, nonbinary, or gender-expansive in these surveys. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that, based on state health surveys in 2017, an average of 1.8% of high school students reported being transgender, specifically.

Some districts, like Chicago Public Schools, have used these youth health surveys to examine health disparities for LGBTQ+ students. That approach has brought Chicago some of the best data they currently have, according to the district’s LGBTQ+ and Sexual Health Program Manager Booker Marshall. But it still has limitations, and Marshall thinks the federal data might offer a clearer picture.

“It’s interesting to be able to get at a federal level — potentially — official numbers on nonbinary students,” they said.

At the same time, Marshall said, any new research from the CRDC would only reflect nonbinary students who specifically want to change their gender marker within their districts’ records — which isn’t everyone. Some nonbinary students who use a chosen name and pronouns with their teachers and other students aren’t interested in using the district’s X gender marker, Marshall said.

“The federal government wants me to make a decision on whether or not a student is male or female. And I don’t think I should do that.”

Crucially, those low numbers could also make the data difficult or impossible to interpret, especially at first.

Newly introduced CRDC data can be tricky to analyze, since not all districts collect and report it, according to American Institutes for Research Principal Researcher Stacey Bielick. Bielick works with the National Center for Education Statistics to improve the quality of the CRDC data.

Researchers may need to take creative approaches to analyzing and aggregating the data, she said.

“It will eventually come into its own, but initially, there’s going to be some issues,” Bielick said.

To Marshall in Chicago, the quality and usability of the data isn’t the only important consideration.

Even if the data isn’t perfect, they said, “It is a big deal to have nonbinary gender affirmed federally for young people.”

For districts, change is complicated

If the federal government allows districts to report nonbinary students, it will be the last piece of the puzzle for school officials in Corvallis, Oregon, where the district and state data systems already allow it.

But for many districts, attempting to add that option means getting tangled in state or proprietary systems they don’t control.

Boulder Valley School District in the Denver suburbs has had a detailed anti-discrimination policy covering transgender students in place for 10 years, and the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice pointed to the district’s policies as an example of best practices.

Even so, students can’t yet list themselves as nonbinary in their records. A representative for the district said that the IT team is still waiting for the state to make changes to its data collection or student information systems.

Ridley School District, which serves about 5,500 students in the Philadelphia suburbs, reports similar limitations.

For districts like Corvallis, federal changes would allow consistency in their collection and reporting of student gender information. But many districts must navigate state or proprietary systems out of their control.

“Our student information system doesn’t currently give us access, and that gets updated by the state requirements,” explained Superintendent Lee Ann Wentzel. “We would have to follow the state’s lead.”

Philadelphia itself added the option for students to identify as nonbinary on its virtual education platforms last year. The state system has a new field to report gender identity.

But Wentzel said that her smaller district could not afford to independently make system-wide changes to how students report the data to their schools. If the Pennsylvania Department of Education required vendors to add a new nonbinary option, her district could use it. Otherwise, Ridley would likely have to report to the CRDC that her district doesn’t collect nonbinary student information, she said.

Wentzel is also a member of The School Superintendents Association, which has been urging the Office for Civil Rights to streamline, rather than expand, federal data collection.

The association questioned in a public comment whether nonbinary student data will be usable or accurate “until we have more flexible state policies that enable and encourage districts to collect and report this data.”

Denver Public Schools modified its student information system in July 2021.

Ongoing changes in Denver and Chicago

Meanwhile, districts who have already made these changes say that they are still navigating how their schools’ systems interact with other platforms.

A Chicago Public Schools official said the district’s Title IX office requested that the CRDC add an option for nonbinary students after the district launched a customized student information system in 2019. Illinois added a similar option this school year, according to the state board.

“It’s difficult for us to navigate when systems are not accepting affirmed names and nonbinary gender markers, because that’s not aligned with our system,” said Marshall, who has coordinated the district’s effort to sync its internal systems with its trans-inclusive policies. “It takes a lot of testing, and a lot of time and resources, a lot of people to implement these changes.”

Levi Arithson, the LGTBQ+ program director for Denver Public Schools, sees the issues with balancing technical changes with students’ needs firsthand.

Denver Public Schools has been grappling with similar problems since it modified its student information system in July 2021. The changes were in large part prompted by online learning systems during the pandemic, according to Levi Arithson, program manager of LGBTQ+ equity initiatives at the district.

Students who went by different names in class were suddenly interacting through online platforms that display students’ legal names. Arithson said schools started contacting him about students having issues with the system.

“Oh, we need to figure this out — now,” they recall thinking.

The initial changes took about four weeks to implement, according to DPS’ product integration team. But the team estimates it researched the options for about two academic years first.

Students can now select from six gender categories — male, female, nonbinary, transgender, other, and prefer not to answer. The district also uses an extensive toolkit to help LGBTQ students understand where their name and gender marker changes show up.

Denver’s primary student information system, Infinite Campus, offers nonbinary student options. Around 650 districts across the country have enabled options besides M or F in Infinite Campus, according to CEO Charlie Kratsch, though that covers a wide range of gender identifiers and includes “other” or “unavailable.”

But adding more specific options can bring complications, too. Officials with both Chicago and Denver say they have had issues with legal names and preferred names not aligning on standardized tests run by the College Board, which administers the SAT and other exams. Mismatches between the districts’ data and the systems that absorb it can cause unexpected problems, like difficulty matching students with the correct accommodations for their disabilities or their test scores.

According to Arithson, it’s an ongoing process to balance these technical changes with students’ needs.

“It’s hard to say, ‘Well, I’m considering students first’ if there’s some type of data complication and the student is getting lost,” they said. “But in my mind, these students have waited long enough to get what they need to be able to feel seen in school and to feel like they can be themselves.”

Marc Long, a product manager at Denver Public Schools, works with vendors to improve students’ experiences.

Product manager Marc Long said the Denver Public Schools product integration team is still working behind the scenes with vendors and other systems to make sure students have a smooth school experience.

“We cannot dictate to other governmental agencies or to third-party vendors what they accept from us as a value,” said Long. “If they require an M or F in the field, we can send them another value, but then they literally just don’t have to consume what we send.”

Right now, Denver sends students’ legal gender markers to the state and federal reporting systems. But the CRDC’s proposed new definition of “nonbinary” wouldn’t line up with Denver’s six options. Long’s team would have to decide whether to combine multiple markers under the federal X, or take another route. Similar problems have taken anywhere from several hours to several weeks for them to address, according to Long’s manager.

To Arithson, the challenges are worth the payoff, and a federal policy change might encourage some of the educational technology vendors to catch up with students’ needs.

“The systems are outdated and they need to be updated,” he said. “We’re human beings living in bureaucratic systems that move slowly. What do we need to do for them to see us and our humanity?”

What type of coverage of LGBTQIA communities in schools is the media missing? Let us know in our short survey.

Kae Petrin is a data & graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

UPDATED: NYC parents, was your child exposed to COVID? Here’s what to do next

2022-01-26T18:51:56+00:00

Once again, New York City parents may be facing questions about when to keep their children home from school or get them tested for COVID as they learn of possible exposures.

To keep more children in school, the city changed its quarantine rules before students returned to classrooms after the winter break. Instead of having schools do the leg work to determine close contacts and who might need to quarantine, the city implemented a “test-to-stay” policy where all students and staff are now given two at-home coronavirus tests when someone in their classroom tests positive.

The city this week announced new rules that take effect Jan. 31, allowing students who test positive to return to school after isolating for five days, instead of 10, as long as they have been fever-free for 24 hours without using medication, their symptoms are improving, and they wear a “well-fitting” mask. That policy had already applied to educators since the break.

Chalkbeat updated its flow chart to help families navigate the policy changes.

Schools only give students at-home COVID kits if they are exposed to someone who is positive at school rather than at home or elsewhere. However, Gov. Kathy Hochul recently promised to provide at-home coronavirus tests to all New York students before midwinter recess, which is Feb. 21 -25 in New York City. (Some schools may offer additional COVID testing programs, and families can receive a PCR test from one of the city’s Health + Hospitals sites.)

Adams has been adamant that he will keep schools open and that campuses are safe.

Only 1 in 120 students or staff developed COVID after they were in contact with an infected person at school this year, compared to a rate of 1 in 7 in a household, city officials said, citing an ongoing health department study. (They did not, however, share the study.)

Despite the efforts of the new policy to keep kids in schools, more than 200,000 students stayed home each day the first two weeks after break, with attendance topping out at 77%. That prompted a shift in policy giving schools more flexibility to mark students present who are home doing remote work even if they don’t have COVID.

Though the omicron variant appears to be loosening its grip, more than 1,700 students and school staffers reported positive coronavirus cases on Tuesday, according to public data.

NYC school COVID testing is falling short, some educators say

2021-12-23T19:03:57+00:00

As city officials investigated whether a slew of positive COVID cases should close down Millennium Brooklyn High School, science teacher Mike Stivers tried to get swabbed on Tuesday during the school’s weekly testing visit.

Stivers and other teachers were turned away. They hadn’t filled out the newly required consent forms three days earlier — before many knew they had been potentially exposed.

By the end of the day Stivers had a scratchy throat. After the school bell rang, he headed to a city testing site where he waited for an hour-and-a-half. The result: positive.

“They left the building with unused tests. It was a real slap in the face,” Stivers said. “There were people who wanted tests, they seemed to have at least some tests to administer, but they wouldn’t do that.”

As outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio warned that the city will see elevated cases through January, educators and families are demanding big changes after schools return from winter break, which stretches from Dec. 24 through Jan. 3. Along with the new year will come a change in administrations, leaving it up to incoming Mayor Eric Adams to decide how to dedicate strained testing resources in schools and across the city.

The current landscape, many say, is unsustainable: New Yorkers lining up in the cold, sometimes for hours, as omicron drives infection rates to above 8%.

Meanwhile, educators say on-campus COVID testing is falling short, with fewer students being tested and staff often turned away. More students and staff are testing positive than ever before, overwhelming the city’s Situation Room, tasked with tracking close contacts, and issuing quarantines and guidance for classroom closures. As of Thursday, there were 11 schools closed. Some campuses saw staffing shortages and asked students to learn remotely.

Michael Mulgrew, the head of the New York City teachers union, recently suggested the United Federation of Teachers wouldn’t support keeping schools open, “if we don’t see that we are getting the testing system that we need to keep our schools and our communities and our children and parents safe.”

“The testing system that we had is now broken,” he said during an interview on NY1 this week.

New York City has been racing to set up more testing sites, with the state and federal governments pitching in resources. At the same time, a Chalkbeat analysis of city data shows that fewer tests are being administered at schools among both students and staff. Last week’s tests were almost 22% lower than the peak in early October.

Most of that dip came from a reduction in staff testing. Between Dec. 13 and Dec. 19, the district recorded under 5,000 tests given to staff members – compared to a high of almost 16,000 the week of Sept. 27 through Oct. 3.

Education department officials said that school staff are fully vaccinated now, and more children have received shots, accounting for the fewer tests.

“Our multi-layered approach to health and safety relies on stopping the spread at the school level. Students are learning safely in person in classrooms every day and will continue to do so,” spokesperson Nathaniel Styer said in a statement.

City officials have promised to conduct weekly testing of 10% of unvaccinated students who consent to testing. Principals say the number of students getting tested has steadily shrunk as more students get vaccinated. Children ages 5-11 became eligible for the shots in November, and schools have hosted pop-up vaccination sites that, in some places, were met with high demand.

Katie Dello Stritto, principal of P.S. 58 The Carroll School in Brooklyn, said up to 150 students used to get tested at her school, which has an enrollment of almost 900. That’s when the city was testing 20% of students last year. During last week’s testing, only 13 were swabbed – and one student was positive for the virus. This week, 10 students were eligible to get tested. Out of those, two of those initially selected were already home with coronavirus.

She said the testing program has dropped students after receiving only one dose of the coronavirus vaccines, even though they’re not fully protected yet.

“We’re masking. The kids wash their hands all the time. We eat outside as much as possible. We check temperatures at the door,” Dello Stritto said. “But we’re not catching it.”

Officials have flip-flopped when it comes to testing adults in the building. After starting the year allowing staff to be tested on site, the city pulled back on testing school employees because everyone was required to be vaccinated. When omicron exploded onto the world stage, with evidence that the variant was causing more breakthrough infections, the city switched gears again to resume testing adults on campus as of Dec. 6.

Under the new policy, city guidance says only 10% of staffers can get tested at school. In order to get tested, staff were required to submit a new consent form, which must be filled out three days in advance.

At Stivers’ school, many teachers were unaware of the switch and only three out of about nine who sought tests on site this week were able to get tested, he said. He and his colleagues have since filed a grievance claiming the department of education has failed to provide a safe workplace.

Educators say there are other reasons why they’re not able to get swabbed while at work. The testing providers sometimes have to wrap up because they’re pressed for time, some said. Indeed, the city’s guidance says providers “must maintain their schedule and must leave at the end of their testing window.”

“They are not permitted to extend their testing window to accommodate staff who want to be tested,” the city’s guidance says.

The city’s testing program wasn’t set up to help curb outbreaks, but more as a spot check for whether layered mitigation measures – including universal mask requirements and increased ventilation – are working.

Anna Bershteyn, an assistant professor of population health at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, said deciding whether to ramp up testing in schools right now is a “tough call.” Schools have so far have largely proven to be safe, and she said she hasn’t seen evidence that has changed.

“It’s really about making sure that school itself is a safe place to be,” she said. “Most likely, based on what we know from before, kids are safer in schools than just about anywhere else.”

But Denis Nash, the executive director of CUNY’s Institute for Implementation Science in Population Health, said the city needs to change its testing policies in the face of omicron. The current policy, he said, “cannot reliably tell us” whether the latest variant is acting the same way in schools.

Excluding those who are vaccinated, and only including those who opt in “leaves major blind spots,” he said. He recommended increasing the frequency of testing to daily and said, “in an ideal world,” students and staff would need a negative test to return to classes after the winter break.

All of that would require immense resources, he acknowledged.

“Resources may need to be diverted from community testing. This would no doubt be very unpopular with many, but we don’t have enough tests for everyone to test as much as they want to. And we’ve decided that a major priority is to keep schools open,” he said. “You need a goal-aligned testing strategy that supports the goal of keeping schools open and safe.”