Chalkbeat

Memphis’ first day of school by the numbers: enrollment improves, but teacher vacancies stagnate

2026-08-03T23:08:48+00:00

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Everything looked business as usual for the first day of school at Hawkins Mill Elementary, a Memphis public school tucked in a woodsy Frayser neighborhood.

Students lined the halls wearing customary white and red. The garden out back sprouted almost ripe tomatoes and eggplants. Posters featuring the school mascot — a hawk, of course — decorated the walls.

But the environment was new to some students, who were rezoned to Hawkins after their neighborhood school closed in the spring. Five Memphis-Shelby County schools shut down at the end of last year, sending over 1,200 students to new buildings on Monday.

Hawkins Mill was the third stop on Superintendent Roderick Richmond’s first-day tour, which also included Westwood High, newly expanded to include students from the closed Chickasaw Middle, and Kirby Middle School, which returned to district control this year from the failed state-run Achievement School District.

“We want to make sure those schools are off to a good start,” Richmond said Monday.

MSCS leaders are facing increased scrutiny this year as the state takeover of Tennessee’s largest public school district continues to play out in federal court. If the takeover is upheld by the judge, a nine-member oversight board appointed by Tennessee Republicans would be charged with improving academic performance and district operations by seizing control of key decisions like budgeting and school closures.

Superintendent Roderick Richmond toured four MSCS schools on Monday to kick off the 2026-27 academic year.

Richmond plans to shutter up to 10 more schools in the next two years, citing high building repair costs and chronic underenrollment as the driving factors. MSCS enrollment declined by over 9% in the past decade, far outpacing state trends.

Kirby and Hillcrest, the district’s two newest additions, have not yet reached enrollment capacity. Kirby has 346 students registered out of 425 seats, while Hillcrest has 311 students registered out of 420 seats, Stacey Davis, the district’s enrollment manager, said.

But MSCS’ overall enrollment is slightly higher this year, at nearly 106,000 as of Monday morning. That’s a couple thousand more than last year’s early number of just over 103,000 but below the district’s projections for this year, Richmond said.

Teacher vacancies stayed relatively steady from the beginning of last school year to this year. Richmond said Monday that around 300 teaching positions are empty, with offers out for 70 of those roles. That leaves about 230 vacancies without pending offers, compared with 226 last August.

“So if we start to add and subtract, I think we’re on pace where we’d like to be,” Richmond said, despite missing his goal of having fewer than 100 vacancies by the start of this year.

As it did last year, the district is filling teacher vacancies with virtual instructors hired through a $4.7 million contract with Proximity Learning. The contract, reapproved in May, paid for close to 100 virtual instructors in the 2025-26 school year, according to district documents.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

As Philadelphia plans to close schools, board members call for more scrutiny of charter enrollment

2026-07-24T18:54:56+00:00

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As Philadelphia moves to close 17 district schools, some Board of Education members say it’s time to put additional scrutiny on charter schools as well.

During a Thursday meeting, Joyce Wilkerson called on the board to analyze the 16 charter schools that operate as part of the city’s Renaissance Initiative. The program turned district schools over to charter operators in an effort to improve them, but largely has not succeeded.

“The time has come for us to get a handle on what’s going on,” Wilkerson said. “We’ve just finished closing district neighborhood schools. I think that we ought to do a similar kind of analysis as we approach the future of the Renaissance charter school program.”

When district leaders launched the Renaissance Initiative in 2010, the schools were meant to operate like neighborhood schools, serving “the students in the surrounding neighborhood or catchment area,” according to district policy. At the time, the district was run by a state-appointed board that favored charter expansion. But as student enrollment shrinks citywide, many Renaissance schools rely on filling their seats with students from outside their neighborhood. That means enrolling kids who might otherwise attend their own neighborhood district-run school, increasing competition for students.

In fact, at half the city’s Renaissance schools, the majority of students came from outside the schools’ catchment, a Chalkbeat analysis of district data for last school year found. The schools must give priority access to students within their catchments, but can open up remaining seats to students anywhere in the city, just like at district neighborhood schools.

Out-of-catchment enrollment is highest at Universal Audenried Charter High School, whose charter the board voted to renew Thursday. Only 20% of students reside in the school’s catchment neighborhood.

“That’s not the reason this school was created,” said Wilkerson. “It’s not the parameters within which it’s supposed to operate.”

Board President Reginald Streater commended Universal Audenried for its improved academic scores in recent years. But he agreed with Wilkerson “that the Renaissance question is a question that the board needs to wrestle with,” adding that members must look into whether the initiative is accomplishing what it set out to do.

Penny Nixon, CEO of Universal Charter Schools, which operates Universal Audenried, said in a statement that the board’s discussion “presents an opportunity for meaningful dialogue about how we, together, can continue strengthening neighborhood enrollment.”

“While we cannot determine where families choose to enroll their children, we remain steadfast in ensuring that neighborhood families have access to our school and that every available seat is used to serve Philadelphia students when neighborhood demand does not fill our capacity,” Nixon said.

The board has tried to limit out-of-catchment enrollment at Renaissance charters by including conditions in their charter agreements that require the schools to enroll mostly students from within their catchments. But schools that don’t meet requirements continue to operate.

Universal Audendried’s previous charter agreement required the school to limit new students for the 2025-26 school year to those coming from its catchment area, or those who were siblings of current students. Though the school failed to meet that condition, the board still renewed it Thursday.

Renaissance charters are largely subject to the same accountability standards as other charters, which focus on schools’ academic and operational performance. The board can move not to renew a Renaissance charter if it does not meet some of those standards, which kicks off a process that can lead to closure. But it cannot close one of those schools unilaterally.

District’s school closure plan left out charter schools

Philadelphia’s district enrollment has shrunk by 13% from a decade ago, largely due to declining birth rates. Fewer kids means district, charter, and private schools are all competing for fewer students.

The district’s sweeping facilities plan, including closing 17 schools beginning next year, is largely meant to help the district adapt to its enrollment decline.

The board voted to approve that plan earlier this year, after months of protest from school communities. But though one-third of Philadelphia students attend charter schools, and the district owns the facilities of Renaissance charters, the district didn’t include an analysis of charter school enrollment or potential plans for Renaissance buildings in its facilities planning process.

District and board officials did not respond to questions about why charter schools were not included.

The district’s website states that “While the District and renaissance charter schools are an interconnected system, the primary recommendations in this plan will focus on District-operated school programs.”

Montessori Charter fights school board over nonrenewal decision

Separately on Thursday, the school board kicked off the process that could lead to closing Philadelphia Montessori Charter School, which is not a Renaissance charter.

The school, which enrolled around 250 students last year, had fewer than 20% of its students score proficient in the state math and reading test last year, both below the district average.

The “student academic growth has not kept pace with state expectations,” said Board of Education Vice President Sarah-Ashley Andrews Thursday. Seven of the nine board members voted in favor of issuing a notice of nonrenewal to the school.

The school appears ready to fight the decision. It filed a lawsuit in May in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court against the district alleging its charter renewal process is unlawful. On Tuesday, the school’s president and two families filed a separate lawsuit against the district in federal court, alleging the district “administered the renewal process in a discriminatory and arbitrary manner” against the school.

Before the vote, Philadelphia Montessori Executive Director Amanda Wilson urged the board to pause their decision as the court cases play out.

“When decisions affect the future of a public school and hundreds of children, the process should inspire confidence that these decisions are being made thoughtfully,” said Wilson.

Philadelphia Montessori is one of several charter schools and charter advocacy groups fighting the district in court over its renewal process.

Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public schools, early childhood education, and issues that affect students, families, and educators across Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org.

Facing state scrutiny, Memphis schools intensify efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism

2026-07-23T21:56:32+00:00

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On an early Thursday morning in July, around 150 Memphis school leaders and attendance staff convened in front of the district administration building, clutching handheld fans and wearing matching visors.

The group, decked out in matching “Recruit, Retain & Reclaim” T-shirts, was heading to northwest Memphis to knock on doors and encourage families to enroll their students in Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

It was the sixth excursion since April for the district’s Greatness At Your Door attendance campaign, this time focused on students displaced by the closure of Lucy Elementary.

MSCS enrollment has suffered in the past decade, declining by over 9%, compared with a 2.5% drop statewide. But the district doesn’t just struggle to get students in the door, it also has trouble keeping them in their seats day after day.

Just over 30% of MSCS students were considered chronically absent in the 2024-25 school year, meaning they missed 18 or more days of school. Statewide, 18.3% of students hit that mark.

The district’s history of high chronic absenteeism is one of four criteria that induced the controversial state takeover of MSCS, which a federal court temporarily blocked at the end of June. Members of the new state-appointed oversight board would be tasked with reducing chronic absenteeism as part of their directive to improve overall district performance.

Students who are chronically absent are less likely to read on grade level by third grade and more likely to drop out of high school.

Final state data for last school year won’t be released until December. But Memphis officials believe, based on internal data, that the district improved its chronic absenteeism rate for the first time in nearly a decade. The rate increased from 13% in 2017 to last year’s decade high.

MSCS has seen the most improvement in reducing absenteeism in younger grades, said Stacey Davis, the district’s director of enrollment and attendance. But high school remains a challenge. In February, nearly 40% of Memphis high schoolers were on track to be chronically absent by the end of the year.

“A lot of our high school students are responsible for the younger siblings because their parents work,” Davis said. “A lot of our high school students need mental health breaks. We’re trying to help them to understand that we’re going to support your needs, but we still need you to come to school.”

The door-knocking campaign is one of the strategies MSCS is bringing back this year to boost enrollment and attendance.

“Putting a face to the name matters,” Eboni Williams, an attendance liaison at Raleigh-Bartlett Meadows Elementary, told Chalkbeat Thursday. “It significantly improves the community’s perspective of us.”

Davis said the team typically targets neighborhoods with low registration and high chronic absenteeism, such as Orange Mound and Frayser. Last year, Greatness At Your Door yielded mixed results across neighborhoods.

Over 1,000 previously unregistered students enrolled in MSCS after three rounds of the initiative. Daily attendance rates increased by around 5 percentage points in Frayser and South Memphis. But in Orange Mound, the rate fell from 78% to 63%.

At a board meeting last Tuesday, MSCS leaders said the daily attendance rate for the district increased by half a percentage point this year to 91.9%. That fell short of their 93.4% goal.

But Cathy Mumphrey, an attendance liaison at Cummings Elementary, said going door to door helps ease parents’ anxieties and identify specific barriers.

“We’re trying to make a connection with those parents,” she told Chalkbeat Thursday. “We’re trying to be that person they can rely on.”

Mumphrey said the staff come equipped with extra uniforms and public transportation vouchers to address barriers that keep students from attending school. They also pass out information about food pantries and mental health services.

During the school year, attendance liaisons are responsible for bridging those gaps in resources and access in real time. Last year, the attendance specialists split their time across multiple schools to cover the entire district.

This year, each of the 69 liaisons will work full time at one of MSCS’ lowest-performing schools or schools with the highest chronic absenteeism rates.

“We realized that we needed full time support at those particular schools,” Davis said.

Attendance liaisons make daily phone calls for absent students, track attendance data and trends, and hold family meetings for students on the cusp of missing 10% of the school year. MSCS charter schools that have had the most success in reducing absenteeism use the same strategy, though they often have more than one person dedicated to the job.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Are more Memphis school closures on the horizon? The state takeover could mean yes.

2026-06-09T19:53:00+00:00

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The state takeover of Memphis schools could lead to more school closures as seen in other seized local districts Tennessee lawmakers are using as a blueprint.

A state-appointed board of managers is set to take control of key decisions for Memphis-Shelby County Schools in the coming weeks. Its members include a former MSCS superintendent who introduced a plan to close almost 30 schools during his tenure that never came to fruition.

School closures have also been an early move for state-selected leadership in Houston and Fort Worth, the sites of two recent state takeovers that Tennessee proponents have often said they want to use as models for MSCS.

The Houston oversight board voted to close 12 schools this summer. And only two weeks after Fort Worth Independent Schools received a letter announcing its takeover last May, the new board voted to shutter 14 schools over the next four years. Seven are set to close by the end of the month.

Both Texas school districts are facing declining enrollment and aging school buildings, issues that MSCS leaders have also zeroed in on this year. Fort Worth has lost over 13,000 students since 2019. MSCS enrollment dropped by 10,000 students in the past decade.

That’s why Mark Sturgis, a longtime Memphis education advocate who leads the nonprofit Seeding Success, said closing schools should be one of the oversight board’s top priorities. He said “seismic” enrollment drops and challenges with high-quality teacher recruitment mean MSCS buildings are often underresourced.

“You have a system that has 200 district-run schools and 95,000 kids. I mean, the math is pointing out that there is a structural challenge there,” Sturgis said. “As you move resources from a school that’s underenrolled and underutilized and you concentrate that, you can actually offer families a really good option when they do transfer.”

MSCS leaders have already started that work. In February, the local board approved Superintendent Roderick Richmond’s plan to close five schools at the end of this school year. Richmond plans to close up to 10 more in the next two years.

Those decisions were met with some backlash from Memphis families and educators, which caused the district to transfer one neighborhood school into a different building last month. But district leaders argue there’s no way to sustain buildings with dwindling enrollment numbers and high facility costs totaling over $1.6 billion districtwide.

Dorsey Hopson, who will take a seat on the new MSCS oversight board, rang the alarm on those issues during his tenure as superintendent from 2013 to 2019. During those six years, Hopson closed 17 schools.

He also presented a plan to close 28 more the month before he stepped down as the district leader for a job at insurance giant Cigna. More than two-thirds of those schools are still open today.

“It’s no secret. We have too many schools,” Hopson told Chalkbeat in 2018. “We just have too many schools whether it’s Shelby County, ASD, charter schools.”

Hopson said then that his main driver for school closures was academics, targeting schools that have failed to reach sufficient proficiency levels. But Chalkbeat found that low enrollment was the common denominator between schools historically shuttered in MSCS, with most of those also falling on the state list of lowest-performing schools.

Hopson did not respond to Chalkbeat’s requests for comment about whether he would bring back plans to shut down dozens of buildings. But Sturgis said the oversight board has the capacity to handle large-scale projects like widespread school closures, unlike the local district. And it’s free from the political pressure of an elected board that often stifles school closure plans.

“We know where a lot of these schools are — it’s where population density is dropping and it’s usually concentrated in a couple board members’ districts,” he said. “It must not feel good if you’re the elected representative to close 10 schools in your neighborhood.”

Domingo Morel, who studies school district takeovers at New York University, said the oversight board is still influenced by politics. But instead of catering to what local voters want, state board members are beholden to the people that appointed them — in this case, top Tennessee Republicans.

“All of these things that communities don’t want, the takeover is going to do,” Morel told Chalkbeat. “And you can impose these decisions on the community without any, at least immediate, repercussions, because the community doesn’t have the ability to vote.”

Recent research shows that state takeovers can also contribute to dropping district enrollment. Houston Independent School District was already experiencing declines before the takeover, but those losses have increased since the 2022-2023 school year, according to a University of Houston report.

Sturgis said he hopes the oversight board spends its first year developing a robust closure plan that includes insight from district and local government leadership. That should also include plans for revitalizing shutdown school buildings, he said, and focusing resources on students who need support most.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

NYC school budgets won’t face cuts next year (for now) despite falling enrollment

2026-06-07T20:14:13+00:00

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Despite shrinking enrollment, New York City schools will not see their initial budgets take a hit next school year.

New York City principals are soon expected to receive their budgets for the 2026-27 school year, and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels gave them a heads up that even if they’re projected to have fewer students, their budgets won’t drop.

Though school budgets are typically tied to student head count, the city began its “hold harmless” policy — propping up school budgets despite enrollment losses — during the height of the pandemic. The Education Department’s coffers were flush with billions in one-time federal relief funding, and officials were concerned about catching kids up after prolonged learning disruptions. So they kept budgets steady even as students left the nation’s largest school system.

Over the past six years, the city has spent $1.6 billion to stave off enrollment-related cuts, according to the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog group. Meanwhile, K-12 schools have lost nearly 10% of students during that time, dropping below 800,000 students this school year — and declines are expected to continue. The decision from Samuels pushes any eventual financial reckoning further down the road.

“Our hold harmless policy began during the pandemic to provide stability amid a crisis—and while we are no longer in a pandemic, stability and predictability remain critically important for our school communities,” Samuels wrote in a Sunday email to principals.

“To that end,” he continued, “we will be holding schools harmless for their SY26-27 initial budget allocations. This investment will provide stability and predictability for school communities as principals plan staffing, programming, and supports for the upcoming school year.”

Some school funding experts warn against allowing budgets to drift away from schools’ actual enrollment, which disproportionately benefits schools that have lost the most students. But some educators and parent leaders note that many schools have come to rely on the money and abruptly removing it could force them to scale back programs such as music and art and let go of teachers.

Plus, cuts are likely to invite backlash and are politically unpopular, especially as Mayor Zohran Mamdani vowed to prioritize funding for public schools on the campaign trail. When former Mayor Eric Adams initially began winding down the program, the blowback ballooned, with families making T-shirts declaring that Adams defunded their schools. Subsequently, Adams decided to keep propping up budgets.

Samuels’ email made no mention of what the city will do midyear, when it will be faced with another inflection point whether to hold schools harmless if their enrollment is lower than anticipated. Again, before the pandemic, the city would claw back money in the middle of the school year if a school’s roster failed to match projections.

But principals this year did not have to give back money despite nearly two-thirds of the city’s roughly 1,600 schools having fewer students than projected. The policy cost the city more than $250 million.

Samuels is expected to testify Monday before City Council on the budget.

“Going forward,” he told principals, “I am committed to engaging with you and your school communities about our school budgets—to ensure both long-term fiscal sustainability and comprehensive school support.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

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

When 2 schools become 1: What gets lost in a merger?

2026-05-07T12:20:11+00:00

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The nation’s largest school system is shrinking, and one way city officials are tackling the drop: ramping up school mergers.

New York City schools enrolled 793,000 K-12 students this school year, down about 15% from the 2019-20 school year, according to Education Department data. The number of students who have left the system during this time is bigger than Philadelphia’s entire public school population. That has left the city’s school system with an increasing number of small schools that may be unable to provide their students with a full array of courses and resources.

Solving the enrollment puzzle is top of mind for New York City officials, especially as the city confronts its own budget problems. But merging schools is not always easy.

P.S. Weekly producers Rayleen Laloi, a junior at The Brooklyn Institute for Liberal Arts, also known as BILA, and Ermione Aleah Raymond, a senior at the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, both experienced school mergers firsthand. They explore what happens to students when two schools become one.

Rayleen talks with Osei Alfred, who attended the School for Human Rights before it became part of BILA last year. The merger changed Osei’s high school experience, for better and worse. He shares insights for schools who might be facing the same situation.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell. It’s available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Reach us at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org. New episodes drop on Thursdays.

P.S. Weekly is made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

Transcript

Rayleen: I was a freshman when I first heard about the merger, and I don’t remember exactly when it was, but there’s always that one girl that somehow knows everything, and she basically came in one day talking about how the school upstairs would be merging with us. When I heard about it, I didn’t really think much about it at first.

Maybe I was just a little excited about a new beginning, but it was kind of just like, the school upstairs is merging with us? Okay.

Welcome back to P.S. Weekly, the sound of the New York City school system. I’m Rayleen Laloi, a junior attending the Brooklyn Institute for Liberal Arts, or BILA.

Ermione: And I’m Ermione, a senior at the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, or known as SLJ.

Rayleen: Today, we’re talking about school mergers. New York City public schools have been facing an ongoing issue with declining enrollment.

According to the Department of Education, public school enrollment in New York City has dropped by about 120,000 since the 2019-2020 school year. That is a lot of students. For context, that number is bigger than Philadelphia’s entire school district, and it’s about a 15% drop over five years.

Ermione: Whoa. That’s huge.

What’s causing that trend, and what do you think you learned about it?

Rayleen: Well, there’s a few different factors that all have come together in kind of a perfect storm. There are five main ones that I found. One, the birth rate is declining. Not as many babies being born means not as many students that need a spot in a classroom.

Two, housing has gotten much more unaffordable here in New York, and more people are leaving the city for places where they can live for cheaper. Three, fewer people are moving from other countries to NYC. Four, during COVID, more people pivoted to working from home, and that became the norm. This meant many people who used to have to work in New York for their jobs no longer had to be there, so that also led to families leaving the city.

Five, charter schools are also growing. While public school enrollment declines, charter school enrollment has gone up 18% since 2020 in the city.

Ermione: Wow, it seems like there’s a lot of dynamic changes occurring within everyday people’s lives.

Rayleen: Yeah, it really is. And I became curious about all this because last year my school, the Brooklyn Institute for Liberal Arts, BILA, merged with the School for Human Rights, SHR.

At the time, BILA had 446 students, and SHR had just 144, and now because my school was so much bigger, the whole school is just called BILA.

Ermione: Well, I had a similar experience in middle school. My school also had a merger. It was a pretty tough and confusing situation.

Rayleen: How so?

Ermione: The two schools didn’t get along, and it ultimately resulted in, like, a lot of fighting occurring.

Rayleen: I do feel like it’s really hard to merge two schools that have their own unique cultures and social structures already established. Back in March, I asked the new school’s chancellor, Kamar Samuels, his plans to make mergers as smooth as possible. This is what he said.

Chancellor Samuels: If some schools are too small, it means that they don’t necessarily have the robust programs and resources for young people.

And so I think mergers can be a tool, but in order for it to be a true merger, it means that both schools have to look at the things that they do really, really well, and then merge those things together. That requires real strong work on the part of the leadership of the school, and to include families and young people in the process.

There are some really tried and true examples of how you can engage in a merger so that it limits the feeling of loss, and it ensures that both communities come together.

Ermione: The thing about limiting the loss feeling is so real.

Rayleen: I feel like every school has their own unique culture, so integrating them is always just a challenge, and I know that because of the declining enrollment situation, mergers like this are only becoming more and more common.

I want to know what’s at stake for people who experience them.

Ermione: I also think it’s interesting what he said about some schools being too small. It makes me think about how we were both sort of the big fish schools in the merger that we experienced. Like, it was a tough position to be in, but I also wonder how it feels to be the small school.

Small schools like SHR get merged, and essentially just sort of get deleted by the bigger school.

Rayleen: Yeah. I was curious about that, too, which is why I sat down with Osei Alfred from SHR. I wanted to talk with somebody from the school that merged with mine, and learn more about the personal impacts of these mergers on students like him.

So what was your grade at the time of the merger?

Osei: At the time of the merge, I was in the 11th grade.

Rayleen: Did you feel like you had a connection to the school? Like, did it feel like your community?

Osei: Honestly, yeah, it really did. I mostly wanna put a lot of emphasis on the teachers and staff because, like, they made it feel like family.

It wasn’t like, “I just work here. I’m just gonna do what I have to do and then go home.” No, they went out of their way to, like, interact with us, and they went out of their way to make sure that we felt welcome.

Rayleen: How did you first hear about the merger?

Osei: Whispers, honestly. It was mostly just whispers on the Area 53 trip.

Area 53 was a... not playground, but it was, like, a mix of things: rock climbing, zip lining, paintballs, arcade. It was one of those places with, like, all three. They had, like, a bunch of different things you could do. But the efforts to kind of mix the schools didn’t really have much of an impact initially.

Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to say, though. We were hanging around with a lot of BILA students, and they were just like, “Didn’t you hear? SHR’s closing down, so this is why they’re having the trip. They’re trying to get us to interact with you guys and, like, become friends.” But I don’t really feel like the trip had much of an impact, initially at least.

Rayleen: So this trip was before the schools even merged?

Osei: Yeah, this was in my 10th grade year.

Rayleen: Hmm. So how did you feel when you initially found out about SHR and BILA merging?

Osei: It was really late in the school year, actually. Everyone was kinda distraught, me especially. I felt like I just found, like, my second home to an extent, and then to find out that it would go from being, you know, just me and maybe, like, what?

A handful of other people to an entire school, like a proper... Not to say SHR wasn’t, like, a full school, but y- you know what I mean. I feel like with the number of students, it makes it a lot more difficult to be as close-knit or as familial as SHR. You can’t really compete with SHR because of the fact that it was such a small school.

Like, there, everyone knew one another, as I said before. You couldn’t go somewhere and not know one of the teachers.

Rayleen: So in one of the documents for the proposal of the merger, it’s mentioned that the School for Human Rights, your school, experienced a 56% enrollment decline starting in the 2019-2020 school year.

Does that reasoning feel true to you for, like, why SHR and BILA merged?

Osei: The class size was really tiny, so it makes sense, honestly. If their enrollment thing is really dropping, it makes sense.

Rayleen: Did you and your fellow classmates have any idea or guesses why the merger was happening?

Osei: We understood to an extent due to, like, we weren’t getting that many students into the school, and we weren’t ha- we didn’t have that many students in general.

And we kind of understood, like, to keep the school open, you needed a certain amount of students, and we didn’t have a lot of students. And it didn’t really help that one of our teachers passed away. Another one left. It, it didn’t help.

Rayleen: If you’re okay with speaking about it, do you feel like that teacher passing away was, like, a big moment in your experience at SHR?

Osei: Yeah. They invited all, like, the entire school to her funeral, but that’s essentially how close we were. Like I said before, everyone there was like family. As long as you went to the school, you knew all the teachers, and all the teachers knew you. And they didn’t just see you as like, “Oh, you’re one of the students.

Oh, well." They saw you as like a actual person. They saw you as a character, you know? So the death really impacted the school heavily. I’m not gonna lie to you. It threw everyone all out of sorts.

Rayleen: I’m sorry to hear that.

Osei: Yeah.

Rayleen: So considering all of these things, did you have any type of mindset going into the merger?

Osei: Honestly, just going into the merger, I was like, I gotta at least make some kind of an effort to be the bridge to bringing people together, you know? I went around, I was just like, “Hey.” Like, I was just introducing myself to people.

Rayleen: Mm-hmm.

Osei: And, you know, I’m not really that, that vocal, but I just went around introducing myself, trying to see how many people I can get to know and just build connections.

Rayleen: Were there any things that you expected to change?

Osei: Waking up, honestly. That was my biggest issue. Like, I knew, BILA, y’all wake up really early to get to school. We got into school at least like, what, 8:50, I think, SHR did. Yeah, we got into school at least like 8:50, around there. And that time change really bothered me.

I’m not gonna lie to you. Waking up early just, yeah. But it was that, and y’all were a lot more strict, I wanna say.

Rayleen: So compared to BILA, like, what was the difference? Like, when were you supposed to arrive at SHR versus when were you supposed to be at BILA?

Osei: I was supposed to arrive at SHR closer to 9:00, honestly.

And then for BILA, you had to be in there at 8:15 on the dot or you’re late. It was bothering me for a while. Like, I would have to wake up, what, 6:00 to get dressed and, yeah. It was hell to wake up even earlier than I wanted to and then drag myself to school. In comparison to SHR, like I could just wake up around my normal time and then get ready.

Rayleen: So try to remember your first day at BILA and, you know, take me through all the details. Were there any standout moments that you could really think of?

Osei: Honestly, I was really nervous, like, like horribly nervous. That’s one of the main things I remember, like vividly. I was stuttering, and I sat down my... I sat down in advisory after they, they gave me my schedule.

I’m looking at it, physics, AP Lang. I’m like, “I’m not s- Who’s doing physics? I never took physics before.” I, most I took was chemistry, and even then I was having a hard time. I had Spanish, Spanish 2. That, I don’t know why. I took, I took Spanish my last year in SHR, which I was grateful for, ‘cause when I saw the Spanish homework, oh, when I tell you.

They had these thick packets for Spanish, and it was just like you had to go through and write full sentences in Spanish. I was not doing that. I’m sorry, I’m not doing that. It was really awkward the first day. Everyone just kind of avoided one another, or they went into the groups that they knew. The only time you really saw a divide was during lunchtime.

You can literally see where the SHR kids and the BIlA kids were kind of like split

Rayleen: So, like, was there any big culture shock? Like, I know you mentioned the, you know, waking up earlier and, like, the schedule initially, but, like, was there any other, like, big culture shocks?

Osei: Besides having to wake up earlier, not really, ‘cause I wanna say BILA and SHR has a pretty similar demographic with it being really heavily Caribbean, whether you’re Jamaican, Trini, Bajan.

It’s pretty heavy with Caribbeans. So it was around the same.

Rayleen: So would you say BIlA students themselves were welcoming to the SHR students?

Osei: Um, no. To start, no. It took maybe, I wanna say three days, and then we started getting a little more integrated. But to start, no. We were heavily segregated, and no one really wanted to be the bridge or go out and interact.

I had, like, one or two friends in BilA from before, so I kind of like just hung out with them to see if I can integrate myself. But it took till maybe day three till you see kids heading from one side to the next and being like, “Oh, what’s your name?”

Rayleen: Mm. Would you say the faculty was welcoming?

Osei: They were a lot more welcoming than I would expect, actually.

Miss Henry was very warm, you know. She tried to replicate that feeling that SHR had, but I still feel like she wasn’t really able to do it due to the school size. Because of the fact that it was such a big school, she can’t really, you know. But she was a very warm person. You know Mr. Monaco?

Rayleen: Yeah.

Osei: Yeah, you have him right now?

Rayleen: Yeah.

Osei: Yo, ask him for a granola bar. That man always has snacks. One of my favorite teachers.

Rayleen: So do you remember BIlA doing anything for the new SHR students to help you guys feel welcomed?

Osei: The trip to Area 53. It was that trip to kind of integrate us, and then there was another trip upstate to, I think, the Poconos or something like that.

But we went, again, zip lining, basketball, just a bunch of sports. I don’t know if you remember it. I think that was another attempt to kind of like integrate SHR and BILA a little more.

Rayleen: Yeah. That trip was pretty early in the year, I think.

Osei: I wanna say that one actually worked ‘cause the, you could see the, um, SHR kids and BILA kids just playing either volleyball or basketball, all that.

Rayleen: So you know how BILA has, like, traditions like BILAOween and, like, the talent show. How did you feel participating in BILA traditions like those?

Osei: It was fun. Being able to participate in those activities kinda made me feel still like I was part of the community. Even though, like, it wasn’t as close-knit as SHR, it’s, it was still a community nonetheless, and it made me feel welcome.

You know, not only being part of it, but being able to run parts of it behind the scenes. Like, I’m part of student council, so I was one of the kids that helped orchestrate the talent shows and record the talent shows. So it was pretty fun, you know?

Rayleen: Yeah.

Osei: Yeah.

Rayleen: So would you say doing these things made you feel like a BILA student?

Osei: Yeah. All the events and the parties, things like that, the trips, it made me kind of feel like I was a lot closer to- Being a BILA student and I thought, you know? Like, I went there, I was like, “Nah, I’m a, I’m an SHR kid. I’m an SHR kid.” Like, we have students now even still saying, “I’m not a BILA kid, I’m an SHR student.

I’m an SHR kid till I die. I don’t claim BILA." But yeah.

Rayleen: So what would you say BILA’s identity as a school was?

Osei: I can’t really tell you that, but I can tell you what I think they were going for, which was unity. They were trying to push the idea of, like, we’re all one school, we’re one coalition in our faces a lot.

So I wanna say that especially with, like, you see the uniform. Well, SHR had a uniform too, but it wasn’t so in your face, you know?

Rayleen: Yeah. Like, could you explain the BILA uniforms just in a little more detail?

Osei: Oh, the BILA uniforms are segregated by grade. So, um, ninth grade you have the bumblebees, which is, like, yellow, and you have black pants, black sweatpants.

Sophomores, they have a dark blue, I think.

Rayleen: Mm-hmm.

Osei: Juniors have, like, a brighter blue, and then seniors get to pick their own color.

Rayleen: So do you remember any incidents that happened after the schools merged that showed the difference or divide between BILA and SHR?

Osei: I was nosy. I was really nosy. There was one or two altercations.

It was just petty, honestly. It was a few petty things that happened. A few petty arguments, falling outs. That’s really about it. Like, some people just stopped being friends with one another. And yeah, anytime someone would get mad, they would be like, “It’s always these SHR kids, always these SHR kids.” Even recently, I realized, like, a teacher had explained to me they’re trying to blame the SHR kids for the grades dropping, which really blew my mind, actually.

Rayleen: That’s really weird. Um, I didn’t even know that, honestly. Is there anything that you would change about BILA that you think SHR might have done better?

Osei: At least at the start, I feel like BILA should have split everyone up, try to integrate the students the best they can by putting the students up into more different classes.

So the SHR kids, you have, like, six of them into a class. This way they all interact with some BILA students, and this way they all kind of integrate them into a different group. It would have been a lot faster integration as compared to if they just had them all in one classroom to themselves. So now we have no reason to go out and interact with other students.

We can just chill with our friend group.

Rayleen: The new school’s chancellor says mergers need to be done in such a way that we limit the feeling of loss. What do you think was lost in the merging of SHR and Bala?

Osei: Honestly, that feeling of like, “Oh, this is my family,” that feeling’s gone. I feel like a lot of teachers do try, especially now, to kind of be a lot more human or show that they are kind of a lot more human, but a lot of kids don’t really see it as that.

Like, even if you were a quiet student back in SHR, you would still feel like family. Cause, like, I knew a kid there, they said, like maybe what? Six words the entire semester, and I knew more about them than I know about half the students in BILA. Like they said about six words, but Ms. Babb and the rest of the teachers, I can’t remember their name for the life of me for some reason, but they all made sure to interact with that student.

I know I’ve seen it. They all made sure to interact. “Good morning. How are you? How’s your mom?” You know, stuff like that. I don’t see that at BILA. I don’t see, “Hey, how’s your family?” But I always got asked, “How is your mom doing? How’s your sister doing?” at SHR. They made it feel a lot more close and personal.

Rayleen: And what are some things that you feel were gained in the merging of SHR and BILA?

Osei: Structure, most definitely. BILA’s a lot more structured in comparison to SHR, whether it be with a schedule, whether it be with trips. They’re a lot more structured. Even for field day, yo, they rented two gaming trucks, had us just play basketball, football, soccer ball, whatever we wanted to do, no structure at all.

You can go wherever. They had a barbecue in the back on the basketball court, clowns. It was just fun. Dumb, but it was fun.

Rayleen: So overall, do you feel like the pros of merging outweigh the cons?

Osei: No, honestly. The feeling of being in, like, an entire family, you can’t replicate that now, and you can’t really bring that back.

It was such a close-knit school. I can walk in there and feel confident knowing that everyone saw me and everyone knew who I was. I wasn’t just, like, a background character in the school, you know? I’m one of the school photographers for a lot of events. I’m also the photographer for a lot of trips. I just see people sit down and, and like, they try to just blend in, but in SHR you were seen, guaranteed you were seen, and I try to make sure that everyone is seen.

Rayleen: So overall, how would you say the merger affected your high school experience?

Osei: The merge kinda gave me two sides to look at. It made me feel like I should’ve really valued SHR a lot more because of the fact that, like I said, it was so close-knit and it was so like, I know you, you know me. I know all the teachers.

They’re really close as compared to BILA, where it’s just like, “You do your work. Okay, go home. Just make sure you have my work in by before the end of the week or you’re gonna get, like, points off. I don’t really care.” That’s, that’s the vibe that BILA kinda gives off.

Rayleen: And is there anything that you think other schools could learn from this merger?

Osei: Try to integrate the students a lot better. Do not have the old school in one classroom because that just emphasizes the segregation a lot more.

Rayleen: Well, thank you for coming, Osei.

Osei: Oh, no problem. Thank you for having me.

Ermione: I feel like what I took away from listening to this conversation is that school mergers are not really easy or smooth. I understand that some schools are too small, but that’s what Osei liked about it. He liked that it felt like family.

Rayleen: Yeah, I really noticed that too. I also think there were choices the school made that really helped.

School spirit events like BILAween and the talent show definitely seemed to help make students feel like it was all one big school. But putting all the new students in a separate class doesn’t.

Ermione: Definitely. I feel like these mergers are becoming more and more common. It’s important to listen to the students who experience them to get a sense of what worked and what hasn’t.

Rayleen: Yeah, I feel like it’s really easy to just hear the words school merger or declining enrollment. It sounds like these abstract concepts, but by listening to students from merged schools, we really understand that these aren’t just buzzwords. These are policies that affect our real lives day to day.

Ermione: Yeah, I completely agree.

Osei: The BILA administration did not respond to our request for comment on the impact of the merger.

Rayleen: That’s all for this week on P.S. Weekly.

Ermione: P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat made possible by generous support from the Pinkerton Foundation.

Rayleen: Producers for this episode were me, Rayleen Laloi.

Ermione: And me, Ermione Aliyah Raymond.

Rayleen: Our senior producer for the show is Maria Robins-Somerville, and our technical director is Jake Lummus.

Our executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw.

Ermione: Additional production and reporting support was provided by Mira Gordon, Sabrina DuQuesnay, Zana Halili, and Katelyn Melville, and our friends at Chalkbeat. Music is from APM and the jingle you heard at the beginning of this episode was created by the one and only Erica Huang.

Rayleen: Thanks so much for tuning in, and see you next time.

We make transcripts available for our episodes as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.

The Detroit school district’s latest tactic to boost enrollment: student influencers

2026-04-08T18:38:54+00:00

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Employing student influencers is the latest strategy in the Detroit school district’s ongoing efforts to grow enrollment in city schools.

District officials unveiled a plan last week to hire 23 students to share positive messages about their schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. The high schoolers will create and share social media content aimed at winning over prospective students and parents, as well as engaging their peers.

The initiative is one of several new ideas the district is considering to reverse a 20-year trend of dwindling enrollment.

“Our students are at the center of everything that we do,” said Sharlonda Buckman, assistant superintendent of Family and Community Engagement, during last week’s meeting. “They have real stories, real accomplishments, real growth.”

When families hear students’ stories and see possibilities for their children, their perceptions about the district may shift, Buckman added.

Applications for the student influencers have already opened. One student from each of the district’s high schools will be selected to take on the task. If approved by the board, the influencers will be assigned content and events to promote each month on rotating schedules, earning $250 each month they post.

Many factors have contributed to enrollment declines, including a shrinking population in Detroit, lower birthrates, state emergency management of the district, and COVID. The district also competes with charter schools, which enroll about half of kids in the city, as well as suburban districts that heavily recruit Detroit students.

Traditional strategies to attract students – including canvassing neighborhoods, hosting Summer on the Block events, expanding prekindergarten, focusing on reenrollment rates, and putting up billboards – have produced modest results, according to the district.

The district estimates it currently has more than 49,200 students – an increase of about 400 compared to the official count at the end of last school year.

Last summer, board members asked the district to come up with innovative, cost-efficient ways to drive enrollment more rapidly.

Board member Monique Bryant said during a July committee meeting she wanted to see students tell the stories of their own schools.

“I think we have an opportunity to use our students more, and I think we get more bang for our buck than what we’re spending now,” she said.

Students and parents would be ‘brand ambassadors’ for their schools

Overall, the district’s plan to boost enrollment is to shape the public’s perception of DPSCD to be more positive, increasing awareness of its schools with targeted advertising and connecting with more families in the city.

Marketing research supports the board’s idea to center student voices to reach those goals, district officials said.

In a survey of about 300 people conducted by the district, about 30% said they wanted to see student success stories, said Deputy Executive Marketing Director Jessica Byrd.

In addition to winning over parents, students also want to see themselves in district messaging, Byrd said. By partnering with high schoolers who are gifted at reaching peers on social media, the district will reach more potential students, she added.

“They bring their audience to our platforms, and that’s essentially what we want,” Byrd said.

The influencers will participate in monthly content creation workshops with the marketing team. They will post both on the district’s social media and their own.

DPSCD also proposes hiring 10 to 15 parent and community ambassadors to “counter negative perceptions and amplify enrollment messaging.” The presentation did not include how much the ambassadors would be paid.

The ambassadors may be people who are trusted by their communities, such as church leaders, block club presidents, and parents of students in the district. They will have monthly themes for their messaging, including safety, the district’s gains in literacy achievement, and career and technical education programs.

The district has relied on volunteer ambassadors in previous years, with slightly different roles. In the past, ambassadors represented the district at community and school events.

This year, the district proposes spending nearly $42,000 on both the student influencers and the community ambassadors.

In total, the marketing plan, including other new initiatives such as web content managers, would cost around $1.4 million, according to the district’s presentation.

The district will continue its traditional enrollment campaigns, including canvassing, yard signs, and events.

Board members at last week’s meeting said they were pleased with the new plans, which would be funded in the district’s budget for the next fiscal year. The board must approve a budget by June 30.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

This Colorado school district is losing students. Will new preschool options help?

2026-03-26T22:14:38+00:00

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One wing of Bradford Elementary in Pueblo School District 60 is dead silent in the middle of the school day. A darkened classroom at the end of the hallway doubles as a storage room, with a wooden play oven peeping over a jumble of furniture and boxes.

The lifeless hallway is a sign of declining enrollment in the district but also represents one of the building blocks of an ambitious — and at times contentious — plan to repurpose several school buildings for new uses, including preschool.

Bradford, which this year has one preschool classroom and 215 students, will cease being an elementary school next fall and re-open as a preschool center and community resource hub. Four miles away, Heritage Elementary will house a second new preschool center while continuing to serve kindergarten through fifth grade students. Both buildings will get renovations this summer.

Like most Colorado communities, Pueblo County has a shortage of licensed child care. There are only enough seats for just over a quarter of children under 6, according to a 2025 report from Common Sense Institute.

Pueblo 60, which has about 13,500 students, isn’t alone in its early childhood expansion aspirations. A number of Colorado districts, including large ones like Cherry Creek and small ones like Garfield RE-2 and Weld RE-8, have recently added or plan to add new preschool slots.

Especially since the 2023 launch of Colorado’s universal preschool program, scaling up preschool can help districts take advantage of vacant space, stem enrollment losses, and give children a jump start on early reading and math skills.

Pueblo 60 Superintendent Barbara Kimzey said, “I tell our staff this all the time, graduation rates begin the moment that preschooler walks in the door.”

A preschool student at Bradford Elementary School tried on his "Cat-in-the-Hat" hat on Read Across America Day on March 2.

The state’s $349 million universal preschool program, funded partly through a voter-approved nicotine tax, offers tuition-free preschool to all 4-year-olds.

This year, Pueblo 60 has 16 preschool classrooms offering free half-day classes. Next year, there will be 21 classrooms — at Bradford, Heritage, and some other district schools — and 80 new preschool seats. Bradford and Heritage will offer free full-day programming.

Kimzey said the district’s planned preschool expansion, along with other elements of the district’s “right-serving” facilities plan, aims to turn the tide on declining enrollment.

“Over the last 12 years, we’ve lost over a quarter of our enrollment,” she said. “We realize it’s a heavy lift, but we’re here for it, and we truly believe that we can … not only stem the decline, but really work on building back our district.”

In addition to Bradford, two other buildings will cease being elementary schools next year. Beulah Heights, which has about 250 students this year, will become a staff training center. Bessemer Academy, which has about 225 students this year, will become a family resource hub offering after-school enrichment, tutoring, and other programming.

The now-closed Hyde Park campus will reopen next year, housing a pre-collegiate middle school, the district’s online middle school program, and a community resource hub.

District-run preschool offers stability

Pueblo mother Randi Addington supports the addition of new full-day preschool seats in the district, especially since her 4-year-old’s private preschool closed abruptly last fall.

“They closed overnight in October … literally with no warning.” she said. “It was such a giant disruption to us.”

Addington, who works remotely, was able to secure the last available preschool seat at the district’s South Park Elementary after the closure. It was only a half-day program and wasn’t at the school her first grade son attends, but it was something.

She believes school districts have more safeguards against sudden closures than private preschools.

“I was like, this wouldn’t happen with the district. They’d give you warning a year in advance if they were going to close something,” she said.

Addington, who served on the district’s facilities plan steering committee, said as a working parent she’s happy the district will move back to full-day preschool next year. The reason she’d decided to enroll her son at the preschool that closed at the start of the school year was because it offered more daily hours than the school district.

“That was not sustainable for us as working professional parents,” she said of the half-day schedule.

Kimzey said the district previously offered full-day preschool but slimmed it down to half-day this year because of scheduling difficulties related to its four-day school week and teacher contract requirements. The new preschool centers will allow the district to offer full-day classes again, she said.

Addington said she believes attending district-run preschool helps children get ready for kindergarten. She’s watched her own son acclimate to the elementary school setting at South Park.

“Mama, there’s big kids here. There’s not babies here,” she recalled him saying after he started.

Correction: March 27, 2026: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the planned uses for Beulah Heights Elementary and Bessemer Academy next year.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Long-term enrollment decline is fueling Philly’s school closure plan. It’ll likely continue.

2026-03-11T19:33:10+00:00

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Philadelphia families and educators have been fighting for months against the district’s proposal to close 18 schools. They worry about taking resources away from struggling neighborhoods and limiting the choices that families have long been promised.

But there’s a basic problem driving the closures that isn’t up for debate: There aren’t enough students to fill the city’s schools. And the situation is only expected to get worse.

Over the past decade, enrollment in Philadelphia’s public schools has declined by more than 17,000 students. That’s largely a result of declining birth rates and a sharp increase in the number of students attending cyber charter schools.

At the same time, some neighborhoods’ population has skyrocketed, driven largely by arriving immigrants. That means even as the number of empty seats in some schools has grown into the hundreds, others have become overcrowded. While the district’s overall enrollment has shrunk nearly every year, the portion of English language learners has climbed.

This school year, around 117,000 students attend Philadelphia’s district and alternative schools — a 13% decline from a decade ago. Over the next decade, the state projects enrollment will likely fall by another 10%.

The Board of Education has yet to approve the school closure proposal. It plans to host a town hall on Thursday to hear more feedback.

No board member has indicated support for the proposal yet. But board members have acknowledged that the city’s declining school enrollment must be addressed.

The district already doesn’t have enough funding to meet what the state has determined it would require to adequately educate its students. Keeping buildings open with fewer and fewer kids is a cost it may not be able to bear.

“We cannot ignore enrollment shifts,” Board President Reginald Streater wrote in an op-ed last week. “We cannot wait until financial instability forces decisions upon us. But we also cannot allow financial pressure to take priority over our mission.”

School enrollment decline unlikely to reverse

Philadelphia is far from the only district in this position. Birthrates are declining nationwide, and researchers predict nationwide public school enrollment will fall by 5% between 2022 and 2031.

In Philly, that decline is made more severe due to the rising popularity of cyber charters. In 2014, only around 550 students attended cyber charters. Last school year, more than 14,000 students did, despite concerns from some officials and education groups about the quality of education they provide.

State officials predict the Philadelphia district won’t be able to recover the thousands of children it has lost over the past decade. Instead, the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s enrollment projection model, which factors in trends in birth rates and student progression through grades, predicts Philly’s enrollment will decline by another roughly 10,000 students by 2034-35.

Superintendent Tony Watlington has said he does not want to close schools. But he’s forging ahead because the proposal would improve opportunities for the students who remain in district schools, he told the Board of Education last month. The plan would also mean no students go to class in buildings rated as poor or unsatisfactory, according to Watlington.

Watlington has said he is committed to keeping and attracting students to the district. But if enrollment continues to decline, he indicated the district could be staring down even more school closures down the line.

“You just can’t lose your student population — and for whatever reason, people leave — and then expect to maintain the same level of building footprint,” Watlington said.

Memphis families grapple with where to send students after approved school closures

2026-03-02T22:59:27+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County Schools is extending its priority deadline for school choice transfers to next Friday, March 13 following a vote last week to close five schools.

Students displaced by this year’s closures won’t automatically be at the top of the transfer list, MSCS said in an emailed statement. Applications that allow students to attend a different school than their zoned one are reviewed each year on a first-come, first-served basis.

But families from Lucy Elementary, Frayser-Corning Elementary, Georgian Hills Elementary, Ida B. Wells Academy, and Chickasaw Middle only found out last week that their schools will close in June, leaving less than a week to fill out the transfer application before the original March 2 deadline. Priority applications are reviewed by the district first, maximizing a student’s chance of getting into the school of their choice before spots fill up.

Those closures are part of a larger district plan to shutter up to 15 schools in the next three years. How the district manages the impact to over 1,200 displaced students and around 57 displaced staff will likely set the model for those future closure decisions.

“We understand that transitions can raise questions, and our goal is to partner closely with families throughout this process,” MSCS said in its statement to Chalkbeat.

Most displaced students are being rezoned to attend a nearby MSCS school. But that’s raised safety concerns from some parents who don’t want their younger children put in the same building as older students, like K-8 or 6-12 schools. Others question whether the new schools will offer better academics or programming.

Erica Smith has two children who currently attend Ida B. Wells Academy. She praises the school for its small class sizes and individual attention – attributes MSCS leaders said won’t be exactly replicated in other district schools.

“The staff to student ratio as it is now, it’s just not sustainable nor is it cost effective,” Superintendent Roderick Richmond said during the closure vote last Tuesday.

Richmond said the district is exploring moving the Ida B. Wells program into Norris Achievement Academy, another alternative school further south.

But Smith said she’s never heard of that school, which only enrolls previously expelled students. Instead, she’s sending one of her kids to The Soulsville Charter School, a music-focused program in South Memphis; the other will be attending Rozelle Elementary, a magnet school for performing arts.

“I’m trying to put them somewhere where they’ll get the proper learning and education,” she said.

A quarter of Ida B. Wells students tested as proficient on last year’s state reading tests, and over 27% did the same for math. That’s higher than the district average. Rozelle, where Smith is sending her youngest child, surpassed the state average in reading but not math. Soulsville fell behind in both, with only a 13.8% proficiency rate on reading and 16.6% on math.

Smith said the school counselor at Ida B. Wells helped her and other parents fill out the transfer application quickly, so she already received those other school acceptances for her children. MSCS says families can apply to change schools up until the first week of classes in August. They get their final decisions back within four to six weeks.

“Families therefore have ample time to apply, and there is no immediate deadline concern at this time,” the district said.

Smith said she never received any communication from MSCS following Tuesday’s vote. But district leaders said they sent emails to both staff and parents last week.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

New enrollment analysis flags shrinking portion of Chicago children who go to Chicago Public Schools

2026-01-20T19:28:20+00:00

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Through years of steady pre-COVID enrollment losses in Chicago Public Schools, one thing stayed consistent: Roughly 75% of school-aged children in the city attended the district.

In recent years, though, that “market share” has slipped — a key takeaway of a new report on CPS enrollment by the advocacy group Kids First Chicago released Tuesday. The analysis using U.S. Census data says the loss is small but significant — a dip of more than 4 percentage points since 2018 that accounts for 18,000 fewer students.

Until recently, the portion of school-aged children served by CPS’ district-run and charter schools remained consistent through the mass school closures of 2013, financial troubles, and teacher strikes. Now, it’s slipped closer to 71%.

“There are actually fewer families choosing to send their kids to CPS,” said Hal Woods, the chief of policy at Kids First. He added, pointing to the growing number of students with disabilities the district serves, “Even as CPS is losing students, the needs of the existing students are going up.”

After two years in which migrant student arrivals stabilized the district’s enrollment, CPS resumed losing students this past fall. It enrolled about 9,000 fewer students compared with last year. Overall, the district has lost more than 70,000 students during the past decade, and a growing number of severely underenrolled schools are a major challenge facing it. The district, which slipped to fourth-largest nationally during the pandemic, now serves about 316,200 students.

As the Kids First report noted, these losses have been driven largely by demographic trends outside the district’s control: In fewer than 20 years, the number of babies born in Chicago has been nearly halved. Sharply declining birth rates mean that the deficit-plagued district is poised to continue wrestling with shrinking enrollment.

Meanwhile, most students who left CPS in recent years have done so because their families moved out of Chicago, district data suggests.

The erosion of CPS’ market share preceded the pandemic, but picked up during COVID, with some families opting for private schools and homeschooling during an extended remote learning stretch. Not all of them came back. Private schools now serve a greater share of school-aged children, maintaining a relatively steady enrollment as the number of children shrank.

The portion of school-aged children who are not enrolled in school — including homeschooled students, dropouts, and others — also grew, based on the Kids First analysis of Census data.

The report also noted enrollment declines have been largest on the city’s South and West sides, while student numbers held steady in more affluent North Side and central areas. Parts of the city hardest hit by enrollment loss are home to a growing number of small schools — including high schools serving fewer than 200 students — where students tend to have more limited course and extracurricular offerings.

The per-student costs at some of these tiny schools are eye-popping. But their budgets are barely a rounding error in the district’s overall $10.2 billion budget, Woods noted, though the costs of maintaining their often massive, aging buildings are mounting.

Still, Woods said, “The notion that school consolidations or rightsizing is a panacea for the district’s financial problems is erroneous.” He added, “We see this data as an impetus to talk about what the student experience is like in these low-enrollment schools.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis leaders lay out reasons for second school closure proposal in Frayser neighborhood

2025-12-16T02:09:07+00:00

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Memphis parent Chajuana Williams said she would miss the family history embedded at Georgian Hills Elementary if district leaders decide to close the school in June.

“I would hate that the school is closing down because I’ve got older kids that went here,” Williams said at a community hearing Monday night. She has two second graders and one first grader at Georgian Hills this year and is a parent and aunt to former students who are now teenagers.

In September, Interim Superintendent Roderick Richmond recommended shutting down four Memphis-Shelby County schools due to chronic underenrollment and growing repair needs. Two of the schools slated for closure, including Georgian Hills, are in the Frayser neighborhood.

Previous school closure meetings at Chickasaw Middle, Lucy Elementary and Frayser-Corning Elementary drew larger crowds in the past two months. District leaders are expected to make final decisions in February.

Under Richmond’s plan, Georgian Hills students would be split between two other neighborhood elementary schools next fall, Whitney and Hawkins Mill. All three schools earned a C rating in the state’s performance assessment system, MSCS leaders said Monday.

But Hawkins Mill Elementary students were more likely to test as proficient on standardized math and reading tests. And while over half of the students at Whitney and Georgian Hills are chronically absent — meaning they miss more than 10% of school days each year — only 11% of Hawkins Mill students meet that mark.

Williams said she worked as a custodian at Hawkins Mill years ago, so she feels more comfortable sending her children there.

“I can deal with it if [Georgian Hills] is closing because the teachers are wonderful over there,” she said.

It’s unclear how many students would be sent to Hawkins Mill or Whitney elementary schools if the school board approves Georgian Hills’ closure in February. MSCS Facility Services Officer Michelle Stuart said Monday that over 50% of the seats at Whitney are unfilled, compared to around 40% at Hawkins Mill.

Georgian Hills fills three-fourths of its available seats right now, Stuart added.

“That’s a good, healthy utilization,” she said. “But the building is so small that we can’t get many more kids in.”

Georgian Hills’ building also needs more maintenance repairs in the next decade than Whitney and Hawkins Mill. Closing the school would save MSCS $910,000 next year alone, Stuart said.

The district will hold another community meeting for Georgian Hills families at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 17 at Hawkins Mill Elementary School.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis parents have safety concerns about proposed middle and high school merger

2025-12-09T18:41:00+00:00

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Student safety concerns took center stage at a Memphis school closure hearing Monday as parents pushed back on a district proposal to merge a local middle and high school.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools leaders want to close Chickasaw Middle School at the end of the school year due to chronic underenrollment. Sending those grade 6-8 students to neighboring Westwood High School would fill empty classrooms and usher in new staff supports, MSCS leaders said Monday.

School board members are expected to vote on the proposals in February. But in Monday’s meeting, parents and local residents said it feels like the decision to close Chickasaw has already been made without sufficient community input.

“They asked how many parents were here, and four people raised their hands,” Joseph Cox, who runs the neighborhood nonprofit Youth of Westwood. “They’re good about making decisions about us without us. This is just a small fraction of the community, and most of these people are school employees.”

Parents present during Monday’s meeting said they worry that putting 12-year-olds and 18-year-olds in the same building could cause safety issues.

“I feel like those schools already have their own separate behavioral issues,” said Brianna Kraft, parent of a sixth grader at Chickasaw. “Putting them together would be catastrophic.”

Westwood would become only the third combination middle and high school in the district. According to state discipline data from the 2023-2024 school year, just under one-third of Westwood students and over half of Chickasaw Middle students were subject to disciplinary action like suspensions compared to 13% of students district-wide.

MSCS leaders faced similar backlash from parents last week about a proposed elementary and middle school merger. Both are part of a September recommendation from interim Superintendent Roderick Richmond to close four schools and transfer control of a fifth at the end of this year to combat rising maintenance costs and enrollment challenges.

Angela Whitelaw, who leads the district’s academics team, said the ongoing community meetings are meant to gather feedback ahead of the board’s February vote.

District policy mandates proposing closures to board members first and then seeking community input, she said. Details such as school safety plans will be fleshed out after an official decision is made.

“We’re constantly looking at our data and how we support schools when we merge them together,” Whitelaw said. Safety is “one of the first concerns” district leaders will talk about with school principals, she added.

There are only two other MSCS schools that combine middle and high schoolers. But Michelle Stuart, MSCS’ facilities manager, said there aren’t any other feasible merger options given the neighborhood’s transportation challenges.

“There are 51 rooms at Westwood [High] and it’s only half full,” she said. “So there is plenty of room for this merger.”

Right now, only half of the seats at Chickasaw Middle and less than half of those at Westwood High are filled. Combining the two schools would fill more than three-fourths of the Westwood building.

Westwood High has a significantly lower chronic absenteeism rate than Chickasaw, MSCS leaders shared Monday. Almost half of Chickasaw students miss more than 18 days of school in a year, compared to 7.5% at Westwood. And 14.5% of Westwood students tested as proficient on state reading tests, compared to 7.5% at Chickasaw.

But Kraft, parent of the Chickasaw sixth grader, said that’s not enough of an improvement to justify the shuffle.

“The fact that we’re considering 14% of students passing as a win is unacceptable,” she said. “Coming from a home school perspective, y’all would have ripped my kid away from me if he was only passing 14% of his class.”

Board Chair Natalie McKinney, who was present at Monday’s meeting, said the Chickasaw closure is not a “foregone conclusion.” She encouraged families to reach out to board members with their concerns ahead of the Feb. 24 vote.

“The administration is just proposing this to us, and we’re going to look at the data they provide,” McKinney said. “That data includes the qualitative part, which is more voices.”

MSCS will host another meeting about the recommendation to close Chickasaw Middle at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 10 at Westwood High School.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

The curious disconnect between the data and the vibes of higher education

2025-11-11T22:50:00+00:00

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American colleges are under siege.

The Trump administration has waged a legal and rhetorical battle against the country’s elite universities. Voters have grown increasingly skeptical of higher education. Some high school students are questioning the value of a college diploma. In turn, there’s been a veritable firehose of news stories about a generational pivot away from college due to some combination of ruinous costs, close-minded campus cultures, and appealing alternatives.

It is a disorienting experience, then, to examine the cold, hard data of higher education.

College tuition has become more affordable in recent years. The economic return on a bachelor’s degree has stopped growing but remains near historic highs. After a post-pandemic dip, four-year college enrollment has almost fully recovered to near-record levels. Students are increasingly flocking to flagship public universities like UCLA and the University of Michigan.

Whatever the problems of higher education, the narrative has raced far ahead of the reality.

Much of this mistaken story stems from a simple confusion: conflating enrollment in two-year and four-year colleges. While it’s true that fewer people are in community colleges, the number of students seeking bachelor’s degrees hasn’t changed much. “It’s been roughly flat for the last 10 years,” says Joshua Goodman, an education economist at Boston University. “That’s very much not the narrative.”

Let’s unpack the disconnect between the data and the vibes.

The costs vs. benefits of college

It is often treated as a well-established fact that the price of college is soaring. That is no longer the case. For the last couple of decades, net tuition has, if anything, trended down at private and in-state public universities, according to data compiled by the College Board. Since household earnings have gone up during this period, college tuition appears to have become somewhat more affordable in recent years, not less.

“When I talk to members of the public this has not penetrated at all,” says Dominique Baker, a higher education professor at the University of Delaware.

The reality has been underappreciated because colleges’ sticker prices have been rising at an almost linear rate. But list price has become increasingly disconnected from the real price thanks to growing financial aid.

What about the economic benefits of a four-year college education?

On average, those with a bachelor’s degree still earn far more than those without. The “college-wage premium,” as economists call it, stands at about 75%. This figure has stagnated since the early 2000s, but it remains at or near its highest point in a century.

You may have seen headlines about careers that don’t require a degree but that come with lucrative salaries. Such examples certainly exist, but they are exceptions to the average. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the non-degreed occupations with the most new positions all earn under $40,000 annually. Those include home health aides, order stockers, and fast-food workers.

This does not mean that every student who attends college will see a return. The wage premium is a simple correlation and refers to those with a degree, which about one-third of college enrollees do not obtain. The decision for any individual student about whether to go to college depends on their chances of completion, the careers they’re interested in, and the cost.

Still, rigorous studies have repeatedly found that, on average, students benefit economically from seeking a four-year degree.

“There’s not a case to be made that it’s a worse deal now than it was 10 or 15 years ago,” says Jeff Denning, a higher education researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. “I’m not aware of any data that would suggest that.”

Four-year college enrollment has held steady, though two-year enrollment has fallen dramatically

For the last few decades, a little more than 40% of recent high school graduates have enrolled in a four-year college. These numbers have been fairly stable, even as high school graduation rates have risen.

Other data shows a dip in four-year enrollment in the wake of the pandemic, followed by a bounceback in recent years. The number of people pursuing bachelor’s degrees is now just 1% below pre-pandemic levels, according to a recent estimate.

While flagship state universities have generally seen enrollments rise, colleges with worse student outcomes, like the University of Phoenix, an online for-profit college, have seen drops, notes Preston Cooper in a report for the American Enterprise Institute.

The biggest decline in college enrollment has been at two-year schools, which are largely open-enrollment public institutions that most students attend part time. Until a recent upturn, attendance at these schools’ has been falling consistently since 2010.

Here’s where the conventional narrative about the college decline falls apart: Community colleges’ costs are very low and they have not been at the center of the cultural and political backlash to higher education. The prevailing narrative has focused on bachelor’s degrees, which community colleges typically don’t issue.

What explains the two-year college decline, then? A new study coauthored by Goodman of Boston University, shows that much of this is driven by economic trends. When job options are plentiful, community college is less appealing. Recently, as unemployment has ticked up, so has two-year enrollment. Another explanation is that more potential students have become wary of the value of two-year programs since the completion rates are quite low.

Reality may soon mirror perception

We may one day look back at this particular moment as a golden age of four-year colleges, even though it doesn’t feel like one.

There are signs that real tuition is going up as schools face new cost pressures. The perception of higher education has in fact declined markedly, which could eventually limit public funding and depress enrollment. (Or perhaps not: Enrollment has been rising over the last couple years at the height of the college collapse narrative.)

Another imminent challenge: At least for a while, each year’s high school graduating class is likely to be smaller than the last due to lower birth rates. Generative AI is an additional curveball, as some suspect it will devalue white-collar work and, in turn, a college education.

The irony is that the colleges likely to bear the brunt of these challenges are the country’s less-selective, less-known schools, not the elite institutions that have come to embody higher education in the public mind.

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

NYC won’t claw back $250 million midyear from schools as enrollment declines

2025-11-03T17:11:03+00:00

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New York City schools with fewer students than projected will not have to give back money midyear, Education Department officials announced Monday, as the public school system saw its biggest enrollment drop in four years.

Enrollment in the city’s K-12 and preschool programs fell by about 22,000, or 2.4%, compared to last year, according to the Education Department’s preliminary numbers. A total of 884,400 students were enrolled in the city’s traditional public schools as of Oct. 31, according to the figures.

Nearly two-thirds of the city’s roughly 1,600 schools had fewer students than projected, officials said. In past years, those schools would have had to pay back a total of more than $250 million to the city. But those funds will now stay with schools.

“As we navigate enrollment fluctuations and uncertainty around federal funding, we’re committed to providing stability and ensuring every school has the resources it needs,” schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said in a statement.

The remaining third of schools whose enrollment was higher than projected will receive extra money to account for the additional students, officials said, but didn’t say how much that will cost.

In some ways, Mayor Eric Adams’ parting gift to schools could become a headache for the next mayor, who will have to confront the costly but popular initiative.

City officials did not immediately offer an explanation for the enrollment drop, but it’s likely that changing immigration patterns played a role. Over the three school years prior to this one, city schools absorbed an influx of roughly 50,000 migrant students.

That surge helped offset declining enrollment, keeping the city’s student numbers relatively flat between 2022 and 2024. But immigration into the country and city has ground to a halt under President Donald Trump’s enforcement efforts. Adams has closed many of the emergency shelters the city opened to house migrants.

Several educators at schools with large immigrant populations have noticed sharp enrollment declines this year, driven by existing students leaving and fewer new ones showing up.

“We definitely have seen a decline this year in our schools that serve newcomers,” said John Sullivan, the superintendent overseeing transfer schools geared toward older high school students, at a hearing last week with the City Council.

Manhattan’s Liberty High School Academy for Newcomers is down about 200 students this year compared to its average enrollment in recent years, Sullivan said. More students learning English are dropping out of school early to take jobs, he said.

ELLIS Prep, another high school in the Bronx geared toward older newcomers, has also seen slower enrollment this year, Principal Norma Vega said. The school is down about 30 students from last year and roughly 20 students under its projection for this year. That meant Vega would have had to pay back roughly $333,000 if the city had followed through with the midyear clawback.

Keeping that money will allow her to continue funding field trips, computers for students, and extra tutoring, she said.

Vega already missed the deadline for this school year to cut teachers, which means she would have started next school year with a deficit and likely would have lost her English as a New Language coordinator, one of her newest hires.

“It’s a blessing” to not have to pay back the funds midyear, Vega said.

Before the pandemic, schools typically had to give money back to the city during the middle of the school year if they enrolled fewer students than projected. (Those that enrolled more students would get extra funds midyear.)

The policy to keep school budgets afloat despite enrollment, known as being “held harmless,” was initially enacted during the pandemic when many schools saw their rosters dwindle but had mounting needs to support students academically and emotionally.

Enrollment citywide has been on the decline for a decade, but went into freefall during the pandemic, dropping by nearly 100,000 students. This year’s enrollment decline is the largest since the 2021-22 school year, when enrollment fell by around 36,000 students, or 3.8%, from the previous year.

The city halted the hold harmless policy in the 2023-24 school year only to bring it back last year.

Last school year, the decision not to claw back school budgets midyear meant schools hung onto $157 million they would have otherwise had to give back. City officials committed a separate $126 million in June to ensure that no schools started out this school year with less funding than they had at the start of last school year.

This year’s total is far larger, given the steeper enrollment decline.

Emily Paige, the principal of Urban Assembly Unison, a small Brooklyn middle school, said she was on the hook for roughly $100,000 because of enrollment losses — enough to cover an entire teacher salary.

While the hold harmless policy is widely popular among school staff and families, it can be an unsustainable practice, some observers say, artificially inflating schools’ budgets and creating even more difficult financial decisions down the road as the city confronts increasingly expensive small schools.

The union representing principals, the Council for School Administrators, or CSA, claimed the move as a victory for its members, saying in an email to principals on Sunday its “top priority” this year has been ensuring the city kept its promise to hold schools harmless.

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

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Free pre-K isn’t enough: Why families with young kids are leaving NYC before kindergarten

2025-10-22T19:00:47+00:00

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Mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani’s big education agenda, free child care for all, aims to keep families with young children in New York City.

But would the program, costing an estimated $6 billion a year, convince families to stay for elementary school?

Child care is just one piece of an interconnected web of affordability and education issues that influence whether families leave the city when they have children. Also in play: housing, availability of after-school programs, school quality, and navigating school admissions, whether for kindergarten or looking ahead to middle and high school. For many, having a second or third child also changes the calculus, several parents told Chalkbeat.

The city’s free prekindergarten program didn’t stop thousands of families who applied to the program for 4-year-olds last year from leaving the public school system before kindergarten this year, according to Education Department application data.

Roughly 52,400 children submitted applications for pre-K seats in the 2024-25 school year. But when it came time for those children to apply to kindergarten the following year, there was a considerable dropoff to about 46,370, a dip of about 12%.

In the prior two years, the number of kindergarten and preschool applications more closely matched.

It seems unlikely that the difference is explained by families moving to private school for kindergarten. Enrollment in the early grades in private schools has declined the last few years, said Ryan Coughlan, an associate professor at Baruch College’s Marxe School of Public and International Affairs. (Enrollment at private schools has increased at middle and high schools.)

Alan Gu’s twins would have entered kindergarten in New York City this year, but he and his husband left their brownstone in Brooklyn for Jersey City. Finding a suitable public school with an affordable after-school program that aligned with their work schedules felt untenable.

Concerned about the performance of the neighborhood school, Gu felt fortunate last year to get his kids into a sought-after free pre-K program in Manhattan’s Chinatown, but that required waking up at 5:30 a.m. and commuting about an hour on two subway lines to a 15-minute walk with his then 4-year-olds. His kids were exhausted and mentally drained. So was Gu.

For the first three weeks, the school offered no after-care program. When after-care finally launched, it ended at 5 p.m., forcing Gu to leave work early, around 4 p.m. Sometimes, he’d bring his kids back to his office so he could get more work done. Often he was late and felt like a “bad parent.” The cost, $150 per child each week, didn’t make sense to him.

Gu, who works in human resources and had lived in New York for more than 10 years, previously thought he “would die” before moving to New Jersey.

Then he visited the Newport area in Jersey City. It felt safe and had about a 25-minute commute to Manhattan. He was impressed by the local public school.

“Not only were they helpful, it didn’t seem like it was a secret on how to get into the school,” Gu said.

The school had morning care starting at 7 a.m. and after-care lasting until 6 p.m. — and it cost less than his kids’ program in Chinatown. He pulled the twins out and moved across the Hudson River two months before the school year ended.

Now that they’re not traveling nearly an hour each way to school, his twins have energy for an array of activities, like ballet, tap, hip hop, and jiu jitsu — paying almost less combined than for their swim lessons in the city. And he no longer feels like he has to fight for things, like he did in the city, such as speech therapy services for his children.

Out of 14 families of his twins’ pre-K class, only three stayed in the city for kindergarten, he said.

“I felt like New York City did not want me there once I had kids,” Gu said.

Schools and housing often a reason for leaving the city

The mayoral candidates have all embraced the need to bolster child care, with Mamdani making it one of his three signature platforms, alongside a rent freeze and free buses.

“It’s pricing out New Yorkers from the city,” he said during last week’s debate.

Education Department officials said a variety of factors might influence application rate fluctuations, and in summer 2024, they did a research survey to help understand how families make school choices. The survey found that 40% left the school system because they moved out of the city, and of those who left, the top three reasons were: a “better environment to raise kids,” “concerns about schools,” and “more housing space.”

Kristyna Frantz, a mom to a preschooler and twin babies, left in December after a decade in Washington Heights, moving to New Jersey’s Union County and commuting more than an hour to her communications job in the Financial District.

She had spaced her pregnancies so the older would be in 3K, the city’s free pre-K program for 3-year-olds, when the second was born and could be in day care. But having twins changed everything. The day care at her older son’s program increased in price more than 11% from when he started as a 5-month old, bringing the total to more than $2,000 a month per kid, which was prohibitive for her.

It sped up their timeline to move to New Jersey, where her husband is from, and where her in-laws still live and could provide an extra layer of child care.

“The 3-K was really what got my husband to stay for our first kid,” Frantz said. She believes the economics would have worked if they had free or subsidized child care for the twins. “We could have crunched the numbers and I could have said, ‘I know you want to move to New Jersey and mow the lawn, but this math isn’t mathing.”

The scene at a Sept. 7 New Yorkers for Child Care rally.

Both Frantz and Gu have been advocating for affordable child care through the grassroots group New Yorkers United for Child Care, which on Wednesday released a roadmap on how to achieve free child care for 2-year-olds within four years. Along with the policy organization United Neighborhood Houses, they called for an initial focus on the city’s highest poverty areas.

Rebecca Bailin, executive director of New Yorkers United for Child Care, believes the initiative is key to keep the city’s diversity and help families here grow.

“We have seen people say when their kids are 0 to 2: I just have to make it to 3K or pre-K,’” said Bailin, “but I imagine as they’re thinking about that second kid they’re realizing, ‘Oh God, I have to do this all over again and potentially get a bigger apartment and pay for after care.”

Families with young kids flee NYC at double the rate

Households with young children were twice as likely to leave New York City than those without young children, according to a 2024 analysis from the Fiscal Policy Institute. Black and Latino New Yorkers were also leaving at higher rates, the report found. In terms of school demographics, the number of Black students fell 13% over the past five years, along with a 6% drop in the number of white students.

The lack of affordable housing forced Jasmine White to leave Coney Island, the Brooklyn neighborhood where she was born and raised.

Jasmine White with her daughter, Mackenzie White.

On her salary providing physical assistance to adults with disabilities, White barely had savings after paying for her car insurance, cellphone, groceries, and her $340 weekly child care bill for her daughter — even while staying with her mom.

“Add it up after a while, you’re just left with lunch money,” White said.

She moved to Maryland the summer before the 2020-21 school year, during the COVID pandemic, after her daughter had been wait-listed at a kindergarten program White hoped she could attend instead of the local school. By the time her daughter got off the wait-list, they were already gone. And now White, who works as an office manager, says she has more than just lunch money.

Coughlan, the Baruch professor, said there’s been a lot more volatility since the pandemic in terms of families leaving New York City.

“There’s all kinds of questions around where people are choosing to live post-COVID,” he said, noting that some families are now more inclined to leave, worried about a repeat pandemic.

While schools often help root families to their neighborhoods, he’s also seen a rise in “decoupling school from place” — when children don’t attend local schools — which can leave people “feeling untethered,” and that could affect whether families decide to stay as well.

“It’s untenable to pay for child care in the city and be a person who makes a normal income and so that needs to be addressed,” Coughlan said. “But I also think we need to think of how people remain connected beyond that.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s where Memphis school leaders want to send students from four closing schools

2025-10-22T18:12:47+00:00

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More than 1,000 students from Memphis schools facing proposed closures this year could be split among five other district schools that leaders say are underenrolled.

In a board committee meeting Tuesday, Memphis-Shelby County School officials shared that 57 staff positions would be cut from the four schools recommended for closure and a fifth that is being transferred to a neighboring school district for ownership as mandated by state law. It’s unclear if those employees will be retained by the district in other roles.

The school board is expected to vote on proposed closures in February. Superintendent Roderick Richmond said he will be meeting with school principals tomorrow to discuss his rezoning plans.

Richmond first presented his closure recommendations in September. He said the four affected schools face chronic underenrollment and climbing maintenance costs with over $6.5 million in immediate repair needs.

Here’s a breakdown of where students could go in the 2026-27 school year:

Chickasaw Middle School would be combined with Westwood High School, which students already are zoned to move to after grade 8.
Frayser-Corning Elementary students would be sent to Whitney and Westside elementary schools, which are also in the Frayser neighborhood.
Georgian Hills Elementary students would be sent to Whitney and Hawkins Mill elementary schools, which are also in the Frayser neighborhood.
Lucy Elementary students would attend Woodstock Middle School, forming a K-8 structure. The old building will be transferred to Millington Municipal School District.
Ida B. Wells Academy is an unzoned choice school, so students could attend any district school with available seats.

The proposed rezoning decisions would boost the number of available seats being filled in each school building.

In Frayser, there are currently five elementary schools within a five-mile radius. Only 60% of those available student seats are filled.

Rezoning students from Frayser-Corning and Georgian Hills elementary schools into the others would fill closer to three-fourths of the available neighborhood seats. It would also save the district a little over $2 million in just one year.

Lucy Elementary is located in Millington, a neighboring suburb that split from the MSCS system over 10 years ago. Per a 2022 state law, the district is required to sell the building to Millington Municipal School District by June 2027. MSCS leaders said Tuesday that transferring the school early saves them from funneling $2.5 million over the next two years into a building they soon won’t own.

More closures are likely on the horizon. Members of the MSCS facilities committee, tasked with making a long-term plan to address the district’s billion-dollar maintenance needs, are expected to announce their recommendations next month.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis leaders plan to close four schools by the end of the academic year

2025-09-24T00:29:19+00:00

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Memphis-Shelby County education leaders recommend closing four schools and transferring one to a neighboring suburban district by the end of the academic year.

The list of schools presented Tuesday by Interim Superintendent Roderick Richmond is the first phase of a long-anticipated facilities plan slated to be released by early 2026. The school board is expected to vote on these initial closures in February.

Leaders hope the short-term and long-term plans will address chronic underenrollment and deteriorating building conditions. The district is facing over $1.6 billion in building repairs and renovations over the next decade, and 10 buildings are set to reach the end of their useful life in that time.

Richmond said that the initial schools, located in the Northwest and Southwest regions, were chosen for closure because of underenrollment and high deferred maintenance needs. In total, the five buildings have more than $6.5 million in immediate maintenance needs and a projected $48 million over the next 20 years, according to an independent report released earlier this year.

The impacted schools are:

Lucy Elementary (transfer to Millington Municipal School District).
Ida B. Wells Academy (closure).
Frayser-Corning Elementary (closure).
Chickasaw Middle (closure).
Georgian Hills Elementary (closure).

It’s unclear how students and staff will be re-zoned for next school year. District leaders say they expect to present plans for rezoning and reports on each schools’ enrollment and programs next month.

In past closures, students have mostly been sent to nearby MSCS schools in better physical condition. Teachers will be able to follow their students if there are openings, Richmond said Tuesday.

From October to December, the district will conduct a minimum of two public hearings per school to address parent concerns and float ideas for repurposing. According to the presentation Tuesday, the Ida B. Wells building is designated to be used by MSCS for adult education or district operations.

Richmond said the district is still evaluating what will happen to the three other buildings after closure.

District leaders shuttered 21 schools from from 2012 to 2016, mostly in South Memphis. Around half of those students wound up in schools performing either on par or worse academically than their original placement, according to Chalkbeat analysis.

The district has a history of announcing closure plans that don’t materialize. A 2024 draft plan under former Superintendent Toni Williams slated 21 schools for closure. Only one, Humes Middle School, has since shut down.

Four of the five schools recommended for closure Tuesday were included in the 2024 draft plan.

In 2016, former Superintendent Dorsey Hopson promised 24 closures in five years. But according to past Chalkbeat coverage, only around seven of his 28 recommendations have closed.

In both cases, MSCS leaders cited academic performance as the main driver of school closure decisions, partially out of fear that the state would take control of those communities as permitted by Tennessee law. But low student enrollment is also a factor, with most of the MSCS schools closed between 2012 and 2016 serving less than half of their capacity.

Current MSCS leaders say these factors and more will be taken into account for future school closures. The new facilities committee, composed of community members and business leaders, is set to propose long-term recommendations by November.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis school leaders slated to share first recommendations for school closures by end of month

2025-09-18T22:46:01+00:00

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Since publication of this story, district leadership has recommended that four schools be closed and a fifth be transferred to another district. Catch up with the latest news here.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools leaders could present their recommendations for the first round of school closures as early as next Tuesday.

MSCS board member Natalie McKinney said administrators will provide a list of proposed 2025-2026 closings, consolidations, and repurposing projects at either the Sept. 23 or Sept. 30 board meeting.

It’s unclear how many schools will be affected by the proposal, when the board will vote on it, or when the schools will close if the board approves the closures.

There are 10 MSCS school buildings that should be closed or rebuilt in the next decade due to expensive repair needs, according to a district facilities review last year. Both building quality and enrollment are expected to play a key role in closure decisions.

McKinney leads the district’s new facilities committee, a group of local business and education professionals formed this summer to weigh in on how MSCS should handle a growing building maintenance crisis. In the committee’s first meeting in August, students said deteriorating building conditions are hindering their ability to learn.

But McKinney also said some action is required now.

“We need to do the right thing by our students,” she said.

According to a facilities report from independent firm Buenas Veritas, 10 MSCS school buildings will reach the end of their “useful or serviceable life” by 2035. That designation comes from the Facility Condition Index, which measures the cost of fixing and maintaining a building versus replacing it entirely.

Sable Otey, who co-leads the facilities committee, said she understands people will be upset if their schools are slated to close. But her priority is getting students into “safe, operable and clean environments.”

Sometimes that means closing a building that costs millions of dollars each year to maintain for only 150 children, she said, and combining the staff and students with another school.

“It takes a lot of money to run a school building,” she said. When schools are combined, “we’re now fully staffed, or overstaffed in some cases, and we’re able to allocate those resources a little bit better.”

According to state education department data, eight MSCS schools enrolled fewer than 150 students in 2023-2024:

Memphis Business Academy Hickory Hill Middle School (56 students).
Arrow Academy of Excellence (83).
Ida B. Wells Academy (98).
Hollis F. Price Middle College (105).
Medical District High School (111).
Shrine School (115).
Veritas College Preparatory (135).
Memphis Business Academy Hickory Hill Elementary School (142).

Facilities committee members will likely present their own recommendations on future closures to the school board and district leaders in November. For the next two months, they’re splitting into work groups based on different topics, including data strategy, community engagement, funding and partnerships, and implementation.

Charlotte Fields, president of the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association, said her focus as a member of the data team is on student enrollment, and whether buildings are under capacity.

“How can we better use the building once it has a small number of students and is not being utilized to its full potential?” she said.

McKinney said building utilization is one of many factors that committee members are considering, including residential development plans and transportation.

“What do we do with those buildings, and then how are we being strategic about what we close or consolidate and what we demolish?” she said.

Fields said she hopes to convert underenrolled buildings into trade or contract schools with community partners. She pointed to the building that used to house Humes Middle School, which closed in 2024, and is now under consideration for a new arts-focused school purchased by local nonprofit New Ballet.

Board members are expected to vote on the sale of that building during the Sept. 30 meeting as well.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis public school enrollment is dropping faster than the state. What’s fueling the decline?

2025-09-16T20:37:58+00:00

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Student enrollment in Memphis-Shelby County Schools has declined by over 9% in the past decade, far outpacing statewide and national trends.

MSCS lost more than 10,000 students in its traditional and charter schools between 2014 and 2024, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of data from the Tennessee Department of Education. Preliminary data provided by the district in August indicated further loss of nearly 2,000 students in the past two school years, but finalized numbers are not yet available from the state.

Throughout Tennessee, public school enrollment dropped by just under 2.5% in the 2014 to 2024 time frame, which mirrors national rates.

These declines exacerbate longstanding budget issues in the district and underscore in part why leaders are now considering school closures. The decline also indicates the district’s post-pandemic efforts to boost enrollment have not panned out at a time when Tennessee leaders are prioritizing access to private schools through a new state voucher program.

“We have to become competitive,” MSCS board member Natalie McKinney said, noting that enrollment numbers affect the amount of money given to the district through the state’s per-pupil funding model.

“We have to make sure that we have everything, the options and choices and opportunities that people want for their children,” she added. “But we also have to come to the realization that we’re underresourced and underfunded anyway.”

It’s not clear exactly where local students have gone in recent years, with total enrollment dropping from around 116,000 to 105,000 in the decade span. Some nearby suburban districts have grown since a controversial 2014 “de-merger” where six smaller independent school systems broke off from the county district.

Four of the six districts gained a total of around 3,000 students in the past decade, which does not fully account for MSCS’ decline. And two of those districts, Millington and Arlington, lost students at a similar rate to MSCS.

National and local experts say public school declines can be attributed to a variety of factors, including lower birth rates and general population changes. In 2024, Shelby County lost more residents than any city in the U.S.

Increased interest in other education options, such as homeschooling and private schools, is also contributing to a nationwide public exodus. Shelby County private school enrollment data is not available. But in Tennessee overall, private school enrollment jumped by over 23% from 2019 to 2021, compared to 4.3% for the country as a whole.

“We have the most charters in the state; we have in a county, the most school systems in the state; we have a lot of homeschoolers,” McKinney said. “Some people just don’t like the school system. They don’t feel like it will do what they need to do for their youth.”

The district also differs from national trends in its charter enrollment numbers. MSCS charter enrollment increased before 2020 but has since remained steady at around 20,000 students.

Terence Patterson, president of the Memphis Education Fund, said all of the “macro factors” affecting traditional public schools, including surges in private enrollment, likely contribute to recent MSCS charter stagnation, too. He also said the number of charter schools in MSCS has “plateaued” since 2017, with some opening and others being consolidated or closed down.

MSCS did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But district leaders, including McKinney, have said that student enrollment will be a factor considered in upcoming school closures, with recommendations expected from the new facilities committee this fall.

Patterson said around 30 schools in the district are overenrolled and outperforming schools under capacity.

“And so the question is, how can the district think about expanding seats in those higher performing schools, whether that means building additions or thinking about maintenance?” he said.

Meanwhile, more students are expected to flock to private schools in the coming years, said Tara Moon, a policy analyst at Georgetown thinktank Future Ed. The Trump administration’s new universal voucher program will drive further enrollment, Moon said, and Tennessee lawmakers implemented their own version of that policy this fall.

“It’s demonstrating a shift in family choices, and families are starting to consider other options outside of their traditional public school,” she said.

Moon also said that immigration “won’t play as large of a role in sustaining enrollment” as it has in the past, given more restrictive U.S. policies. That could hit higher poverty schools the hardest, she added.

“High poverty schools tend to have more homeless students or immigrant students, and those students tend to be more transient,” she said.

Correction: Sept. 19, 2025: A previous version of this story stated that MSCS charter school enrollment declined post-pandemic. That data was based on an outdated list of district schools. The story has been updated to show the correct enrollment numbers and trends.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

‘We need a show of force’: Charter leaders plan massive rally ahead of NYC mayoral election

2025-09-15T23:08:43+00:00

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More than a decade ago, thousands of charter school families and staff marched across the Brooklyn Bridge in a show of strength one month before Bill de Blasio was elected mayor. They feared the progressive candidate would follow through on promises to make it harder for charters to operate in city-owned space.

Now, in an echo of that 2013 rally, charter leaders are gearing up to march across the bridge on Thursday as Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist and charter school critic, is the frontrunner to win November’s mayoral election.

The mayor, who oversees the New York City public school system, does not have direct authority to expand or shrink the charter sector. He can, however, set the tone on whether the city is a welcoming environment for charters, which are privately managed and publicly funded. The sector educates nearly 150,000 children, or 15% of public school students, up from 6% a dozen years ago. More than 40% of charter schools operate in Education Department buildings.

Mayor Eric Adams has not been a major booster of charters, but, unlike de Blasio, has avoided big clashes during his tenure. Mamdani, a Queens assemblyman, has signaled he might take a more antagonistic approach.

He argues charters divert resources away from traditional public schools and should not be granted space in city buildings. He has vowed to launch audits of them if he wins.

Success Academy, the city’s largest charter network, is canceling regular classes and sending students to Thursday’s rally, as it did in 2013.

“We need a show of force,” Success CEO Eva Moskowitz wrote in a message to families obtained by Chalkbeat. She urged them to contact their elected representatives to remind them that “charter schools are public schools.”

Although some charter staffers expressed uneasiness about the seeming political overtones of the rally, a Success spokesperson said the rally was not intended to influence the election.

The Mamdani campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the rally.

“Zohran knows that New York City’s public schools are the foundation of our communities, our economy, and our workforce,” Dora Pekec, a spokesperson for Mamdani’s campaign, told Gothamist. “Yet charter schools siphon resources away from public education, often without real accountability or oversight.”

Success, and some of the rally’s other leaders, have avoided directly linking it to the election. They have sent more generic messages about ensuring that charter families, nearly 90% of whom are Black or Latino, are heard and raising awareness about charters. In interviews, some charter leaders emphasized that Mamdani’s focus on affordability is a crucial issue for many of their families.

Mamdani’s platform “generally appears to be about equity and equality and making New York City work for everyone and particularly for lower-income families,” said Arthur Samuels, the executive director of MESA Charter High Schools, which operates two campuses in Brooklyn. “Overwhelmingly, families that send their kids to charter schools are those families.”

Other charter leaders said it was time for the schools to ramp up their advocacy efforts after years of relative quiet.

“We had lost touch with the advocacy part of our work,” said Lisa Margosian, the CEO of Achievement First, which operates 22 charter schools in New York City. “We need to lift up our heads and make sure people are aware of what we’re doing.”

More than 200 charters are expected to participate Thursday, organizers said. Some large networks, including Achievement First and Uncommon Schools, plan to hold classes as usual that day.

Mamdani has not made education a major part of his campaign, and he could largely sidestep contentious fights over charter schools if elected. But charter supporters worry Mamdani could undercut their aim of growing the sector by lobbying in Albany, especially when it comes to raising the charter cap, which currently prevents new charter schools from opening. He could also create more bureaucratic hurdles for schools that depend on city dollars and real estate, some worry.

Charters as a political lightning rod

Not all charter school staffers support the rally. Some educators have expressed concern that it could be construed as an effort to influence the election and felt uncomfortable that students and staff were expected to participate.

“The rally is at least somewhat politically minded,” said one Success Academy teacher who supports Mamdani and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “It just feels like a very specific political stance was taken by the network.”

Success Academy spokesperson Ann Powell disputed that the network was taking a position in the election. “We are not seeking to influence the mayoral race,” Powell wrote in an email. “We have asked our speakers not to mention the race or the name of any candidate.”

Asked about the network’s decision to cancel classes and send students to the rally, she wrote: “We are not canceling school; we are moving it to the streets.”

Charters have long been a flashpoint in city politics. Supporters argue the schools offer quality options for families who have often lacked access to strong public schools in their neighborhoods. The sector typically posts higher reading and math scores on state tests than traditional public school counterparts, particularly among Black and Latino children, though results can vary significantly by school.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, supports growing the sector and has proposed converting low-performing district schools into charters. During his time as governor, he won accolades from pro-charter groups for backing a state law that required the city to find space for charters in public buildings or subsidize their rent in private space. A spokesperson for Cuomo’s campaign indicated he did not have plans to attend the rally.

Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa also supports charter school growth. In 2013, the Republican mayoral candidate attended the charter rally; a spokesperson for the Sliwa campaign did not indicate if he would do the same.

Critics contend the schools tend to enroll a smaller share of students with disabilities and English language learners, and some employ strict discipline practices that can push families out. The city’s teachers union, a powerful voice in local politics, also opposes them, as the vast majority of charter schools are not unionized. The union endorsed Mamdani in the general election.

Some charters struggle with enrollment

Apart from the election, the charter sector is facing headwinds. Many New York Democrats have grown increasingly skeptical of charter schools and have resisted raising the charter cap. (In 2023 state lawmakers allowed several charters that closed or were never opened to be reissued to other operators but did not raise the overall cap.)

The sector, long known for explosive growth, has also struggled to maintain enrollment in many schools.

Four of the city’s largest networks — Success Academy, KIPP, Achievement First, and Uncommon Schools — all enrolled fewer students last school year than they did three years ago. Overall, the charter sector has grown about 6% over that time, in large part because some schools are still expanding to higher grade levels, while traditional public school enrollment in grades K-12 declined about 2%.

Rafiq Kalam Id-Din, the founder of Brooklyn’s Ember Charter School for Mindful Education and one of the organizers of the rally, said he still believes the sector has room to grow despite the enrollment challenges.

“We want to say we want less of the most innovative work, we want less of interesting options?” he said. “It makes no sense.”

Kalam Id-Din said he was unaware that Mamdani has criticized charter schools and argued that the schools should fit squarely within the candidate’s affordability agenda. Without charters, he said, some families would leave the city entirely.

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

New year, new building: Queens Innovation Center brings health, film, and tech-focused schools

2025-09-03T22:14:45+00:00

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A former Queens COVID testing site is now home to a $178.85 million state-of-the-art school campus slated to welcome students on Thursday.

The Queens Innovation Center, located in Woodside, will accommodate students attending four co-located high schools.

They include two new schools — the Motion Picture Technical High School, which focuses on film and television careers, and Northwell School of Health Science, which aims to train students in health care careers. Gotham Tech High School is a three-year-old school that specializes in robotics, and P993Q is a District 75 school that serves students with significant learning challenges.

New York City schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos, center, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Queens Innovation Center on September 3, 2025.

“This building represents a tangible investment in our communities, one our students and families can see and feel,” New York City schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday at the Northern Boulevard facility.

The six-story, 3,066-seat facility is the largest New York City School Construction Authority project to date and part of broader citywide efforts to address overcrowding in schools.

It features 94 classrooms, 18 special education classrooms, two speech rooms, a 550-seat auditorium, two cafeterias, a library, gymnasium, dance rooms, a weight room, science labs, music and art rooms, outdoor recreational areas, and more.

The gymnasium at the Queens Innovation Center, a new state-of-the-art campus in Queens, New York, on September 3, 2025.

Community leaders and elected officials praised the new complex, which houses schools focused on careers in STEM, the arts, and health care.

“This is not just the opening of a building, but the opening of doors to thousands of futures,” said New York City School Construction Authority President and CEO Nina Kubota.

Gotham Tech High School trains students in science and technology, while the Motion Picture Technical High School — created in partnership with the Roybal School of Film and Television Fund — will offer pathways into the film and television industry. Queens residents will receive enrollment priority.

Northwell High School, launched with support from Northwell Health and Bloomberg Philanthropies, will prepare students for public health careers. The Bloomberg funding is part of a $250 million national initiative backing nine other projects.

Located in District 30, the Queens facility also aims to ease overcrowding, a longstanding challenge in the borough, despite an overall downward trend in enrollment citywide — and in the area as well. Across the system, roughly 906,000 students enrolled in city-run schools last year, down from about 1 million five years ago, according to 2024-25 demographic data released on Wednesday by the Education Department. District 30, which has nearly 39,000 students, lost roughly 1,000 students in that time.

Queens is also home to the city’s third-highest share of economically needy students after the Bronx and Brooklyn, and a diverse student body, with enrollment that is 42% Latino, 28% Asian American, 14% Black and 11% white.

“ What we built here is what the students of this community have long deserved. Those kids from Woodside Houses deserve every opportunity to have a quality high school in their neighborhood,” Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said about a nearby public housing complex.

The exterior of the Queens Innovation Center, a new state-of-the-art school campus in Queens, New York on September 3, 2025.

He noted that the borough is adding more classroom seats than any other in the city.

The Queens Innovation Center’s 3,066 seats are among nearly 27,000 created under Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, according to a New York City School Construction Authority press release. In Queens, projects have added 399 seats at P.S. 26; 354 at P.S. 160; 229 at Q509; and 100 at P.S. 182, among other expansions. In its 2025-2029 capital plan, the city vowed to fund an additional 33,417 seats across the five boroughs.

Seyma Bayram is a New York City-based journalist. You can reach her at sbayram@chalkbeat.org.

Back-to-school: 6 things to watch as NYC students return to class

2025-09-03T16:01:43+00:00

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As the new school year begins, the nation’s largest school system stands at the center of major changes at the local, state, and federal policy levels.

New York City is bracing for a possible shift in leadership with the mayoral election approaching in November. As scandals continue to plague Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, he faces increasingly long odds to remain in office — which means the city’s Education Department could come under the helm of a new mayor and chancellor midway through the school year.

The city’s public schools are also contending with big directives from the state, including meeting the caps required under the class size reduction law and the new school cellphone ban.

This will also mark the first full academic year of President Donald Trump’s second term. In its first seven months, his administration announced executive orders and other policy changes related to public education at a dizzying pace.

Here are the six things we’ll be watching this school year:

A pivotal mayoral election approaches

As the November election approaches, Adams is polling in the single digits. If Adams loses, his successor would likely replace Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos. It also opens questions about the future of the mayor’s major initiatives, including the math and literacy curriculum overhauls.

The frontrunner in the mayoral election, Queens state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, has a relatively thin record on K-12 education. The Democratic primary winner’s most attention-grabbing proposal so far has been scaling back the mayoral control system that grants city executives far-reaching authority over public schools.

Mamdani faces Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who are running as independents, as well as Republican Curtis Sliwa — at this point.

If Mamdani wins, his chancellor would play a key role in one of his signature policy proposals: a free child care program from birth to 5. (The city Education Department oversees most of the existing city-funded child care system.)

Class size bill compliance grows tougher

Under the class size law, 60% of New York City’s classrooms this school year must meet the caps mandated by the state, which range from 20-25 students, depending on the grade.

Many schools have gone on hiring sprees: 750 of the city’s nearly 1,600 schools received money to hire about 3,700 teachers to comply with the law. (That’s on top of the roughly 4,000 to 5,000 teachers hired in a typical year.) The city has spent $450 million this year to meet the mandate, Aviles-Ramos recently said on WNYC.

How will this affect schools? Educators and advocates are hopeful that smaller class sizes will improve instruction as well as teacher morale and classroom management. But training a wave of new teachers might also be a lift. There are also equity concerns, including warnings from experts that high-poverty schools could experience an uptick in teacher turnover as more affluent campuses hire thousands more teachers.

The city also has to start laying the groundwork for the 2026-27 school year, when 80% of classrooms must comply with the mandate — a goal that may be hard to achieve without adding new buildings.

Statewide ‘bell-to-bell’ cellphone ban takes effect

Roughly half of the city’s public schools already have some restrictions on cellphone use, but starting this week, all schools must bar students from using them from bell to bell. The details are up to individual schools as to whether they collect students’ internet-enabled devices (including smart watches, iPads, or other personal devices), have students carry their devices locked in pouches, or mandate students keep their devices in their lockers.

The bell-to-bell ban means students cannot use devices on campus during the school day, including during lunch, in the school yard, or on athletic fields. Students who go off-campus for lunch, however, will be allowed to get their phones — potentially causing some logistical headaches. And there are exemptions for medical conditions, translation needs, and special education. Student caregivers might also be allowed to keep their devices on a case-by-case basis.

The city sent more than $16 million to schools to implement the ban, according to budget documents.

No ban is foolproof: Some kids find ways around the policies, whether storing dummy phones, or buying magnets to unlock the pouches.

While school officials can’t suspend solely for using devices during the school day, they can for repeated refusal to surrender or store phones.

The ongoing toll of immigration enforcement

In May, Dylan Lopez Contreras became the first known New York City public student to be arrested by Immigration Customs and Enforcement, or ICE, since Trump’s second term began. Since then, several schools across the city have already seen students or their parents detained, and sometimes deported, as the Trump administration has ramped up ICE arrests to meet its goal of the “largest deportation program in American history.”

Advocates worry that deportation threats will keep immigrant students home from school or extracurriculars. And immigration is now on the decline: The nation’s foreign-born population fell by 1 million people as of June, marking the first decline since the 1960s, according to the Pew Research Center.

The implications for the school system could be significant. The influx of immigrants over the past few years has propped up New York City’s shrinking enrollment. Declining immigration will not only affect the city’s “international schools,” which exclusively serve newcomers to the country, but will likely affect many other schools across the system that have welcomed migrant students.

Expanding curriculum mandates to upper grades

The Adams administration has made overhauling literacy and math curriculums the centerpiece of its educational agenda.

As all elementary schools start either their second or third year under the reading curriculum mandates, the system continues to expand the approach to older grades as well as requiring intervention programs to specifically support struggling readers.

Roughly 100 middle schools across eight districts this year will be required to use city-approved reading curriculums their superintendents selected.

For math, 84 middle schools in six districts are being added to the mandate. That’s on top of 100 schools that were already part of the mandate. (There are about 530 middle schools in all.)

Students line up for their first day of school at John F. Hylan P.S. 257 Magnet School of the Performing Arts on Sept. 5, 2024.

City officials pointed to rising state tests scores for grades 3-8 as proof of the reading overhaul’s effectiveness. The city’s rosy framing is complicated, however, by other data: Districts in other parts of the state without similar mandates also saw their significant gains. New York City’s charter schools, which also are not part of the curriculum mandate, saw their scores rise even more dramatically than schools run by the city’s Education Department.

Graduation requirements are getting overhauled

As part of the state’s multi-year effort to rethink graduation requirements, education officials are continuing to define what students in the coming years will need to earn their diplomas.

This summer, the Board of Regents approved a new framework, known as the “portrait of a graduate,” to define the general goals for high school graduates as the state phases out Regents exams as a graduation requirement beginning in the 2027-28 school year.

In the future, students will have a variety of ways to show they meet six characteristics — that they are academically prepared, creative innovators, critical thinkers, effective communicators, global citizens, and “reflective and future focused.”

They might, for instance, demonstrate critical thinking skills by participating in debates or research projects, or complete service learning projects to show their commitment to global citizenship.

Educators and families are still awaiting more details on what the new system will look like in practice and how students will be assessed once the Regents exams are no longer required.

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Alex Zimmerman contributed.

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

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

The Detroit school district is ramping up enrollment and student retention efforts. Will it pay off?

2025-08-19T22:49:50+00:00

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Despite the summer heat, Toyia Diab came out to the Summer on the Block at Pulaski Elementary-Middle School to learn what it had to offer the four grandchildren she had in tow.

The family made their way to about a dozen tables snaking around the lawn on the side of the school. Diab listened to staff from the Detroit school district detail all of its resources over the pulsing base of loud music.

Diab’s family was one of many the Detroit Public Schools Community District courted this summer as part of its efforts to retain families and boost enrollment. With the loss of more than 92,000 students in the last 20 years, district officials devote some of the summer break each year to getting word out about what the city’s schools have to offer.

A group of people contracted to canvass for the Detroit Public Schools Community District meet at the Detroit School of Art to get their assignments for the day.

This year, the district ramped up efforts. It sent 40 people to canvas communities and held 19 events to create excitement about the start of school — nearly double that of previous years. It also started new initiatives, such as putting up billboards around the city. In all, the school system budgeted around $3.5 million for marketing this year. School starts Aug. 25.

Though the district has “done a fairly good job” of recruiting new students in previous years, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told school board members at a meeting earlier this month that the main challenge is keeping them.

As a result, this year the school system also has focused on reenrollment rates. Those numbers have become a metric the district uses to “hold schools accountable,” Vitti said, though he didn’t share how many students the district typically loses during the school year.

“We have emphasized … the need to improve customer service and parent engagement, so that parents feel more welcome,” he said. “And we fight harder to keep students at the schools that they’re at, rather than having more of an attitude of, ‘Well, if you don’t like it here, then you can find another school.’”

Sharlonda Buckman, assistant superintendent of family and community engagement, told Chalkbeat the district has seen a lot of “good signs” for this school year because of the number of people her office reached in the summer.

“It’s noticeable for me, and I’ve been at this for a long time,” she said. “We’ll see what that boils down to, in terms of enrollment.”

This year, Buckman said nearly 5,000 people went to the Summer on the Block events, parties held at schools that both serve as a vehicle to sell families on sending their kids to the district and connect them with free resources.

“As a parent, you have to bring your kids to school every day in order to get the education that they need,” Diab said at the Pulaski back-to-school event. “But then you’ll find some schools, they just don’t have enough resources to keep them interested to come to school, to stay in school.”

All of the district’s summer efforts produced 532 leads on parents interested in enrolling their kids by mid-August. Around 80 of those students completed enrollment, according to the district.

Though initial enrollment numbers are up, officials say, the full impact of the district’s efforts won’t be known until the end of the 2025-26 school year.

Myriad factors have affected enrollment in DPSCD

Boosting student numbers has been among the district’s top priorities for years.

The numbers of students attending schools are crucial for districts in Michigan, where school funding is tied to enrollment.

Now that COVID relief dollars are gone and the federal government has signaled it will not renew various other funding sources, districts are bracing to rely more on local money.

A number of factors affected the district’s enrollment over the years, including population declines in the city, lower birthrates, the state’s emergency management of the district, and the pandemic. The district also faces competition from Detroit charter schools, where around half of kids in the city go to school.

High student mobility rates, or the rate at which kids move to different homes, contribute to the district’s difficulty in keeping children enrolled. Chronic absenteeism rates also have a direct impact on enrollment.

Enrollment in the district was more than 156,000 in the 2002-03 school year. Last year, it was 49,000.

When DPSCD was created and the school system began being phased out of emergency management in the 2017-18 school year, enrollment shot up to more than 50,800 from 45,700 during the 2016-17 school year.

Tanya Shelton, a canvasser for the district, and Kenneth Chapman Sr., the assistant director of enrollment, family, and community engagement, visit homes in northwest Detroit.

The district has struggled to move the needle much since, especially after drops during pandemic-era school closures and the years that followed.

At the beginning of this month, there were 50,890 students enrolled in the district, Vitti said at the board meeting.

“We have about 1,400 more students than we did at the end of the year enrolled in DPSCD as of today, and about 500 more as compared to the first day of school,” he said, adding that “ “enrollment is trending in a positive direction.”

Early enrollment numbers for the district are usually higher than official headcounts made in October. The number of students recorded on “Count Day” is used by the state to calculate funding for districts.

Making the case for DPSCD face-to-face

Three days before the Summer on the Block at Pulaski, more than 20 people squeezed into a sun-filled classroom at the Detroit School of Arts.

The group was contracted by the district to canvas homes in areas where attendance is low compared to the number of school-aged children living there.

This summer, the district sent canvassers to more than 78,000 homes to inform families about its schools and programs.

The group at the School of Arts was gathered to get their assignments for the day. They waited to pick up hand-out materials, including fliers listing Summer on the Block dates and pamphlets highlighting programs at application schools.

Tanya Shelton and her son, David, pick up the materials they will hand out while canvassing.

To get the energy up in the classroom before they headed out, the canvassers stood up to form a circle. Buckman, the assistant superintendent, asked them to share what they heard door-knocking.

“We’re getting a good response in terms of some of those students coming back to the district,” said one woman.

Others expressed residents’ hesitations to open their doors or to give their contact information for the district to follow up with them.

Laura Gomez, who has been canvassing for three years, said through a translator that this summer has been different in southwest Detroit, which is home to many immigrant and newcomer families.

People in the neighborhood say they have seen more community members detained and deported in recent months, including a student at Western International High School.

“There are some people that are really happy we’re going out to the houses because that way they don’t have to leave their home because they don’t feel safe,” she said.

After the canvassers broke out into teams, they drove to the areas they were assigned to for the day.

Tanya Shelton and her son, David, arrived in the Crary St. Mary’s neighborhood in the northwest corner of the city.

“We’ll ask them what school district are they in, and if they are interested in DPSCD, we give some information on it,” she said as she made her way down a long block adjacent to the Southfield Freeway.

In her conversations with families, Shelton said the district’s free school lunches piqued their interest. Other canvassers said parents were interested in learning more about the academic interventionists available to students.

Most of the doors Shelton knocked on that day, though, went unanswered. She left the district’s literature at dozens of houses.

Families weigh programming, academics, and transportation in selecting schools

At Pulaski’s Summer on the Block Alexa Franco-Garcia saw more students signing up to attend the school than she has in past years.

“Right now, I have three enrollment packets in my hand, so that means they’ve completed enrollment,” she said during a break from talking with families.

Another three parents left their contact information and said they would return the paperwork the next day.

Considering it was about 30 minutes into the event, that was a strong number, said Franco-Garcia, who works in the Office of Family and Community Engagement.

In her time working in the district, Franco-Garcia has learned what kinds of questions families ask: They want to know about the curriculum, extracurricular activities, and class sizes. They wonder whether their children will be supported in special education and if they will get a bus ride to school.

Patrice McCall and seventh grader Brendon, right, learn about DPSCD's heath hubs at Pulaski Elementary-Middle School's Summer on the Block event.

Most of the sign-ups at the Pulaski event were for kindergartners who were new to the district, Franco-Garcia said.

Enrolling early learners is one of the districts’ top growth strategies.

There were 457 students enrolled in prekindergarten by the beginning of August, according to the district, up about 10 compared to the same time last year.

Diab, the grandmother, brought four kids ages 5 to 12 out to learn more about the school. They heard about the district’s community health hubs, parent academy, and mental health resources.

Teachers from the school gathered around a welcome table ready to answer questions as Principal Tyra R. Smith-Bell floated around talking with parents.

The fresh produce boxes, ice cream truck, free books, and kids’ activities also enticed more than 350 people to come – many more than in previous years, Buckman said.

Linn Flake was the first second-grader of the day to enroll at Pulaski, said Franco-Garcia. It would be his first experience at a neighborhood school, she added.

His mom, Roxanne Flake, chose DPSCD over the charter school Linn went to last year.

“I just wanted a different start,” she said.

The charter school didn’t provide transportation, said Flake, which was an inconvenience because she doesn’t currently have a car. But the Detroit school district offered bus service for Linn to Pulaski, the mother said.

Diab said she had more research to do before her family committed to Pulaski.

“We’re gonna come here and we’re gonna figure everything out – ask questions, all of that stuff, and then if it’s the right fit for them, then we’re gonna put them in,” she said.

Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis district to consider school closures as school building crisis looms

2025-08-14T20:23:10+00:00

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Labrandon Fletcher, a 16-year-old student in Memphis-Shelby County Schools, says there’s a long list of things that need fixing in his school building.

The ceiling at Hamilton High School is “falling apart,” he said, and the bathroom plumbing needs dire attention. But the biggest issues are lighting and air conditioning.

“No one wants a dark place to learn and get an education,” Fletcher said. “It’s harder to see things, to see what’s on the board.”

Fletcher is one of many community members, including a small group of students, who brought their concerns to the first meeting of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools facilities committee on Wednesday.

The group is expected to give recommendations for how the district should address over $1.6 billion in deferred maintenance costs in the next decade. That plan will include some school closures, committee leaders said.

MSCS students and school leaders described years of quick fixes in deteriorating buildings, with no sustainable plan in place.

Michelle Stuart, who heads MSCS’ facilities services, said Wednesday that the district prioritizes spending based on student safety. When closing schools, she said, leaders consider factors like building age and condition, enrollment numbers, and academic performance.

Free Bacchus, an assistant principal at Hamilton High School, said she remembers the outcry from parents when Magnolia and Charjean elementary schools closed to merge with a new Alcy Elementary in 2020. But her perspective changed when she toured the Alcy building.

“When I walked in, I was like, ‘Wow, how beautiful. How lucky are these children to have a library like this, a ceiling-to-wall window,’” Bacchus said.

“I know it hurt,” she said, to close the schools down. “But just look at what those kids got in return.”

Stuart said the MSCS facilities report, released by outside firm Bureau Veritas in April, found $334 million worth of repairs needed in schools in the next two years. The district has not yet fulfilled a Chalkbeat Tennessee July request for the report, which was provided to the Daily Memphian and other media earlier this year.

The firm also estimated an additional $1.2 billion in needed longer-term investments, bringing the district’s grand total in facilities maintenance to just under $3 billion over the next 20 years.

MSCS has spent over $381 million on building improvements and repairs since 2021, said Chief Financial Officer Tito Langston. Over half of that was used for HVAC upgrades, according to numbers he presented Wednesday.

Board Member Amber Huett-Garcia noted that almost none of the recent spending is “innovative.”

“This is keeping our schools functioning between roofs, heating, and cooling,” she said. “We’re patching our buildings.”

Nylah Sanders, a student at Whitehaven High School, said that the “simple, little things” are always being repaired at her school “over and over and over.” Her peer, Austin Townsel, said students “can use better” technology and air conditioning.

“We’re not in the 21st century,” Natalie McKinney, committee co-chair, said in response.

McKinney said the facilities committee is expected to meet again in early September, when members will break into working groups to tackle specific issues. Designated seats for students and parents still haven’t been filled.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

What’s driving families to leave NYC public schools? A new survey offers clues.

2025-04-11T22:39:20+00:00

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As enrollment in New York City’s public schools plunged in recent years, city officials said reversing the trend would be a major priority.

New statistics offer some clues about why many families left: A desire for better instruction and concerns about school safety, according to survey results the Education Department released Friday.

About 41% of families who left the system said more rigorous instruction was one of their top reasons for withdrawing. Another 40% cited a move away from the city. One in four families pointed to concerns about school safety.

More than 1,600 families who transferred their children to local private or charter schools, home-schooled them, or left the city between September 2022 and December 2023 responded to the survey.

Education Department officials framed the survey results as a way to better understand parents’ choices, some of which are tied to broader policy issues such as the city’s dearth of affordable housing. Public school enrollment, which was already on the decline before COVID hit, is now 11% below pre-pandemic levels, with 815,000 students in grades K-12. And officials predict the numbers will continue to fall over the next decade.

City officials have grown increasingly worried about recruiting and retaining families in the nation’s largest school system. Dwindling rosters are prompting difficult decisions about merging and closing schools that are often too small to offer a robust set of programs and extracurricular activities.

Among families who departed the city, half listed “concerns about schools” as one of their top five reasons for leaving. Nearly two-thirds said they were looking for a better environment to raise their family, half said they were looking for bigger homes, 42% cited concerns about crime, and 36% said they were looking for more affordable housing.

The city is trying to win families back, and officials pointed to some existing efforts to improve the system: overhauling reading and math curriculums and recruiting parent volunteers to help address chronic absenteeism. Officials are also launching a wave of selective high schools in higher-need neighborhoods.

“I am committed to listening to our families and following their lead as we shape our schools to best serve our children,” schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said in a statement. “Understanding why families may choose to leave a NYC public school is an essential part of that work.”

The survey results are also notable for what families did not seem to prioritize when they chose programs outside the city’s public school system.

Only about one-third of families cited school diversity or a culturally relevant curriculum as significant factors. About 41% listed career preparation programs such as apprenticeships, which public schools have increasingly invested in under Mayor Eric Adams. By contrast, 74% of families said they prioritized schools that felt supportive and welcoming.

Still, multiple experts said the results offered little in the way of policy guidance and included significant limitations.

Only about 3% of families who left the city’s public schools responded to the survey, raising concerns that caregivers who did not answer may have been more likely to offer different responses.

Plus, it is difficult to interpret what families mean when they list concerns about broad issues such as academic rigor or school safety, said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

“It’s not something that I think is totally worthless,” Pallas said of the survey results. “On the other hand, I don’t think it’s telling us much that’s actionable.” Information the Education Department collected from focus groups that were conducted separately from the survey could be more useful in understanding families’ decision-making at a more granular level, he said.

Jen Jennings, a Princeton University sociology professor who has studied the city’s public schools, noted there is often a disconnect between how people respond to surveys and the reasons motivating their decisions. When families raise concerns about school safety, for instance, some research suggests they might be responding to a school’s racial composition, Jennings said.

Still, listening to what families say about their enrollment decisions can be worthwhile on its own.

“If a value of the system is getting feedback and what they’re trying to do is engage families and let them know that they care,” Jennings said, “this could have a really important purpose.”

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

Jeffco may close another school, but it wants the community to help design the replacement

2025-02-06T17:51:23+00:00

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The Jeffco school district is considering closing a school that serves grades 7-12 and turning it into a specialized high school where students would study for particular career paths.

The draft plan for Jefferson Jr./Sr. High School in Edgewater was discussed by the Jeffco school board on Wednesday after it was first presented to the community last month.

The district isn’t calling the proposed changes a school closure. Rather, it’s calling it a transition, even though the building would likely not serve any students for at least a year and could serve fewer grades when it reopens. Unlike in the past, district leaders say they have time to work on the plan and want the community’s input. No final decision has been made.

“If we find that there’s support for this plan, that we can build something with community that there’s genuine excitement about and momentum for,” then the district might present a final recommendation to the board in June or August, said Claire Takhar, Jeffco’s executive director of strategic initiatives. A closure wouldn’t happen until the 2026-27 school year.

The draft plan is the result of a school boundary study the district commissioned last year that looked at the long-term viability of the district’s current school feeder patterns. The study found that the Jefferson articulation area served the fewest students in the district and was expected to continue to see enrollment declines. If enrollment this fall showed evidence that the estimates were on track, the district needed to come up with a plan, district leaders said.

Right now, Jefferson Jr./Sr. High is serving 629 students, slightly up from last year’s official count of 594 students. A little more than 78% of the school’s students qualify for subsidized meals, a measure of poverty.

The district’s boundary study made a few short-term recommendations for boundary changes in the district, and some long-term recommendations that could result in more school consolidations in the future.

For now, Jeffco leaders said they are not considering changes to any other schools.

Compared to the other short-term recommendations, the boundary study didn’t suggest a particular change to the Jefferson articulation area, but did conclude that the boundary was unsustainable due to expected declining enrollment. The study estimated that by the 2027-28 school year, Jefferson Jr./Sr. High would only serve approximately 372 students.

The district has since adjusted those numbers and on Wednesday told the school board that it expects the school to serve 447 students in four years, still well below the school’s capacity.

The study also looked at the possibility of rearranging school boundaries to even out enrollment. But it found that because of school choice, which allows so many students to pick a school outside their neighborhood, boundary changes have little effect on balancing enrollment.

In the 2023-24 school year, the study found 40% of all Jeffco students were choosing a school outside their designated boundary.

In the boundary of Jefferson Jr./Sr. High, the district found that 47% of families are choosing other middle or high schools.

“Simply moving boundary lines without closing a school and eliminating that option is unlikely to force a change in enrollment behavior of our families,” the report stated.

“We’re looking at an unfortunate victim of the privilege of choice for families,” said Jeffco board member Erin Kenworthy. “My concern in particular is we’re seeing another Title I school essentially being abandoned due to community choice. It’s a really hard reality.”

District staff pointed out that demographics also play a large role in the neighborhood’s enrollment decline.

“Edgewater itself as a city is changing really rapidly,” said Lisa Relou, the district’s chief of staff. “Gentrification is happening at a rapid pace.”

Relou also pointed out that just on the other side of Edgewater, the Denver school district had recommended closing nearby Colfax Elementary for low enrollment. That school has been spared for now.

The study also found that the district is serving about 91% of the children in the county, meaning that enrollment declines can’t just be attributed to students choosing options outside of the district such as private schools or homeschooling.

Even creating specialized programming “does not necessarily draw in new families to Jeffco; instead, these programs simply encouraged more movement within the district itself,” the study stated.

Still, on Wednesday, district staff talked about doing just that with Jefferson Jr./Sr. High. The draft plan from the district would close the school for the 2026-27 school year, and potentially reopen it a year later as a new option school for high school students.

The plan also would move sixth grade students out of elementary schools in the area so that by 2026-27, Lumberg and Edgewater elementary schools would only serve preschool through fifth grade. For secondary grades, the neighborhood would merge with the Wheat Ridge articulation area, so students would feed into Everitt Middle School and then into Wheat Ridge High School.

Over the next couple of months, the district is planning to host “co-design sessions” with the community to explore the plan in more detail, with a focus on what kind of school Jefferson Jr./Sr. High would turn into.

Two initial options include a focus on career education, but one would allow students to attend the newly designed school part-time, similar to the district’s Warren Tech model. The second option would be a full-time career-focused school.

One board member characterized the proposal as “ambiguous.”

Member Danielle Varda said “it sounds a lot like closing a school, consolidating and figuring out what to do with the building, just said in different ways. I think people might feel the same way.”

Superintendent Tracy Dorland said that because the district is allowing the community to help it plan, leaders don’t yet have answers to all the questions being posed by families and community members.

“I feel like there hasn’t been an experience, especially in this community, but I think in many of our communities, where district leadership is sitting down at the table saying, ‘Let’s talk about this, we don’t have all the answers,’ and people actually believing us, and understanding that the other side of the coin of the district not having all the answers is ambiguity and a need from district leadership for people to bring solutions and ideas,” Dorland said. “It’s really uncharted territory.”

The Jeffco school district, which this year is serving 75,495 students, the second largest district in the state, has already closed 21 schools since 2021 due to large drops in enrollment.

At the time of those school closures, the district committed to not closing any high schools and issued a moratorium on such closures, but that moratorium has ended.

According to the boundary study, Jeffco still has 18 schools that are under 60% capacity. The study projected that number to grow to 28 schools by 2027-28. At the same time, seven schools are over 100% capacity. In 2027-28, the study projected six schools to be over capacity.

District leaders said that while the decision to close or transition Jefferson Jr./Sr. High hasn’t been made, the fear is that if the school’s enrollment problem isn’t addressed, in a few years, the district will have to close it when enrollment becomes unsustainable.

The first community co-design meeting is scheduled for Feb. 11.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the name of school board member Erin Kenworthy.

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

CUNY board unveils ‘master plan’ projecting enrollment bump

2025-01-30T17:14:08+00:00

This story was originally published on Jan. 30 by THE CITY. Sign up here to get the latest stories from THE CITY delivered to you each morning. The CITY partners with Open Campus on coverage of the City University of New York.

The City University of New York Board of Trustees Committee on Education Policy this week approved a “Master Plan” for 2026 to 2034 that projects an 13% increase in enrollment by 2030 and outlines a set of strategies to accomplish that goal.

The document signals CUNY’s leadership intends to step up efforts to attract adult New Yorkers who already have some college experience. The university plans to emphasize continuing education and workforce development programs, boost its online course offerings and target more New York City-area students who are not enrolled in public schools.

The plan notes demographic and educational trends that influenced its undergraduate projections, including a steady decline in New York City public school enrollment, difficulty assessing college readiness following waivers granted for high school graduation Regents exams during the pandemic, and the long-term value students and families place on higher education.

CUNY plans to reach a total enrollment of 264,000 students by 2030, including non-degree enrollments — up from 233,352 in 2023. “While additional analysis is needed to more accurately project enrollment through 2034, we expect to, at minimum, sustain the 2030 achieved target,” reads the report.

“It sounds ambitious but in line with the direction that CUNY has been going,” Ayinde Bennett, a postsecondary readiness manager with Urban Assembly, which works with high school students across the city to prepare them for college, told THE CITY about the enrollment targets.

“I think they are really investing in ‘How do we make CUNY the university for New Yorkers, for New York?’ The idea that you can go to Columbia and NYU but CUNY is a far more affordable option,” he added, noting the university’s reputation as a driver of social and economic mobility.

At a state of the university presentation in November, CUNY chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez celebrated the system’s second straight year of increased enrollment, reversing a downward trend exacerbated by the pandemic. Approximately 3% more students matriculated compared to the previous year, including 6% more at the community colleges. Enrollment of graduate students also increased for the first time in four years.

But enrollment is still down 10% compared to pre-pandemic levels — and matriculation of Hispanic students has been particularly slow to recover.

Emmanuel Moses, director of guidance and transition for the Opportunity Network, a nonprofit organization that helps students from underrepresented communities access college and professional opportunities, told THE CITY that CUNY’s enrollment projections “will definitely be possible if they expand what, not just college, but what post secondary success looks like,” and if they continue to address affordability.

“I can see it happening, but I think it’s gonna take a lot of them sort of saying, ‘Hey, let’s do more certificate programs, or let’s connect with more workforce,’” said Moses. “I think it’s a space where they’re realizing it can’t just be ‘Let me go to high schools.’”

In the report, CUNY said it will redouble its efforts to recruit and serve the nearly 700,000 New Yorkers with college credits and no degree among working-age adults, noting it will increase its “emphasis on building workforce-aligned programs and pathways including certificate and workforce skills programs for in-demand careers.” Approximately 30% of CUNY undergraduate students withdraw from educational programs each year.

CUNY initiatives like Accelerated Studies Associate Program (ASAP) and Accelerate, Create, and Engage (ACE), which offer students comprehensive support through advisement, career development, and tuition and transportation assistance, will go a long way toward attracting and holding on to those potential students, added Moses.

“If you’re going to retain and support returning students, adult learners, you need to acknowledge the things that are going on really in their life, whether it’s child care, whether it’s transportation,” he said, noting of ASAP that it “gives book stipends. It provides free transportation. You know how clutch that is for a parent or somebody who has to work?”

CUNY Reconnect, which helps working-age adults who once attended CUNY return to the university, is one program that the institution plans to expand to support that demographic. It will target “individuals impacted by the criminal justice system (including their family members), students educated outside the United States and veterans.” Supported with initial funding from the City Council, the program has re-enrolled 40,000 students since its creation in 2022, the chancellor said during his state of the university speech.

CUNY noted it would seek to expand its college readiness programs for public school students as a way to get more to enroll at its campuses. More than 80% of the university’s freshmen are graduates of the city’s public high schools.

To add about 5,100 graduate students by 2030, the university plans to strengthen its undergraduate-to-graduate pipeline by enhancing mentoring and expanding accelerated dual bachelor’s and master’s programs.

As part of a statewide plan for higher education, the master plan from CUNY is mandated by the New York State Board of Regents, which determines education policy for the state, by April 29.

The plan was reviewed by CUNY leadership, faculty, staff, students and administrators across the university’s campuses this past fall, according to the document. The full board will vote on the plan on Feb. 18.

Some crowded NYC schools want enrollment caps to cut class sizes. Will the city pay for it?

2025-01-22T23:15:18+00:00

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P.S. 8, a coveted elementary school in Brooklyn Heights, has few options to reduce class sizes to comply with the state’s new law.

The school could try to secure additional space through a new building or annex, or split into multiple sites, but that would take years to complete. The school could get an exemption from the law, but the process for granting waivers is still unclear. And the reality is that most families at the school want lower class sizes, parent leaders say.

So when city officials earlier this year gave schools across New York City the chance to apply for extra funding to reduce class sizes, P.S. 8’s proposal included a request for one thing parent leaders say could make an immediate difference: reducing enrollment.

The school, which currently enrolls about 580 students and operates above 100% of its building capacity, asked to limit kindergarten registration starting next year to students who live in the school’s geographic zone, a change estimated to reduce the overall size of the grade from about 125 to roughly 90, parent leaders said. The school’s principal declined to comment.

At least three other overcrowded schools are also seeking to reduce the size of future incoming classes in order to make progress toward the state mandate, which has a deadline of September 2028 to be in full compliance, families and educators told Chalkbeat. The move would require the schools to keep roughly the same number of teachers — an additional cost because school budgets typically are based on student enrollment.

“This is the only thing we can do,” said the principal of an overcrowded elementary school, on the condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to talk to the press. The schools are among nearly 500 citywide that officials say do not have space to comply with the mandate.

The requests are notable because the Education Department has so far been reluctant to consider enrollment caps at overcrowded schools as a means of reducing class sizes, even when it’s the most expedient, or realistic, option. Officials have repeatedly expressed concern that reducing enrollment at schools that are maxed out on space — which, by definition, tend to be some of the city’s most in-demand — could anger parents or even drive some to leave the system.

“New enrollment caps are not being considered at this point,” said Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle. “New York City Public Schools is continuing to focus on expanding choice and access for families.”

Principals can get some wiggle room on the size of their incoming classes with the approval of their superintendent and the central enrollment office, a spokesperson said, but didn’t share specific criteria for approving those requests.

Officials have signaled that they’re unlikely to commit extra money to help schools seeking to reduce enrollment retain all their teachers. This year’s class size reduction funding aims to support schools to meet the required caps through approaches like filling unused classroom space and hiring more teachers — without reducing their enrollment, Education Department officials said.

Some 750 schools applied for the funding, the city teachers union said.

Right now, just two of P.S. 8’s 25 classes are below the caps set by the law, which limit elementary school classes to 20-23 students, according to Education Department figures.

The school’s enrollment-shrinking proposal, coupled with the extra funding, would allow it to get all five kindergarten classes below the cap, said PTA co-presidents Jennifer LaRusso-Leung and Carol Capece. As those smaller classes move through the school, it would eventually help bring other grades into compliance (though not all before the 2028 deadline).

That’s what most parents in the building want, regardless of the state law, Capece said.

“Our school survey supports this every year,” she said. “Small class sizes is the number one priority for almost all parents at our school.”

The city is nearing a critical phase of the class size law, which passed in 2022. As of last fall, roughly 46% of the city’s classrooms were under the caps. That number has to grow to 60% by this September, and by an additional 20 percentage points each of the two following years.

Education Department officials believe they can reach 60% by supporting schools with the space to comply, but will soon face much tougher decisions about how to handle overcrowded schools.

The stakes are high. The city could lose about $800 million in state funding a year if it fails to comply with the class size law, according to city estimates.

Enrollment caps could be a key tool for crowded schools

Plans like P.S. 8’s were a key component of the recommendations from the city’s class size working group, a committee of dozens of educators, parents, policymakers, and advocates who issued a 2023 report advising the city on how best to comply with the law.

The group concluded that capping enrollment would be a necessary, and relatively cost-effective, tool to help overcrowded schools meet the mandate, but proposed some “guardrails” to minimize the disruption to families.

For instance, they recommended targeting overcrowded schools in close proximity to other schools with excess space, so students affected by the caps would have somewhere close to go, suggesting no more than a 30-minute walk for elementary students.

They also recommended that caps apply only to students who want to attend school out of their zone — an approach that would be quicker and less disruptive than trying to cap zoned enrollment.

Roughly 23% of current kindergartners at overcrowded schools are out-of-zone, and the share is even higher for middle schools and high schools according to the working group. High schools in the city’s choice system are largely unzoned.

The recommendation to pursue enrollment caps was among the most contentious the working group considered, and some members opposed it, arguing that parent choice alone should drive enrollment and urging state legislators to amend the law.

The option, which isn’t favored by the Education Department, is by nature time sensitive: Enrollment caps work best by starting with the lower grades and then moving those smaller classes through the school rather than disrupting existing classes.

“The longer they [the Education Department] wait, the worse it’s going to become,” said Leonie Haimson, the executive director of Class Size Matters, an advocacy group that has pushed for years to lower class sizes, and a member of the working group.

Enrollment caps could have spillover effects

In addition to helping reduce class sizes, enrollment caps could have positive spillover effects citywide, including shoring up enrollment at under-enrolled schools and fostering racial and socioeconomic integration, the working group argued. Overcrowded schools tend to have higher populations of white and Asian American students, while underutilized ones tend to enroll Black and Latino students.

The group acknowledged that in some cases, enrollment caps could undercut diversity efforts by excluding students from underrepresented groups seeking to enroll at a school outside their zone, and members urged the city to consider each case individually.

P.S. 8 is largely white and among the most affluent schools in the city, while its neighboring elementary school in Dumbo, P.S. 307, is largely Black, Latino, and low-income. A controversial rezoning proposal a decade ago that shifted some students previously assigned to the P.S. 8 zone to P.S. 307’s zone drew significant attention and sparked concerns from both schools.

Even though P.S. 8’s current enrollment cap proposal wouldn’t affect zoned families, it will likely disappoint some out-of-zone families hoping to attend the school, Capece acknowledged.

That’s part of why the Education Department has been reluctant to pursue enrollment caps, raising concerns that if fewer families get into their top choice schools, more will leave the system.

When incoming kindergartners get an offer to enroll in their first choice school, roughly 70% of parents accept, and another 21% leave the city or enroll in a charter, according to 2022 data the Education Department shared with the working group. When kindergarten families get an offer at their second or third choice, 37% enroll, 34% leave the public school system, and the remaining families enroll in other city public schools, according to the data.

Enrollment caps alone are unlikely to get the city to 100% compliance with class size caps, the working group acknowledged.

In some districts, especially in southern Brooklyn and Queens, almost all of the schools are overcrowded. In those districts, the only path forward is a big boom in school construction, contends Haimson. But the city’s current construction plans fall well short of those needs, Haimson charged in a December letter to state education officials.

Schools can get exemptions from the law under certain circumstances, including over-enrollment, if the teachers union, principals union, and Education Department all agree. But the specific criteria for those exemptions and the process for deciding on them have not been fully fleshed out.

“The main problem is they have absolutely no plan to provide space either by building more schools or adjusting enrollment between schools,” said Haimson.

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

Denver school choice waitlists: Look up 2024 data here

2024-12-18T21:23:57+00:00

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The number of students waitlisted each spring at Denver public schools continues to decline.

Data shows about 2,900 students were on waitlists after Round 1 of Denver Public Schools’ school choice process this past spring, though it’s important to note that a single student can be on multiple waitlists. That number is down from about 5,000 students in 2019, a 41% decrease.

Overall enrollment in Denver Public Schools shrank from about 92,200 students in kindergarten through 12th grade in 2019 to about 88,200 students in 2024, a 4% decrease.

Denver Public Schools officials said they don’t have an explanation for the shrinking waitlists. When the same trend showed up last year, officials said it could be a symptom of declining enrollment or a sign that more families are happy at their assigned neighborhood schools.

School choice is enshrined in Colorado law. It means any student can apply to attend any public school. Denver Public Schools makes it easy — and sometimes all but mandatory — for families to participate by having a single online application on which they can list up to 12 school choices. The application window, commonly known as Round 1, will open on Jan. 15.

Whether students get accepted to a particular school depends on whether the school has open seats and how it prioritizes its admissions. Almost all schools use a lottery, but they can give preference to siblings of already enrolled students or the children of teachers, for example.

For the 2024-25 school year, students at 10 Denver schools that will close or partially close at the end of this school year will get priority to enroll at any school they choose.

Students who don’t get accepted to a particular school are put on a waitlist. If a student is accepted to the third school on their list, they will be waitlisted at their first and second choices.

Many school waitlists are shrinking. Notable trends include:

Northfield High School had the longest waitlist after Round 1 in 2024 with 254 incoming ninth graders waiting for a seat. Northfield’s waitlist grew 15% from 2019 to 2024.
No incoming ninth graders were waitlisted in 2024 at East High, the district’s largest school. In 2019, there were 112 incoming freshmen on East’s waitlist.
Six of the 10 schools with the longest waitlists in 2024 were district-run schools. The other four were charter schools, which are publicly funded but independently run.
By Chalkbeat’s count, the waitlists at 73 Denver schools were shorter in 2024 than they were in 2019. The schools where waitlists shrank included McAuliffe International School, Slavens K-8 School, and Steele Elementary School.
By our count, the waitlists at 38 Denver schools were longer in 2024 than they were in 2019. The schools where waitlists grew included Merrill Middle School, Morey Middle School, and South High School.
The waitlists at all other schools either stayed the same — nearly all of them at zero students in both 2024 and 2019 — or there wasn’t comparable data over time.

The searchable database below shows how many students in kindergarten, sixth, and ninth grades were on each school’s waitlist after Round 1 of school choice in 2024. The waitlists change over the spring and summer as families move or change their minds.

A note about Denver School of the Arts: It’s the only school in Denver that requires an audition to get in. It runs its own waitlist separate from the district process. Although its waitlist shows up as zero in the searchable table, district officials have said the school rejects hundreds of applicants each year.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

NYC reformed high school admissions 20 years ago. Did it make things better?

2024-12-16T19:25:48+00:00

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In most places in the country, enrolling in high school is a simple matter: You graduate middle school and move on to your local high school.

That’s not how it works in New York City.

In the nation’s largest school system, 12- and 13-year-olds go through a process that many say is as stressful — or more so — than applying to college. Students must rank preferences from a list of more than 400 schools citywide with widely varying specialties and admissions requirements, including essays, auditions, and interviews. Then, they wait months for an algorithm to spit out a match.

Many of those features are a result of big reforms that came two decades ago with the intention of making the system more fair and efficient. Twenty years later, some of those changes have paid off, but segregation and inequality remain baked into the system, a recent convening found.

The Nov. 18 conference, organized by Fordham Law School’s Feerick Center for Social Justice and the nonprofit New York Appleseed, which advocates for school integration, brought together policymakers, academics, admissions professionals, parents, and students to reflect on how the city’s current admissions system came to be and how it’s working.

Measuring how the reforms of two decades ago have worked is complicated and depends on how you define success, panelists said.

As a “technical solution, these reforms were very successful,” said Sean Corcoran, associate professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University who has studied city high school admissions for decades. Far fewer students ended up without a match and were assigned to a school they didn’t choose than before the reforms, Corcoran said, and the changes made it far more difficult for schools and families to game the system.

But as the number of high school options exploded and information became more accessible through the internet, the system has become more and more complex for families, posing equity concerns in a city where the time, resources, and savvy to navigate all that information aren’t evenly distributed.

And despite efforts over the years to make the system more fair, it remains sharply divided along lines of race, class, language and disability status.

Here are some of the big takeaways and lingering questions from the convening.

Reforms were a bid to bring order to an unwieldy system

Most immediately, the reforms introduced by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools Chancellor Joel Klein were an effort to rationalize a system officials said was rife with inequity and inefficiency.

Before the reforms, students had the option of attending a zoned school but could also apply to up to five options across the city. Students could get into multiple schools or none at all. Some 30,000 students a year didn’t get into any of their choices and were assigned a school by the city, according to reports from the time.

There were also more ways for schools and families to game the system, experts said. Principals could withhold a portion of their seats until late in the process, giving them more discretion over whom to admit.

By requiring all students to participate in the choice system and running their rankings through an algorithm that spit out a single match per applicant, officials tried to maximize the number of students getting into a school of their choice. The number of unmatched students dropped from 30,000 to 3,000.

Under the old system, families could win an advantage at some schools by ranking them first, incentivizing families to be strategic with their rankings. Under the current system, ranking a school lower down on their list no longer puts students at an admissions disadvantage.

Last year, 77% of eighth graders citywide got into one of their top three choices, according to Education Department data.

“That is an important criteria, but by itself is not a sufficient measure of success,” said Corcoran.

The promise and perils of more information

Many of the tweaks Education Department officials have made over the years were efforts to make information more accessible to more families, from creating a new online application and school search tool, to compiling school open house dates in a central calendar, to introducing a new tool this year that helps families gauge their chances of getting into a given school.

“We still have a very complex system we’re operating in,” said Lianna Wright, the executive director of Enrollment Research and Policy at the Education Department’s Office of Student Enrollment. But “we’ve made a lot of changes to the process to make it more transparent and to try to advance equity.”

And there’s some evidence that increasing access to better information about schools for disadvantaged families can make a difference. A research team led by Corcoran found that offering middle school students simple tools to help them compare the quality of high schools in their neighborhoods helped them attend schools with higher graduation rates.

But there are also dangers to continuing to flood families with more information and relying on that approach to increase equity, some panelists warned.

“It seems like there’s more and more information … and that is good for transparency, but it may actually increase racial and class disparities in admissions,” said Christopher Bonastia, a professor of sociology at Lehman College who has written about school segregation in New York City.

Selective admissions continue to be a defining and dividing feature

It’s impossible to understand the city’s high school admissions system without grappling with the prevalence of screened schools that select students based on prior academic performance, essays, audition, neighborhood of residence, and more.

Debates over the effects of screening stretch back decades before the 2004 admissions reforms. State legislators enshrined the test that determines entry to the city’s specialized high schools in 1971. A 1986 New York Times letter to the editor from future Mayor David Dinkins lamented the growth of selective “theme” schools that created “two school systems, one rich and one poor, one a success and the other a failure.”

But the landscape of screened high schools has changed dramatically over the past two decades as the city shuttered dozens of large high schools and opened hundreds of new ones. Manhattan gained roughly 1,000 screened seats since 2004 while the Bronx lost more than 2,000, according to an analysis from Jen Jennings, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. The city’s most selective schools continue to admit freshman classes far out of step with the demographics of the school system, despite tweaks over the years to screened admissions and the growth of programs that give underrepresented students priority.

City officials and supporters of the screened schools argue they’re immensely popular, ensure high achievers are challenged academically, and keep families who might otherwise leave in the system.

But the existence of those schools also concentrates more low-achieving and disadvantaged students in unscreened schools, and students at those schools are “acutely aware of the status of their school,” said Bonastia, the Lehman College professor.

“It made for a really sad experience to watch all my friends go to these ‘good’ high schools, and where I went it wasn’t really looked at as a great high school,” said Katelyn Melville, a senior at the Brooklyn Institute for Liberal Arts, an unscreened school in Flatbush. “It made me feel really less than.”

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

Jeffco, Adams 12 among districts that could see fewer Title I schools after Medicaid cuts

2024-12-11T05:40:52+00:00

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This fall, fewer students at some Colorado schools are being counted as at-risk because pandemic-era rules for Medicaid left many families suddenly unenrolled by spring 2024.

Students enrolled in Medicaid are automatically counted as at-risk students in calculations about funding. A drop in the number of at-risk students can cause some schools to lose federal Title I funding used to help those students, who generally have higher educational or social-emotional needs.

The Jeffco district, the second largest in Colorado, told its school board last month that 6,000 of the district’s approximately 75,600 students were unenrolled from Medicaid.

At some schools, the decrease in at-risk students may be enough to drop a school below the required threshold to receive Title I money. Currently in Jeffco, that threshold is 55%, but may change for next year.

Title I funding varies between schools and districts, but in Jeffco, on average schools get about $900 extra for each at-risk student. The money is used to hire additional staff and provide extra resources.

Some families are worried that their children’s schools could lose that funding. Edgewater Elementary School parent Angela Cryan took her concerns to the Jeffco school board last month.

“We are so concerned, and the families that are here tonight with me are so concerned, about losing the funding that is critical even for one year,” Cryan told school board members and the superintendent. “Whatever that amount is, it is too much to lose for our students.”

Superintendent Tracy Dorland told Cryan not to fear. Dorland said Edgewater Elementary would still qualify for Title I funds next school year.

District officials have refused to share school-level data, saying that everything is still being reviewed for accuracy. Official enrollment demographic data is usually published by the state in January.

For students who were unenrolled or those who aren’t eligible for Medicaid, including students from families that may not have legal status, parents can still fill out free and reduced-price lunch forms and, if eligible, be counted in at-risk figures that way.

The district has shared the number of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals. The figures are usually similar to at-risk numbers. At-risk counts include all students who are eligible to receive subsidized meals, but also other students including those who receive Medicaid. Overall, the district projects the percentage of students eligible for subsidized meals will be 31% this school year, down from 34% last school year.

The trend of having fewer students eligible for subsidized meals, and fewer at-risk students, is not unexpected, Jeffco leaders told the school board.

“That’s actually about what we thought was going to happen over time,” said Brenna Copeland, chief financial officer for Jeffco Public Schools. “The reality is the counts district-wide are going down, and that’s going to impact, over time, our Title I district-wide.”

Kym LeBlanc-Esparza, deputy superintendent in Jeffco, said the district has not set the percentage threshold that determines which schools will get Title I funding next year.

“We’re still going back and forth, making sure we have exactly what those numbers are,” she said.

Title I trends were worrying districts before the pandemic

Before the pandemic, districts were having to adjust the bar for which schools receive Title I status. Despite declining enrollment and overall stable numbers of students from low-income families, the distribution of those students was not even within districts. Students from high-poverty households tended to be concentrated in select schools. That meant that more schools were more likely to hit the thresholds of 65, 70, or 75% of students in poverty, for example, to qualify for the funding.

More schools qualifying for Title I status in a district can be a problem, because it doesn’t necessarily mean the district is receiving more federal funding for those schools. The federal government has a different calculation based on census data for determining how much funding to send districts.

That data doesn’t take into account school choice laws that allow Colorado students to attend schools outside their neighborhoods, changing the demographic makeup of students at schools when compared to their community.

Districts also have flexibility to determine which schools will receive the money. They specify the percentage of at-risk students schools must have to be considered Title I.

In Jeffco, that bar is currently set at 55%, and this year, 31 schools are receiving Title I funding.

Pandemic-related demographic changes and the state’s 2023 decision to use Medicaid eligibility to determine the number of at-risk students in a school initially made the numbers rise, but those numbers could decrease now in districts like Jeffco and Adams 12.

Jeffco leaders wouldn’t say how many schools could lose the funding if the current threshold of 55% was used for next year. Officials are deciding whether or not to change it.

If the decision causes some schools to lose eligibility, the district can do a phase out so that schools don’t immediately lose the funding when their demographics change, LeBlanc-Esparza said.

In Adams 12, Gina Lanier, the district’s chief financial officer, said the district is seeing a drop of about 3,900 students who qualify as at-risk based on Medicaid eligibility. Last year, about 50% of the district’s nearly 35,000 students qualified for subsidized meals, meaning they were counted as at-risk students.

Overall, Lanier predicts the number of students who qualify for free meals in Adams 12 will have dropped this school year by more than 6%.

Lanier said if Adams 12 keeps the thresholds it currently has for Title I eligibility, five schools will no longer qualify for the funding next school year.

As budget planning gets underway, Lanier said the district will discuss whether to change those thresholds or create a plan to support schools that would lose funding so that it’s phased out instead of immediately going to zero.

In the Aurora school district, leaders have pushed the threshold for how many at-risk students a school must have to receive Title I to the federal government’s maximum allowed limit of 75%. The district had 14 new schools qualify last year and is now at 31.

But Aurora, and other metro area school districts, said they’re not expecting declines in the number of schools qualifying for Title I status.

How one Jeffco school uses Title I funding

Although Title I money is important, it’s not the only source of extra funding for schools with lots of at-risk students. Many districts also direct state and local dollars to these schools.

In Jeffco, for example, the district money given to schools for at-risk students is significantly more than what the schools get for having Title I status. The money is given on a per-student basis regardless of whether a school meets a threshold, which can make the total funding amount less likely to change by large amounts from one year to the next.

Principal Megan Martinez of Deane Elementary in Jeffco said her school in Lakewood has had Title I status for several years, and that the funding is helpful in supporting the needs of her students.

Enrollment at Deane this fall is up compared to what was expected, and Martinez is seeing a major increase in the number of students who are learning English as a new language. Many of the new students are newcomers and English learners.

The percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced-price meals appears to be holding steady. Last year, about 82% of Deane’s nearly 300 students qualified for subsidized meals. Martinez said the school helps families fill out the free lunch applications and explains other available benefits.

At Deane, Martinez said she uses the Title I funding primarily to hire teachers to keep class sizes small, or to avoid having to do combined-grade classrooms. The funding also pays for a restorative practice liaison, two interventionists helping teachers work on reading and math instruction, and supplements the school’s mental health resources.

This year, that means that in addition to the full-time social worker paid for by the district based on the number of students who have special needs, Deane’s Title I funds pay for an additional social worker to come in at least two days per week.

“They might support with setting lessons around behavior expectations, they might pull a friendship group or lunch bunch or another targeted group working on relationship skills, or do crisis response,” Martinez said. “We wouldn’t be able to do that without Title funding.”

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

NYC extends high school application deadline after tech glitch

2024-12-04T21:23:01+00:00

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New York City is extending the high school application deadline to Dec. 9, after officials discovered a glitch in a new tool that tells students their admissions chances, an Education Department spokesperson said Wednesday.

The glitch only affected two schools, but families said that could have had ripple effects on their rankings.

The extension came hours before applications were set to close for the city’s eighth graders, who rank 12 or more top choices from an array of over 400 schools.

In an added layer of complexity, the deadline will be extended even further, to Jan. 10, for roughly 1,500 students who officials said may have acted on incorrect information about their odds of getting into two popular Manhattan high schools.

Officials said they would still release admissions results for all families on March 6 as originally planned.

Education officials debuted the new prediction tool — developed by researchers affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — this year to give families a more realistic sense of their odds of getting into a given school and help them assemble more balanced applications. It gives students a “high,” “medium,” or “low” chance based on the school’s selection criteria and competitiveness, along with the student’s lottery number.

But the program spat out incorrect odds for families looking at two popular Manhattan high schools, Millennium and NYC Lab School for Collaborative Studies, based on incorrect information about the number of open seats, according to officials and Debbie Kross, the president of the Citywide Council on High Schools, a parent-led school board representing high school families across the five boroughs.

Both of those schools were part of a group of six competitive Manhattan high schools where officials decided this year to give students who live in the borough priority for 75% of seats.

Officials corrected the error Tuesday night, but emailed roughly 1,600 families who had either applied to one of the two affected schools or selected either as a “favorite” in the MySchools online portal letting them know about the mistake and offering a deadline extension until Jan. 10, according to Kross and an email obtained by Chalkbeat.

Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle called the glitch an “initial implementation issue,” noting “families are finding the tool helpful.”

“This issue, which only impacts a small percentage of students, has been resolved, and we apologize for this inconvenience,” she added.

The Education Department decided to extend the deadline for everyone to “ensure all families have enough time to complete their application and have the most accurate information,” officials said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how long the prediction tool had been using incorrect odds for the two high schools and why officials only caught the mistake this week. Enrollment officials told Kross they were performing an audit to ensure the tool wasn’t giving out bad information for any other schools, she said.

The introduction of the new tool was one of several changes to this year’s admissions process. Students could also rank an unlimited number of high schools this year for the first time, up from 12.

It is not, however, the first time that technical glitches have gummed up the city’s school application processes at the last minute.

Earlier this year, technical glitches with the city’s middle school application process delayed the start of the application period and forced officials to push back the deadline.

Officials also extended the high school deadline in 2022 because of technical issues. But Education Department officials in recent years have committed to streamlining the process and delivering admissions results earlier in the year so families have time to plan.

Kross, who helped push the Education Department to develop the prediction tool, thinks it’s reasonable to grant more time just to families who’d received incorrect information through it, in case it swayed how they ranked schools in their application.

“The way [the Education Department] identified the issue, communicated about it, and offered to remediate it is very fair,” said Kross.

But other parents felt it’s unfair to further extend the deadline for only some families.

“That is incredibly unfair … to selectively give some people more than a month to continue their application process,” said Kim Gabriel, a Brooklyn parent of an eighth grader who did not get the extension until Jan. 10.

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

NYC school enrollment steadies, but system has 100,000 fewer K-12 students than pre-pandemic

2024-11-15T19:50:49+00:00

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Enrollment in New York City’s public schools stayed flat this year, falling by 0.1% from last year, according to preliminary figures shared Friday by the city Education Department.

About 815,000 students were enrolled in grades K-12, the data shows. That’s about 100,000 fewer such students than in the 2019-20 school year.

The numbers mark the second straight year in which enrollment declines — which began before the pandemic and accelerated during the COVID-19 crisis — have leveled off, a welcome development for the city’s school system. Funding for the system as a whole and for individual schools is based on enrollment.

Last year, enrollment in city schools increased for the first time in eight years, ticking up by 0.6%. That shift was due in large part to an influx of migrant students, some 40,000 of whom have entered city schools over the previous two school years. The pace of new arrivals to New York City has slowed in recent months, however, which may in part explain why the slight upward trend didn’t continue this year.

Still, schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos called the new enrollment numbers “strong,” crediting “the continued efforts by this administration and our schools to provide a world class education to every child.”

Enrollment in the city’s free preschool program for 3-year-olds edged up year-over-year, while there was a slight decrease in enrollment in the prekindergarten program for 4-year-olds. The long term trend for Pre-K enrollment was less rosy: It fell to about 55,000 from roughly 70,000 before the pandemic.

It’s unclear how long the current trends will last. Enrollment projections from the city’s School Construction Authority, which take into account declining birth rates and higher levels of out-migration from the city, are bleak, predicting student numbers will fall by hundreds of thousands over the next decade.

The enrollment update comes as the city faces a pivotal year in its efforts to comply with a state class size law. Under the state law, the city must bring at least 60% of classrooms under the caps by September 2025, or risk hundreds of millions of dollars in withheld state aid. Grades K-3 should have no more than 20 students, grades 4-8 are capped at 23, and high school classes are limited to 25 students.

Currently, 46% of classrooms are under the caps, according to an update shared Friday by city officials. That’s an improvement from the roughly 40% of classrooms under the caps last year, and it means the city is in compliance with the law for now.

But the city will still have to bring an additional 14% of classrooms under the caps by the start of next school year. So far, the city Education Department – which has pushed back forcefully against the state mandate – has refrained from issuing any sweeping citywide mandates, asking superintendents of local school districts to each try to increase the number of classes under the caps by 3% this year.

Officials also recently introduced a program where principals can apply for additional money from the city to hire teachers or pursue other strategies to lower class sizes.

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

With 52 students, P.S. 25 is the smallest school in NYC. Officials are trying to close it. Again.

2024-10-28T21:44:18+00:00

This is part of Chalkbeat New York’s ongoing coverage on how enrollment shifts are reshaping education and affecting NYC’s plans to close, merge, or open schools.

Education officials are once again floating plans to close a tiny Brooklyn public school that survived a previous effort to shut it down.

The Education Department is moving to shutter P.S. 25, a Bedford-Stuyvesant school that currently enrolls just 52 students in grades K-5, making it the smallest school in the city, officials said. Its shrinking roster makes it all but impossible to offer quality programs because funding is tied to student headcount, District 16 Superintendent Brendan Mims wrote in a recent letter to families.

“The ongoing challenge of declining enrollment has financially impacted the school’s ability to provide a robust learning environment for students,” Mims wrote, notifying parents of plans to close the school.

The campus is an extreme example of a growing problem locally and among districts across the country. As enrollment declines have deepened in the wake of the pandemic, the number of New York City schools with fewer than 200 students has more than doubled to 190 campuses last year up from 81 in 2016.

Paradoxically, tiny schools are both expensive to run and struggle to afford the basics. The Education Department spent $45,420 per child last year at P.S. 25, more than double the city average. Yet the school has been unable to pay for a full slate of art and music teachers and has limited funding for after-school programs, according to Mims’ letter.

The superintendent added that the school is one of the lowest-performing in the district (though six years ago it posted significantly higher test scores). In the 2022-23 school year, roughly one-third of P.S. 25 students who took state reading and math tests were considered proficient. More recent results were not publicly available because so few students took the exams.

Even as shuttering small schools can make sense on paper, the process often generates intense pushback from parents, educators, and elected officials who want to save a beloved community hub. To avoid some of that outcry and disruption, city officials have favored mergers to reduce the ranks of tiny schools, closing just one school over the past six years — making the plan to shutter P.S. 25 an outlier.

A vote by the Panel for Educational Policy to close the school has not yet been scheduled. If the proposal is approved, the school would close at the end of the academic year.

P.S. 25 has been in the Education Department’s crosshairs before

When city officials tried to close the school six years ago as its enrollment began to slide below 100 children, advocates filed a lawsuit to block the closure. They argued the closure required action from the local parent council because it would have left some families without a zoned option, and the councils have authority over zoning.

The Education Department ultimately settled the case and kept the school open.

The president of the District 16 Community Education Council, NeQuan McLean, supports the current closure plan and said the council plans to work with the Education Department on a formal rezoning process to avoid a similar lawsuit.

“It’s our responsibility to make sure they have a robust education experience, and right now, those students don’t have one,” McLean said. “At the end of the day, we have to do what’s best for kids.”

McLean said he favors closing the school rather than merging it to give families maximum flexibility to pick new schools for their children rather than funneling them all into a newly merged school, a process he said often doesn’t work well.

Some parents say the school needs more time to turn around

P.S. 25 families expressed mixed feelings about the proposal — and some said they had not been informed of the city’s plans.

Iris Rojas, who was unaware of the closure proposal, said she likes sending her third grade son to a small school where he feels at home. When the family got caught in the rain on the way to school one morning, staffers were quick to provide her son with a change of clothes.

“My son loves it here,” Rojas said on a recent afternoon just after dismissal. “They make me feel welcome as a parent.”

But her son often struggles with schoolwork and hasn’t gotten the support she expected, raising questions in her mind about the quality of instruction and whether the school has funding for extras like tutoring. She also wishes there were more activities during the day, like singing or dancing.

“I have hope for the school,” she said. “But it does need some help.”

Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle stressed that the city is committed to community engagement as the city moves ahead with shutting the school. “The district leadership team has been working diligently to ensure that families are not only aware, but engaged and heard, and we will continue to work with our families as we move towards a closure proposal.”

Other caregivers said they were concerned about what alternatives would be available in the event of a closure. “It’s the nearest school to us,” said Charm Jones, whose nephew is in kindergarten. “It’s a good school.”

Leonie Haimson, who helped bring the lawsuit challenging the P.S. 25 closure six years ago and runs the advocacy group Class Size Matters, said she also is concerned about where the city might send the remaining students, 87% of whom are Black or Latino and nearly all come from low-income families.

“Whatever plan is adopted, it should ensure that [families] are provided with good schools near their homes to attend,” Haimson wrote in an email.

Mims’ letter to families says students will be able to enroll in higher-performing schools.

As the city reconfigures schools, Haimson has broader concerns about whether the Education Department is grappling with a state law that mandates smaller class sizes. Officials are moving ahead with “school closures, co-locations, and grade expansions with no consideration of how these proposals might affect class size or preclude class size reduction in the future,” she wrote.

For his part, McLean said there needs to be a larger reckoning across District 16 to address enrollment problems, as 18 of the district’s 23 schools have fewer than 250 students, city data show. If the city does close P.S. 25, he’s hoping for a grassroots discussion about how to use that space for other education programs that could benefit the neighborhood. The superintendent has indicated the city might consider opening a new school or expanding access to other programs.

“We need a more strategic plan for the district as a whole,” McLean said.

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed.

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

Mergers ahead: NYC is combining more tiny schools to combat enrollment drops

2024-10-25T21:33:09+00:00

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On paper, New York City’s plan to eliminate the elementary grades of an under-enrolled Harlem K-8 school and merge its middle school grades with a more popular junior high across town isn’t a full school closure.

But to the families and staff at P.S./I.S. 76, where enrollment has shrunk from 476 to 287 over the last six years, it certainly feels like one.

“P.S. 76 is an institution. We’re not a merger,” said Marie Rosa, the school’s secretary, during a recent virtual hearing on the plan. “When you see something that needs to be fixed, you fix it. You don’t discard it.”

Plans like the one to merge P.S./I.S. 76 with Mott Hall II middle school in Morningside Heights are part of a strategy that New York City education officials have used with increasing frequency over the past year, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. New York City, like other districts across the country, is grappling with a yearslong enrollment decline and a growing number of tiny schools, which are more expensive to operate and more limited in what they can offer students.

Last year, the city approved 13 proposals to merge or remove grades from schools – the most of any year since at least 2018, according to a Chalkbeat review of six years of records covering dozens of meetings of the Panel for Educational Policy, which approves such proposals.

So far, the city’s acceleration of school mergers has managed to fly largely under the radar, for the most part avoiding the intense public backlash that accompanied many of the city’s school closure proposals in past years or the explosive debates that have cropped up in other parts of the country.

That may be in part because city officials haven’t laid out a citywide plan to consolidate small schools, instead leaving it to local superintendents to develop proposals that can pass muster in their communities.

Observers said it’s also possible the city’s strategy of leaning heavily on mergers rather than outright closures has also helped blunt some of the backlash.

Proponents argue mergers can feel less disruptive than simply closing a school and in some cases can create more racially and socioeconomically integrated schools.

But joining schools with disparate student bodies, cultures, and academic approaches comes with its own challenges. And for the school that loses its name and principal, the mergers often feel little different than a closure.

Whether the city will continue or accelerate the pace of mergers this school year — and how officials will navigate the community backlash — are critical and open questions for the nation’s largest system.

Shuttering schools can be politically perilous, and the areas of the city with the highest concentrations of under-enrolled schools — including Harlem, central Brooklyn and the Bronx — are critical parts of Mayor Eric Adams’ voting base at a time when he’s never been more politically vulnerable.

Education Department First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg credited the city’s approach of leaning on district superintendents with helping get communities on board, and said he plans to stick with that playbook.

Proposals to consolidate schools are “not being generated top down. They really are coming from communities and superintendents,” he told Chalkbeat. “There will certainly be a number of others. How many? We’ll have to wait and see.”

However the city proceeds, the stakes are high for families, educators, and the school system at large. Losing access to a cherished neighborhood school can be devastating for its community. Many families appreciate the intimacy of small schools, and they can boost academic results.

Yet, sustaining hundreds of ultra-small schools comes with serious costs for both families and the district.

There are already some signs that the city may be in for more of a fight this year. A plan to merge P.S. 295 — an arts-focused elementary school in Park Slope that’s lost half its enrollment in recent years — with nearby P.S. 10 is on hold while district officials give the new administration at P.S. 295 time to win back enrollment, according to a letter from the principal obtained by Chalkbeat.

And officials decided on Friday to postpone the vote on the P.S./I.S. 76 merger from Oct. 30 to an unspecified later date because newly minted Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos asked for more time to review the proposals, according to Education Department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer.

NYC grapples with a growing number of small schools

New York City’s K-12 public school enrollment fell by about 130,000 students, or 14%, since fall 2016, according to city data. As enrollment has declined citywide, the number of schools with fewer than 200 students has doubled, from 81 in 2016 to 190 last year, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

And though enrollment stabilized last year thanks to an influx of migrant students, the School Construction Authority projects student numbers will fall by more than 200,000 students, or 26%, over the next decade due to a combination of lower birth rates and families exiting the city.

That means pressure will likely continue to build on the city to consolidate ultra-small schools.

Weisberg said the threshold at which a school becomes too small varies from school to school. Officials grow concerned when a school can’t staff classes with licensed teachers, offer extracurricular opportunities, or provide “advanced academic opportunities,” he added.

Some of the seeds of the current crisis were planted about two decades ago, when former Mayor Michael Bloomberg oversaw a sweeping effort to close struggling larger high schools and replace them with hundreds of smaller ones under the theory that smaller schools could deliver better results.

There’s evidence that smaller schools produced benefits, leading to higher graduation rates and college enrollment, though there is little research on how those schools are faring now.

“New York City’s small schools had a very large, consistent positive impact on students,” said Rebecca Unterman, of the research firm MDRC, who studied the effect of the small schools in the years after they opened.

Over the past six years, the city has passed 35 proposals to merge, close, or remove grades from schools, according to the Chalkbeat analysis. The vast majority were mergers, and only one was an outright closure. Roughly two-thirds of the affected schools were in Brooklyn or the Bronx, the two districts that have seen the largest enrollment declines in recent years.

A significant majority of schools affected by mergers or closures had a higher proportion of Black, Latino, and low-income students than the median school in the city, mirroring national trends.

Some of the recently merged schools are small high schools located in the same building, in a kind of reversal of the Bloomberg-era small schools movement.

“The idea of merging some of these schools together so they’re more sustainable in my opinion is fine,” said Tom Sheppard, a Bronx parent representative to the Panel for Educational Policy.

Eric Nadelstern, a former deputy chancellor under Bloomberg and one of the architects of the small school movement, disagrees with the city’s school merger strategy.

Mergers are politically appealing because they generate less pushback, but closures are the better choice because it can be harmful to combine schools that vary widely in quality and approach, he said.

Last year, a Brooklyn high school focused on training future firefighters and paramedics merged with one focused on civil rights, while Bronx Aerospace High School joined with the Bronx High School for Writing and Communication Arts.

“School cultures are different,” Nadelstern said. “The last thing you want is to take a couple hundred kids who have experienced failure in one school and send them wholesale to another school.

“Failed schools should close,” he added. “And one significant indicator of school failure is you can no longer attract kids.”

Harlem merger proposal raises thorny questions

The politics of school closures and mergers can be even more complicated at the elementary and middle school levels, where families are often fiercely attached to neighborhood schools.

Last year, P.S./I.S. 76 enrolled about 100 students in its middle school grades, while Mott Hall had nearly 400. Officials from Manhattan’s District 3, which spans the Upper West Side and parts of Harlem, said the merger plan has been in the works for about a year. It’s meant to address both the demand for a robust middle school option on the Harlem side of the district, while also finding a solution for a school that had become unsustainably small.

The plan would move Mott Hall, where roughly 77% of students are Black and Latino, 17% are white, and about two-thirds come from low-income families, from its current location in Morningside Heights to P.S./I.S. 76′s building on 121st Street in Harlem. P.S./I.S. 76 is currently 89% Black and Latino, 9% white, and almost all of its students come from low-income families.

Under the proposal, the merged Mott Hall II would expand to a 6-12 school, the high school portion of which would screen applicants based on criteria like grades.

Opening more screened high schools in communities that have historically had fewer of them was a policy priority of former schools Chancellor David Banks.

Kamar Samuels, the superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3, who has spearheaded several merger proposals, including the P.S./I.S. 76 plan, said he appreciates the fact that mergers keep communities of students and staff together, rather than dispersing them across a number of schools.

“The disruption is not as significant as it typically is with another intervention,” he told Chalkbeat.

Mott Hall II families who joined the virtual hearing earlier this week were largely supportive, despite some misgivings from families who would have longer commutes. Principal Marlon Lowe acknowledged the concerns of the P.S./I.S. 76 community, but assured them his school absorbed another one previously and would do it with “class, dignity, and respect.”

But P.S./I.S. 76 families and staff argued the district hasn’t done enough to help the school reverse its enrollment losses, and they said the merger would leave a hole in the community.

“I understand it’s financial,” said Rosa, the school secretary. “But it’s also displacing our families that think of P.S./I.S. 76 as a home and the center of the community.”

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

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

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

NYC middle school admissions period delayed amid issues with MySchools platform, officials say

2024-10-09T21:21:06+00:00

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New York City middle school applications will open about a week later than anticipated, after technical issues with the city’s MySchools portal forced officials to push back the start date.

Thousands of fifth grade families were likely furiously checking their MySchools accounts on Wednesday afternoon, when applications were slated to open, only to be greeted by a message from the Education Department saying they were making updates to the platform and to check back soon. Eventually, officials updated the Education Department’s website and contacted applicants to announce that the admissions period will instead kick off next week.

Officials are expected to provide more details on the new timeline on Oct. 15, according to the Education Department’s website.

In a statement, Jenna Lyle, an Education Department spokesperson, said the “application close date will be adjusted accordingly.”

“Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties impacting the MySchools website, the opening of the Middle School Application Portal will be delayed until next week,” she said. “Families are reminded that applications are not first come, first served, and can be submitted at any time during the application window. Notifications have been sent to all prospective applicants via email, and we apologize to our families for the inconvenience.”

Education Department officials did not comment on what caused the technical difficulties.

The delay comes as this year’s batch of fifth graders will be able to apply widely to middle schools across the city for the first time, instead of largely being limited to their home zone or district. It also means families applying to middle school will likely have to wait another week before learning their randomly assigned number.

Often referred to as a “lottery” number, the string of 32 numbers and letters is used as a tiebreaker when there are more applicants in a particular priority group than seats available at a school. Families were expected to be able to view their random numbers after starting their applications in MySchools.

Many middle schools admit students based on their randomly assigned number, using it to allocate seats for students within similar priority groups, such as those who live within a specific zone or district.

Others, meanwhile, rank students based on specific criteria, like those that use auditions or academic screens. Academic screens were initially paused during the pandemic, then brought back in some districts at the discretion of each of the city’s 32 local school district superintendents.

The city kicked off its notoriously complex high school admissions process last week without a hitch. But in the past, the Education Department has experienced major technical difficulties, including a meltdown in February that shut students out of virtual classes during a remote snow day.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Middle and high school admissions season is here. What does your ‘lottery’ number mean?

2024-10-01T18:48:23+00:00

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Please note the 2025 deadlines are different from the ones stated in this article. For families applying to high school in 2025, the application deadline is Dec. 3. And middle school applications will be open from Oct. 15 to Dec. 12.

As New York City’s notoriously complex high school admissions process officially gets underway on Tuesday, many families are refreshing their MySchools accounts to find their kids’ randomly assigned number, often called a “lottery” number. Families applying to middle school will be in the same situation on Oct. 9.

Many hope that having a “good” number will improve their students’ odds of getting into sought-after schools, but what do these numbers really mean?

The string of 32 numbers and letters is one component of the admissions process, but it can be difficult for parents to decode and often causes a huge amount of stress for families. Applicants will be able to view their random numbers, which were expected to be available on Tuesday, in their MySchools account after starting their application.

High school applications are due by Dec. 4, while middle school applications are due Dec. 13.

For high school, the process of narrowing the city’s more than 700 programs across over 400 schools can be especially daunting for the tens of thousands of eighth grade students applying each year. Many families often rely on their child’s lottery number to help them focus their search, trying to use it to gauge their odds at different programs. This year, for the first time, families applying to high school will also have access to a new tool in MySchools that gauges an applicant’s chances of admission to a particular program based on a student’s random number as well as their home borough, their course grades, and more.

Also new this year: High school applicants can apply to more than 12 schools — a change aimed at adding extra flexibility to the process, though some parents worry that it could inject further stress into an already taxing experience.

And for the first time, middle school applicants can apply to schools across the city instead of largely being limited to their home district. Applicants will continue to have priority at middle schools within their local zone and district, according to city officials.

Elissa Stein, an admissions consultant who runs the service High School 411, praised the city for working to make the admissions process more transparent in recent years. But she wished the city’s Education Department would make information available even earlier to parents, noting that many begin touring and researching schools well before October.

“Seeing a school and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, I love this so much,’ and then finding out that you really don’t have a chance of getting in is an extra heartbreak that could have been prevented,” she said. “So I think that having grades available, the screen groups available, the random lottery numbers available early would be really beneficial to families.”

Here’s how the random number factors into admissions and how to understand what your number means.

How do I read my random number?

There are 32 numbers and letters in each random number, and the first digit or two can help you broadly interpret them. You can read your random number from left to right, with priority moving from 0-9 and then from A-F.

A random number beginning with 0 means an applicant will have a relatively high priority when decisions are made based on the number, while the opposite is true for an applicant whose random number starts with an F.

How does the random number impact admissions?

The random number is used as a tiebreaker when there are more applicants in a particular priority group than seats available at a school.

Schools across the city take different approaches to evaluating applicants. Selective schools sort applicants into four different priority groups based on their seventh grade GPAs in core subjects (with seats doled out separately for general education students and for students with disabilities), while other schools might primarily admit students based on their random number.

And eight of the city’s specialized high schools that require a test for admission, including Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, along with LaGuardia High School of Music & Art Performing Arts, are separate from the rest of the admissions process.

At schools with open or educational option admissions, which primarily consider an applicant’s random number for admissions, the numbers can play an especially large role in determining admissions. Educational option programs set aside seats for students at different academic levels to promote academic diversity.

At screened schools that consider grades, and at those that require admissions essays or auditions, the random number only impacts admissions decisions between students who otherwise have equal priority.

In other words, at selective schools, a student with a lower priority random number could still receive a seat before another applicant, provided the student was in a higher priority group based on their grades or other admissions criteria.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

NYC middle and high school admissions are changing. Here’s what families should know.

2024-09-27T19:15:07+00:00

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As New York City’s parents of fifth and eighth graders gear up for middle and high school admissions season, they can expect a few tweaks to the process — though some wonder how much impact the changes will have.

Among the changes city officials announced on Friday, high school applicants will, for the first time, be able to list as many schools as they want for their rankings. These applicants will also have access to a new tool in MySchools that will gauge a high school applicant’s chances of admission to a particular program.

And middle school applicants will be able to apply to any school across the city for the first time.

For high school, the monthslong admissions process — which opens on Oct. 1 — can be taxing for the tens of thousands of eighth grade students considering more than 700 programs at over 400 schools. Schools across the city employ different methods to determine admissions, further complicating the process.

Middle school applications open Oct. 9, with some variations in the process across different programs and districts.

Applications for high school are due Dec. 4. For middle school, they’re due Dec. 13.

Here’s what you should know about this year’s changes:

Middle school applicants can apply to schools outside their district

Previously, fifth grade applicants were largely limited to middle schools within their district, with only a subset of schools accepting boroughwide or citywide applicants.

That said, applicants will continue to have priority at middle schools within their home zone and district, according to city officials.

Though the change is unlikely to affect high-demand middle schools, which will continue to fill up with local applicants, it could still cause meaningful shifts in enrollment, as some students could opt to leave their district for empty seats in schools elsewhere.

City officials noted that about half of the 1,120 respondents to a 2023 middle school admissions survey would have applied to schools outside their district if the option had been available.

Potential enrollment shifts could pose high stakes for districts that already suffer from low enrollment, like District 16 in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, which filled just 885 of its nearly 2,300 middle school seats last school year — leaving roughly 1,400 unfilled — according to district data.

There are also variations in how middle schools admit students across different programs and districts. Many middle schools admit students based on their randomly assigned number, or “lottery number” — using it as a tiebreaker for students within a similar priority group, like those who live in a specific zone or district.

Some middle schools rank students based on specific factors, like those that use auditions or academic screens. Academic screens were initially paused during the pandemic, then brought back in some districts at the discretion of each of the city’s 32 local school district superintendents.

High school applicants can apply to more than 12 schools

Allowing eighth graders to apply to more than 12 schools could introduce even further flexibility to families considering the city’s vast array of high school programs, though some worry it will serve to make an already stressful process even more daunting.

The removal of the 12-school cap is unlikely to cause a major shakeup in the admissions process. Many families already struggle to find 12 choices to list in their applications, and the vast majority of applicants are admitted to one of their top choices.

During the last high school admissions cycle, roughly 77% of applicants received one of their top three choices, according to city data. In total, about 96% were matched to one of the schools they listed — leaving just over 3,000 of the nearly 71,000 applicants without an offer to a school to which they applied.

In recent years, approximately 38% of high school applicants listed a full 12 programs on their high school applications, according to the city’s Education Department.

The change might help some families automatically get spots on more waitlists at high-demand schools, said Elissa Stein, who runs High School 411, an admissions consulting service. But she added it could spur further confusion and stress among families — and isn’t likely to make a significant impact on the admissions process itself.

“It almost opens up the floodgates to more confusion, because it can be challenging to find 12 schools to put on your application,” she said. “To say, ‘Well, now the sky’s the limit,’ can add a level of confusion and pressure to need to find more.”

Officials emphasized the change is intended to offer families more flexibility, and they aren’t required to take advantage of it.

Alexandra Lange, a Brooklyn mom whose eighth grade son will be applying for high schools this year, said she doesn’t expect the change to impact her son’s application.

“I already think that 12 is more than enough,” she said. “It’s really hard for me to imagine what parents are asking for this change, because it feels like more work and more pressure, rather than paring back the process.”

Researching potential high schools for the application can be a time-consuming process, Lange said. For her family, it meant reading up on programs, taking tours, testing commutes, speaking with other parents about their experiences at different schools, and more.

Lange added she’s been dreading this admissions cycle, as it overlaps with her 12th grade son applying to colleges.

“There’s all this talk in the news now about how stressed kids are and how stressed parents are, and I just don’t understand why the application processes for both high school and college — and in New York, we also have a middle school application process — are just making more and more work for all those stressed people?” she said. “I don’t understand what parent or kid wants this.”

High school applicants have a new tool indicating their odds at particular schools

A new tool in MySchools that accounts for variables like a student’s home district or borough, their grades, their priority group, and more, aims to help families better understand their chances at particular schools.

The tool — developed in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Blueprint Labs — will tell families whether they have a high, medium, or low chance of admission. A high chance means students have a 99% chance of receiving an offer, while a low chance corresponds to about a 1% chance, according to Education Department officials.

About 50% of students with a medium chance of admission are expected to receive an offer, officials added.

In general, the high school admissions process is not for the faint of heart. Evaluating the city’s many options can add significant stress to families, and the process has faced criticism for being inequitable — with families who have more time and resources to devote to the process having an upper hand.

There are selective schools that sort applicants into four different priority groups based on their seventh grade GPAs in core subjects, using a student’s randomly assigned number, or “lottery number,” as a tiebreaker. Other schools that use open or educational option admissions primarily consider an applicant’s random number for admissions, though some take into account additional criteria to create priority groups. (Educational option programs set aside seats for students at different academic levels to promote academic diversity.)

Some schools also require admissions essays or auditions, while others participate in a diversity initiative, setting aside a certain number of seats for students who are low-income, English language learners, or live in temporary housing. And eight of the city’s specialized high schools that require a test for admission, including Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, are separate from the rest of the admissions process.

Are you applying to high school this year? We want to hear from you.

If you are a NYC parent whose child is applying to high school this year, Chalkbeat wants to hear from you.

We’re interested in hearing about any concerns you may have as you embark on this process, and what kind of information would be helpful for your family in making decisions.

Please fill out the form below to let us know what’s on your mind as this year’s admissions season approaches.

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Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

With closures on the table, principals defend their schools before Philly board of ed

2024-09-20T15:52:25+00:00

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A parade of principals extolled the virtues of their schools Thursday to the Board of Education, moments before it took action to ramp up a comprehensive facilities study that is likely to result in at least several school closures across the city.

“We need you to … champion how great our public school system is [and] what active support can be provided to build student enrollment,” said Robin Cooper, the president of the principals’ union, the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators. “We need you to properly promote and cheer us on.”

Principals made up nearly half the 30 speakers who addressed the board, and several others were on the waiting list.

They outlined how their schools had robotics clubs, dance and drama programs, bands and choirs, even with small student populations. One rushed out of breath from a back-to-school meeting to address the board. Another pointed out that the district once deliberately invested in small middle and high schools as a learning strategy.

Despite the pleas, board members voted unanimously on two contracts totaling nearly $5 million and a resolution that will set the facilities process in motion.

“School systems, educational and community needs shift over time,” said Board President Reginald Streater, who noted that Germantown High School, his alma mater, closed in 2013, 100 years after it was founded, along with more than 20 other schools in a wrenching process. “We are clear that in order to be successful in achieving our goals, we must provide our students and schools the conditions they need to be successful. The facilities planning process is the next step in working towards these goals.”

Superintendent Tony Watlington said the new comprehensive facilities review – phase 8 of an initiative that started a decade ago – will optimize building utilization in a way that would offer more pre-kindergarten sites, allow the expansion of arts and physical education programs, bolster career and technical education programs, and generally improve academic rigor.

“We have a number of schools in the district that are significantly overenrolled and a number of facilities significantly underenrolled,” Watlington said. “We will address both of these issues in a facility plan that is focused on student achievement and in a manner that supports the community.”

Among other outcomes, Watlington said, he hoped the plan would allow all eighth graders access to algebra. It is currently available to students only at selected schools, highlighting inequities within the district. Algebra is a requirement for admission to Masterman, the district’s most selective high school.

Watlington said he planned to appoint a project team to oversee the process and promised that the district would hold several virtual and in-person listening and learning sessions, in collaboration with the mayor’s office, during October through December. A final plan will be completed between February and the fall of next year, he said.

Most, but not all, of the principals who spoke were from schools with low enrollments that presumably would be candidates for closure.

Loud cheers followed principal Sabrina Feggins’ plea for her school, Kearny Elementary, which has fewer than 200 students. Principal Aliya Catanch-Bradley of Bethune, a K-8 school with just over 400 students, dashed from a back-to-school night to give her testimony.

“We are just as good as any other school,” she said. “We are a school that takes back all of our children after all our charter school colleagues send them back to us … we don’t deny our students, we would never.” Her school, in a low-income North Philadelphia neighborhood, has just over 400 students.

Will Brown, principal of Parkway West, noted that schools like his – a small, experimental “school without walls” that dates back to the late 1960s – were founded specifically to be small and include real-world experiences into student learning.

“Rightsizing is a corporate term,” he said, adding that his school is among the “fastest improving in the state,” with test scores that have climbed above their pre-pandemic levels. “Our students are achieving and moving forward to become city leaders.”

Crystal Edwards, principal of WD Kelley school, recounted how student test scores, and student and teacher attendance have improved in her school, which has 222 students. Quoting Shakespeare, Edwards concluded, “Though she be but little, she is fierce.

While he didn’t testify at the meeting, Arthur Steinberg, the president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, issued a statement warning that this round of facilities planning “must not repeat the mistakes of the past,” and that the district must fully consult each school community before any decision is made. “Any attempt to repeat prior mass school closures … will be met with fury by the PFT,” Steinberg said.

The resolution passed by the board says that district-operated schools have a capacity of 180,000 students, but currently enroll 116,000. In addition, several district buildings that are now rented to charter schools have a capacity of nearly 20,000 students, but enroll less than 14,000.

The contracts were for DLR Group for nearly $4.5 million for planning services and $430,000 with Brownstone PR and Insight Education Group for community engagement.

Defending teacher Keziah Ridgeway

Several speakers spoke up against the district’s removal from the classroom of Northeast High School social studies teacher Keziah Ridgeway after the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia filed a complaint against her.

The complaint accused Ridgeway of antisemitism and a threat of violence, citing a social media post that included an emoji of a gun.

In emails sent to the Northeast community about the reassignment of a staff member, presumably Ridgeway, Northeast Principal Omar Crowder cites “statements made on social media that may violate school district policy.” The emails do not mention any classroom behavior or assignments.

Ridgeway has said she has been the victim of harrassment and threats against her in response to her pro-Palestinian views. In one classroom assignment, she asked students to compare a modern oppressed group’s use of art to Black spirituals. At a Black History Month assembly, she highlighted a video made by two students of a podcast about Palestinian art.

“I have witnessed a concerted effort to accuse teachers in the District, including Ms. Ridgeway…of endorsing anti-semitism and violence because of statements of sympathy for Palestinians and work with students in her classroom,” said retired English teacher Dina Portnoy. “These accusations are without any merit.”

The Board of Education also swore in new nonvoting student members Charles Rinker, Kenzy Ahmed, and Jake Benny.

Northeast student Hazel Heiko called Ridgeway “an amazing teacher who changed the way I act and think,” and called her removal a form of censorship. City Council member Nicolas O’Rourke submitted written testimony to the board calling the charges against Ridgeway “baseless.” State Representative Chris Rabb also submitted a statement saying “we must not allow students or educators to be attacked for discussing critical global issues.”

Without speaking about the Ridgeway case, Watlington announced that the district is launching an initiative with Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania, along with the organization Facing History and Ourselves, to promote a “dialogue of respect” in classrooms around contentious political issues.

Clarification Sept. 23: This story has been updated to clarify the circumstances of Northeast High school teacher Keziah Ridgeway’s reassignment.

Correction Nov. 15: This story has been updated to clarify which groups the district contracted with for community engagement.

Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.

5 education issues to watch as NYC students head back to school

2024-09-03T18:50:03+00:00

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More than 900,000 New York City public school students will return to the classroom on Thursday, ushering in a new academic year.

It marks the start of a school year that will bring a slate of new initiatives and challenges to the nation’s largest school system, including the rollout of new curriculums and a possible citywide cell phone ban. It will also bring a shift in how students commute: Instead of MetroCards, they’ll get OMNY cards they can use any day, any time, all year long.

Meanwhile, students and families will feel the lingering effects of major struggles from recent school years.

Elementary school teachers and students will continue to adjust to the city’s literacy curriculum mandate. Schools will still grapple with how best to meet the needs of the thousands of asylum-seeking and other migrant students who have entered the school system. And tensions fueled by the Israel-Hamas war could persist in school communities this year.

Plus, several looming elections — both local and national — could mean a school year where students are especially politically engaged.

Here’s a look at five major education issues that may come into play this school year:

Curriculum changes continue in NYC classrooms

This school year will, for the first time, see every local school district adopt new elementary literacy curriculums under the city’s mandate — the signature education initiative of schools Chancellor David Banks.

That mandate started last year, with nearly half of the city’s districts required to select one of three pre-approved curriculums. The curriculum overhaul came as Banks sought to improve the city’s literacy rates, though already some school communities have pushed back on the mandate, and at least one school won a waiver out of it.

Last month, as state test results showed a dip in English scores among the city’s 3-8 grade students, education officials acknowledged that the new curriculums may have negatively affected test scores, with teachers still getting used to unfamiliar materials. However, experts told Chalkbeat that aggregate test scores should be interpreted with caution, as many other variables besides the curriculum changes could push scores up or down.

Separately, the city is looking to overhaul math curriculum in middle schools, while expanding its mandate for ninth grade algebra.

This school year will also see the citywide rollout of a new K-12 Black Studies curriculum. Banks has also said that additional curriculums are being developed for the city’s Hidden Voices initiative — which seeks to teach New York City students about individuals from diverse backgrounds — including stories about Muslim and Jewish figures who have played significant roles in history.

Status of NYC school cell phone ban remains unclear

Near the end of last school year, momentum for a systemwide school cell phone ban picked up steam — with Banks expressing support and promising a policy update would arrive during the summer.

But that prospect became less certain last week after Mayor Eric Adams said the city was “not there yet.”

“There will be some action in the upcoming school year, but the extent of a full ban, we’re not there yet. We want to make sure we have parents on board,” Adams said.

“The previous administration attempted to do this, and they had to roll back,” he added, referencing a previous cellphone ban instituted by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, then overturned by his successor, former Mayor Bill de Blasio. “I don’t want to go backwards after we make a determination.”

With just days remaining until students return to the classroom, Banks said an update would be made “very shortly.”

“Cellphones, in my opinion, have no place in our schools,” he said during an appearance on ABC7. “There may not be a full-on mandate just yet, but over the next couple of days, we’re absolutely going to have something to say about cellphones in schools.”

In July, Chalkbeat reported that the city’s Education Department was considering a ban that would go into effect in February. Under that policy, schools would have to come up with their own plan for keeping phones out of students’ hands during the school day.

Many schools already have bans — with some collecting phones at the start of the day and others requiring students to place them in locked pouches. Still, many educators have been hopeful that a citywide policy could help offer clearer and more consistent enforcement.

Enrollment shifts continue to pose challenges in NYC

New York City schools and educators continue to face challenges as a result of citywide enrollment shifts. Though enrollment ticked up last year for the first time in eight years, the city’s student population remains well below pre-pandemic norms, with just over 912,000 students in the system from pre-K to 12th grade during the 2023-24 school year.

Whether the upward trajectory persists this year is an open question – one with major implications for the city’s schools. Funding from the state is based on student headcount, and at individual schools, budgets are linked to student populations. Enrollment shifts in the coming years will play a key role in a number of critical policy questions, including how the city complies with the state class size law and whether officials will be forced to merge or close more small schools.

Student demographics have also seen notable shifts in recent years. The number of English language learners, for example, jumped from 135,000 in the 2022-23 school year to more than 148,000 last year — a change with major implications, as schools have scrambled to hire more bilingual staff.

Presidential, mayoral, and education council elections loom

In November, voters across the nation will cast their ballots for the next U.S. president, choosing between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. It’s an election that has garnered serious interest among young people, with nearly 60% of people nationwide aged 18-34 reporting they were “extremely likely to vote,” according to a 2023 poll by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.

In New York City, the election may drive youth engagement in politics, particularly as older high school students prepare to vote for the first time. It may also serve as a tool for grounding lessons about civic engagement in classrooms across the city.

Meanwhile, here in New York City, several local elections could have an impact on the city’s school system.

Later this school year, elections will be held for two-year seats on the city’s Community Education Councils — parent-led boards that have the power to approve or reject school rezoning plans, pass resolutions about various school-related issues, and work with district superintendents.

And with the city’s mayoral election set to take place next year in November, challengers to Adams are gearing up for the Democratic primary in June. Already, several notable figures have thrown their hats into the ring, including city Comptroller Brad Lander, a frequent critic of Adams.

Educators, students experiment with artificial intelligence

It’s been well over a year since the tech group OpenAI introduced ChatGPT to the public, and in the time since, it and a slew of other chatbots have offered new ways to generate writing and content using artificial intelligence.

Already, some students at New York City high schools are reporting widespread use of AI-powered chatbots among their peers, while nationwide 44% of teenagers reported they were likely to use AI-powered tools to complete their schoolwork for them.

Across the country, schools have grappled with how to respond to the new technology, with some large districts creating their own AI-powered tools at times to mixed results.

In New York City, the public school system initially blocked ChatGPT on school devices and networks, citing “negative impacts on student learning, and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content.” But a few months later, the Education Department reversed course, with Banks proclaiming the city’s schools were “determined to embrace its potential.”

It remains to be seen what citywide policies or partnerships will be adopted regarding artificial intelligence. But already, local teachers have begun experimenting with the tools, including those geared toward developing lesson plans or assisting with grading.

Meanwhile, the American Federation of Teachers has released a set of “guardrails” and other resources intended to help educators safely navigate the new technology. The organization emphasized that safety and privacy should be prioritized any time AI-powered tools are used.

Teachers: We want to hear from you about how you’re using AI-powered tools in the classroom.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Amid big shifts, Memphis school district’s enrollment is up, but still short of projections

2024-08-28T22:09:59+00:00

Enrollment in Memphis-Shelby County Schools is ahead of what it was at this time last year, but lags projections for the school year amid significant changes in the composition of the district.

As of this week, 109,636 students were enrolled in Tennessee’s largest district, 1,446 more than a year ago, according to a presentation to the school board Tuesday from Superintendent Marie Feagins.

But that’s below the district’s projected enrollment of 111,983, which includes students in the district’s 54 charter schools.

More than 2,300 students who were expected to attend district schools haven’t shown up.

The enrollment update comes amid big changes in local education, including the shift of nearly a thousand students in three campus schools that were operated by the University of Memphis under a contract with the Memphis district. Under a new state law authorizing the creation of innovative school districts, those schools are now in their own university-run school system.

Meanwhile, the district expected to absorb students from five school buildings that moved this summer from charter operators back to the Memphis district’s control after 10 years with the state-run school turnaround program known as the Achievement School District.

Three of those ASD campuses — Humes Middle, MLK College Prep High, and Memphis Scholars — are now shuttered. MSCS officials have encouraged their students to attend other local schools.

School board member Kevin Woods said MSCS likely would have had fewer students enrolled this year without the ASD transitions.

“I think you’re sharing the narrative that the district has more students, the district is still trending in the right direction,” he told Feagins during his final meeting before departing the board after 13 years in office.

“But we do have students that simply are still not showing up,” he added.

Feagins has made enrollment and attendance two of the top priorities of her new administration after taking over as the district’s leader this spring.

Last week, through her initiative dubbed “Hey Neighbor!” she went door-to-door to track down students who have not shown up since the academic year began on Aug. 5.

“Come on and open the door for me. It’s your superintendent. I want to make sure you’re OK,” she said during one of her visits, shown on a video posted on social media.

Under the initiative, she said, her team has knocked on more than 600 doors in areas of Memphis with the most no-shows. The goal is to help families reconnect with their schools so their children are back in class.

Woods praised Feagins for knocking on doors, but reminded the community that “it’s everybody’s job” to get kids in school.

“Continue to lean in on friends, folks in churches. Somebody know where these kids are, right?” he said.

Board member Kevin Woods listens during a Memphis-Shelby County Schools board meeting on Oct. 24, 2023. Woods, who has served on the board since 2011, leaves his elected office this month.

Feagins’ presentation also showed an increase of more than 1,100 pre-K students over this time last year.

Charter school enrollment as of Tuesday was 19,624, nearly 900 students more than this time last year.

She reported that average daily attendance is 95% so far this year. But the district has historically struggled with chronic absenteeism, defined as a student who misses 10% or more instructional days in one school year, or about 18 days.

In the 2022-23 academic year, according to the most recent data released by the state, the Memphis district’s chronic absenteeism rate was 28%, equating to nearly 29,000 students.

That means significantly less learning time.

Research suggests that chronic absenteeism puts students at greater risk of negative outcomes that include dropping out or developing poorer reading skills.

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

NYC Education Department developing tool to help applicants gauge high school admissions chances

2024-08-22T18:57:51+00:00

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New York City’s Education Department is developing a new tool that could help high school applicants gauge their chances during the city’s notoriously complex admissions process, officials confirmed to Chalkbeat on Thursday.

The monthslong admissions process can be daunting for the tens of thousands of eighth grade students applying to public high schools each year, requiring families to consider more than 700 programs at over 400 schools. Schools across the city also employ different methods to determine admissions, further complicating the process.

For example, the city’s selective screened schools sort applicants into four different priority groups based on their seventh grade GPAs in core subjects. In cases where there are more applicants in a priority group than seats, selections are made based on a random number assigned to each applicant, sometimes referred to as a “lottery number.”

Meanwhile, schools that use open or educational option admissions primarily consider an applicant’s random number for admissions — though some take into account additional criteria to create priority groups. (Educational option programs set aside seats for students at different academic levels to promote academic diversity.)

The new tool — which is being developed through a partnership with Clemence Idoux and Viola Corradini, two affiliates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Blueprint Labs — would live within the MySchools directory, and would take into account the many potential factors that can play a role during the admissions process, according to Education Department officials. That includes a student’s random number, as well as their home borough, their course grades, and more.

Officials said the tool is intended to give families more information as they determine which schools they plan to apply to. However, officials did not say whether the tool would be available during this year’s admissions cycle, adding the Education Department is continuing to engage with families to solicit feedback on the potential tool, and the timeline for its release remains unclear.

Elissa Stein, an admissions consultant who runs High School 411, believes such a tool would be “both helpful and disheartening.”

It’s “constructive to get a more realistic sense of where kids stand,” she said. But it would “also be a blow when students and families discover what is out of reach due to a random number.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org

Shifting NYC school demographics: There are nearly as many Asian American as Black students.

2024-08-06T21:47:02+00:00

For the first time in eight years, student enrollment in New York City’s public schools didn’t go down year over year.

Just over 912,000 students were enrolled in the city’s prekindergarten to 12th-grade programs last school year, up from about 906,000 the previous year, according to final enrollment data released last month by the city Education Department.

Whether that trend continues is an open question and a critical one for the city since funding from the state is based on student headcount. The direction of enrollment in the coming years will play a central role in a number of key policy questions, including how the city complies with a new class size law and whether officials will be forced to combine or close more small schools.

It’s not just the overall numbers that matter. The composition of city students is changing as demographic patterns shift, including the arrival of tens of thousands of immigrant students and a continuing, yearslong decline in Black enrollment — creating new sets of needs for schools.

Here are five things to know about New York City student enrollment based on the latest data:

The number of English language learners is growing

Perhaps the biggest single enrollment change over the past two years is the influx of tens of thousands of migrant students fleeing Latin America, West Africa, and other regions.

It’s difficult to get a precise number because city schools don’t ask for immigration status. Officials have used the number of new students living in temporary housing as a proxy measure – because most of the new arrivals reside in shelters – and say roughly 40,000 such students have enrolled over the past two school years.

Another measure of the new arrivals is the rising number of English language learners. That number grew from around 135,000 in the 2022-23 school year to over 148,000 last year, according to the new demographic data. English learners now comprise 16.3% of the school system, up from 13.3% in the 2019-20 school year.

That change has a host of implications for the system, as schools scramble to hire more bilingual staff and English as a New Language teachers, and schools that have never historically enrolled many English learners are suddenly opening their doors to recently arrived immigrant students.

Black and Asian American student enrollment are almost equal

The share of Black and Asian American students in city schools is now less than a percentage point apart, with Black students comprising 19.5% of the system, and Asian American students 18.7%.

That’s a seismic change from the 2011-12 school year, when 28% of city students were Black, and 16% were Asian American.

The shift reflects larger demographic patterns in the city. The Black population has dropped by 9% over the past two decades, while the Asian American population grew by nearly 8% between 2010 and 2020.

The city has recently rolled out new efforts to teach about Asian American history and culture. But the teaching force hasn’t kept up with the changing student demographics. Only 7.8% of city teachers identified as Asian American in 2022, making Asian American students the least likely of any of the four largest racial groups to have a teacher who shares their racial or ethnic background.

Poverty is up among students

The city Education Department uses two metrics to measure poverty among students – and both of them show a small but noticeable uptick in the past year.

The student poverty rate, a measure of how many kids receive free or reduced-priced lunch or come from families that qualify for government benefits, rose to 75% last year, after hovering around 73% or below for the previous four years.

Another measure called the “Economic Index,” which takes into account a wider range of factors including whether a student was homeless or entered high school with a first language other than English, also ticked up from 72.2% to 73.3% this year.

More students identify as nonbinary

For the first time two years ago, the city began tracking the number of students who identify as neither male nor female. In the 2022-23 school year, 102 students were listed in that category. Last year, the number rose to 178, which represents just 0.02% of the student population.

Students who identify as nonbinary report some of the lowest levels of satisfaction with their school experience of any student group on the annual school survey, and there are new efforts to open schools that are explicitly designed to serve LGBTQ+ and gender nonconforming students, (though one team’s proposal to open a new charter school did not get greenlit).

Long-term enrollment projections are pessimistic

In the short term, Education Department officials are optimistic that enrollment will remain steady, projecting a 0.2% increase next school year.

But long-term trends, like a declining birth rate and higher levels of out-migration, could spell big enrollment losses for the city school system in coming years, according to the annual enrollment projections commissioned by the city’s School Construction Authority, which oversees the building of new public schools.

The most recent demographic projections, which were released in December 2023 by the consultant Statistical Forecasting LLC, predict that pre-K-12 enrollment will fall to just over 660,000 by 2032, a drop of nearly 230,000 students, or 26%, over a decade. (The enrollment numbers in the projections differ from the demographic snapshot figures because they don’t include students in specialized programs in Districts 75 and 79.)

A spokesperson for the School Construction Authority said the demographic projections are combined with a separate analysis of new housing to come up with a final enrollment prediction, but didn’t immediately share a combined total count.

The demographic projections are based on birth rates, which have been declining in New York City for more than a decade, along with rates of migration in and out of the city.

New York City’s population of kids under age 5 shrank by more than 18% between 2020 and 2023, a loss driven partly by the pandemic but also by a lack of affordable housing and child care.

The pace of migrants arriving in the city has slowed in recent months, but continuing unrest in Venezuela could prompt more people to flee for the United States.

Forecasters noted that the steep enrollment losses from the pandemic and the historic influx of migrant students have produced unusual levels of fluctuation in recent years. They adjusted their models without incorporating those fluctuations into their future projections on the assumption they’re likely to be one-time events, according to their reports.

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

Hispanic enrollment slow to recover at CUNY

2024-08-01T14:26:01+00:00

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The CITY partners with Open Campus on coverage of the City University of New York.

Enrollment at the City University of New York is up for the first time in five years — which is still not enough to make up for the four consecutive years of losses that came before it. But the University is hoping its ubiquitous subway ads and outreach campaigns will help.

The 233,352 students who attended one of CUNY’s 25 schools in Fall 2023 was an increase of 21,368 from the previous year — but still down 41,554 compared to 2018, the last year that enrollment went up. And enrollment among Hispanic students, the largest single ethnic or racial group of CUNY students, is lagging, according to an analysis by THE CITY and Open Campus of CUNY’s internal enrollment data for Fall 2023, that was published this summer.

While the 3.5% increase in Hispanic enrollment for the 2023 school year was consistent with the 3.3% lift in total enrollment, that modest uptick has done little to reverse the sizable drop-offs for the group over the previous four years.

Even with last year’s gains, matriculation among Hispanic students fell by 18,835, or 22%, between Fall 2018 and Fall 2023 — considerably more than the overall 15% decline over that period.

“I think the pandemic kind of made people question, ‘is higher education as valuable as what we place on it? Are there other ways to achieve the goals I’m looking for without necessarily spending a lot of money and time?’” said Ayinde Bennett, a post-secondary access manager at the educational nonprofit Urban Assembly, who also noted how Latinx families had experienced disproportionate economic impact during the pandemic.

“I think with lower income, certainly Black and Latinx students, you probably are seeing more of a drop and more of a necessity maybe to work or to help out or support their families in some other way.”

Indeed, the downsizing in matriculation was particularly dramatic at the community college level, which generally enrolls greater shares of lower-income, first-generation, and Black and Brown students compared to senior colleges.

Overall, CUNY’s seven two-year colleges registered a 33.2% decrease in Hispanic enrollment amid a 21.5% decrease in total enrollment between Fall 2018 and Fall 2023, a far sharper drop than any other group.

By comparison, CUNY’s 11 senior colleges saw a 14% decrease in Hispanic enrollment and 12% decrease in total enrollment.

At Bronx Community College, for example, where 52% of students identified as Hispanic in Fall 2023 — the most of any CUNY school — enrollment fell by 42% between Fall 2018 and Fall 2023, including a 50% decline among Hispanic students, the most of any community college and the second-most system-wide.

Richard Ginsburg, the college’s spokesperson, like Bennett, also attributed the dramatic decline to the pandemic’s “significant impact” on the borough and its Hispanic population.

“Many students in underserved areas struggled with the shift to online learning due to inadequate technology and internet access, exacerbating the decline in enrollment,” he said, though noting that enrollment for this fall is looking up from last fall, “thanks to our continued efforts to focus on community engagement, digital inclusion, economic support, and holistic student services to reverse the enrollment decline and foster growth.”

National outlier

CUNY, however, reported just a 17% decline in Hispanic and Latino enrollment between Fall 2018 and Fall 2023 to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is 5 percentage points less than the 22% Hispanic decline registered under CUNY’s internal system.

(Schools that receive federal funding are required to report race- and gender-based enrollment data to the NCES’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Systems, commonly known as IPEDS.)

CUNY spokesperson Noah Gardy said the discrepancies are due to “numerous differences between CUNY’s internal race/ethnicity tracking and the IPEDS methodology, such as how students with multi-ethnic identities or nonresidents are categorized and reported.”

But even with those numbers, the drop in Hispanic enrollment at CUNY wasn’t mirrored nationally. Rather, IPEDS data show that public universities overall saw Hispanic enrollment tick up by 0.8% over the same five-year period even as total enrollment declined by 7%.

Gardy said this is because CUNY has “a student body with a larger proportion of low-income and Hispanic students than the national average,” and noted how the 25-school system consists of 16 colleges designated as Hispanic-serving institutions.

But CUNY is working to get on par — and it’s brought in outside help to move towards those goals.

In February, the University awarded a $425,000 contract for “marketing analysis and strategy consultant for CUNY enrollment,” New York State comptroller records show.

Gardy told THE CITY the analysis is still ongoing, but a report CUNY issued this year on “Stabilizing the University’s Finances” lays out the university’s plan to enroll 150,000 undergraduate students at senior colleges and 80,000 students at community colleges by 2030 — which would be 15% and 8% increases respectively from current levels.

And it will do so, the report stated, through “implementing innovative recruitment and retention strategies,” “diversifying of program offerings such as Online Programs or accelerated program,” and “revamping programs to ensure that they are meeting demands of students and employers.”

“Thanks to the hard work of enrollment and admissions at our campuses and centrally, enrollment is on the upswing,” Gardy said, pointing to a 10% increase in community college enrollment in Fall 2023 from the year prior. “Going forward we hope to build on this achievement and sustain CUNY as an engine of social mobility.”

‘Working on it’

Bennett, who used to be a college counselor at a majority Latinx high school, said CUNY would have to continue to bolster outreach and supportive services provided to prospective students to close the matriculation gaps.

“It’s a real nightmare for some students to navigate such a large institution like that, where getting support — and again it’s something CUNY’s working on — but it hasn’t always been there,” Bennett said.

He has encountered a number of CUNY students at two-year colleges, he added, who did not continue onto the system’s senior colleges because they struggled to navigate the complexities of financial aid while contemplating transfers.

At York College in Jamaica, Queens, enrollment management director Nick Jones told THE CITY that in-person outreach has been particularly successful in attracting some prospective students, particularly transfers, which is up 3.7% in Fall 2023 compared to the year before.

“You can always be online, but having conversations — tangible conversations — having people seeing our faces, seeing York College, shows that we want to make sure we have an impact on the community,” Jones said.

“We’re making sure we’re going out into the community, and in the high schools to make sure students know about us — and that they understand the SEEK and the ACE programs,” he continued, referring to two academic support programs available for students at a number of CUNY schools.

Gardy also pointed to a number of efforts CUNY’s central office has taken to boost enrollment and offer student support, including CUNY Reconnect, which has re-enrolled 16,319 students by paring them with advisors who help them navigate the re-entry process, as well as CUNY ASAP, which has so far provided more than 100,000 community college students with free tuition, textbook stipends and transportation benefits.

A CUNY report last year also boasts improved college enrollment among Black and Hispanic high school seniors who participate in its peer mentoring program.

For Medgar Evers College in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where Hispanic enrollment experienced a 50% decline between Fall 2018 and Fall 2023 — the steepest of any CUNY schools — efforts to account for students’ need to work has also helped enrollment rebound between Fall 2022 and Fall 2023, said spokesperson Nick Masuda, when the number of Hispanic students grew by 8.6%.

“The educational journey took a backseat to helping their families adjust to an unprecedented worldwide health crisis,” Masuda said, referring to the pandemic’s impact on the area’s prospective students. “Our commitment to flexibility in a students’ schedule is a primary focus, making sure that each student can balance their personal and educational aspirations.”

And while enrollment woes have swept across many CUNY colleges, Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn’s Manhattan Beach is one bright spot: Between Fall 2018 and 2023, Hispanic enrollment there jumped by 49%, while total enrollment increased by 27%.

Kingsborough spokesperson Cheryl Todmann credited those successes to the college’s strategic efforts in 2021 to boost its Hispanic student population in order to qualify for the federal Hispanic-Serving Institution status designation and related federal grants.

As part of the initiative, Toddman said Kingsborough’s multilingual recruiters offered Spanish-language information sessions and campus tours as part of the college’s “Sueños Empiezan Aquí,” or “Dreams Begin Here” campaign, and visited schools and NYCHA developments to promote the college’s flexible learning options in both English and Spanish. Meanwhile, the college also hired liaisons in Sunset Park to assist with college applications and registrations.

Also key to the college’s Hispanic enrollment growth, Toddman added, was its investments into a number of Spanish-language advertising campaigns placed across subways, bus shelters, radio, cable, newspaper and social media.

Gardy added: “Over the past two years CUNY has made a concerted and successful effort to raise awareness around the exceptional and affordable educational opportunities available to New Yorkers.”

Overall, according to state comptroller records, CUNY has planned to spend more than $12 million on advertising on Facebook, Spotify, and across the city since 2021 — most visibly on the MTA’s army of subway cars, commuter trains and buses.

One subway ad slogan reads “A Degree for Every Dream,” while another encourages onlookers to “Turn Your Internship Full Time. Launch your career with CUNY’s paid internship programs.”

Bennett, the post-secondary success expert who emphasized how many prospective students are now prioritizing economic mobility more than before, said he’s also noticed those dark blue posters as he traverses the city.

“CUNY is really trying to do a lot of rebranding as a city school for the city of New York, and are trying to work on connecting careers and employment with education,” Bennett said. “All of those are efforts to correct the course, like “How do we help them matriculate and see CUNY as a place of success?’

“I know CUNY is working on it like everyone else in the city.”

Newark spends nearly $277,000 to attract charter school students as enrollment continues to rise

2024-06-24T21:06:17+00:00

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In an effort to boost enrollment, Newark Public Schools will spend more than a quarter of a million dollars to rehire a marketing firm to recruit students into district schools.

School board members last week voted to approve a $276,790 contract with Memphis-based Caissa Public Strategy to recruit up to 311 students beginning July through June 2026. Newark officials did not say which students they aimed to recruit, but Caissa has been contracted by districts such as Paterson and Indianapolis Public Schools to attract students from charter schools. The district also contracted with the firm in 2022 to increase enrollment at a high school and three elementary schools.

The new contract comes as the city’s public schools, including charter schools, which are privately run but publicly funded, have seen increases in student enrollment. School and community leaders have raised questions about the district’s rising payments to charter schools, which make up Newark Public Schools’ second-largest expenditure, according to next year’s school budget.

During June’s school board meeting, Superintendent Roger León said the district has been recruiting students to attend Newark public schools, and that the district’s strategies, which include radio advertisements, billboards, and community events among others, have been effective. “The reason why we are doing what we’re doing is because we actually have results,” he said.

The district has used Caissa to recruit students “for a few years now,” Nancy Deering, the district’s acting communications director, said in an email to Chalkbeat last week.

In March 2022, board members awarded Caissa a two-year contract at a cost not to exceed $276,790 to increase enrollment at Lincoln Elementary, George Washington Carver Elementary, Speedway Elementary, and Malcolm X Shabazz High School. The district also provided Caissa with student enrollment data and withdrawal records so the company could conduct “targeted canvassing of students” and “better understand why students may have left the district in the first place,” according to a 2022 board resolution.

Between fall 2022 and fall 2024, enrollment increased at three of the schools: At George Washington, student enrollment increased by 75 students, at Lincoln by 79, and at Shabazz by 82. However, at Speedway Elementary, enrollment dropped by 11 students, from 566 students in the 2022-23 school year to 555 students in the 2023-24 school year.

Under the contract approved last week, Caissa will recruit new students by using secret shoppers, door knocking, and market and trend analysis, according to the request for services proposal last week. The firm will also use existing data to identify “key enrollment drivers for the districts,” the request specified. According to an example on the firm’s website, Caissa estimates that a district could see a return of $840,750 if it recruits 150 students, based on state and local dollars at $6,500 per student.

Historically, Newark has been one of the most underfunded school districts based on the state’s school funding formula, which uses a weighted student formula to give districts financial support in addition to local taxes. Next school year, Newark will receive an additional $101 million in funding from New Jersey, making up 82.3% of the district’s budget.

Despite the 8.8% increase in state funding next school year, district leaders say Newark remains $112 million under its local fair share of property taxes, which it has not raised since 2022.

For the 2024-25 school year, the district estimates a $27,050 per pupil cost.

Since his appointment to superintendent in May 2018, León has been clear about his intention to stop charter school expansion, reclaim public school space, and expand the district. When the state took control of the district between 1995 and 2020, state-appointed superintendents closed many public schools while the charter sector rapidly grew.

But the district, which now enrolls about 42,000 pre-K to 12th grade students, changed in size after charter schools came to Newark in 1997 when North Star Academy and Robert Treat Academy became the first charter schools in the city to welcome students. Those charter schools grew in enrollment until the 2021-22 school year and in 2023, the district surpassed charter growth, according to a Chalkbeat data analysis of New Jersey’s fall enrollment data between 2019 and 2024.

Charter schools continue to educate more than a third of the city’s public school students and next school year, the district is providing charter schools with $401 million, with $391 million paid directly to those schools, per next year’s budget.

The district received two bids for student recruitment services, including one from Caissa and another from Impact Consulting Enterprises. The fee listed on Caissa’s proposal charges the district $890 per student enrolled for the first two years, which the district has agreed to pay for 311 students. The same amount will be charged per student recruited for an additional two years if Caissa’s contract is renewed. Impact charged $768 plus a 6% media buying fee per student for the first two years and $883 per student plus a 6% media buying fee for the third and fourth years if its contract was renewed.

During Tuesday’s board meeting, member Crystal Williams, who voted against the resolution to hire Caissa, asked why the district is spending money to hire the firm and suggested that those funds go into classrooms instead.

“We already pay for marketing. We already put up billboards. We already do bus signs. Why do we need to pay a consultant, a marketing team, to go out and harass people who have already made their decision of where they want to send their kids to school?” Williams added.

In response, board member Vereliz Santana went on to point to the district’s overrepresentation of vulnerable students and its struggle to hire and retain bilingual teachers and provide more special education services.

This fall, the district expects to see more than 11,000 English language learners and more than 7,000 students with disabilities who require specialized services such as speech therapists, classroom aides, and bilingual teachers.

Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.

NYC ponders giving Manhattan students admissions boost at some borough high schools, sources say

2024-06-07T19:49:09+00:00

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New York City education officials are weighing a plan to give students from Manhattan admissions priority at several of the borough’s most competitive high schools, according to four people familiar with the plan.

The list and number of schools that would offer the admissions bump is not finalized, but the campuses under consideration include Millennium High School, Beacon High School, Bard Early College High School, and Eleanor Roosevelt High School, according to one of the sources. Baruch College Campus High School, NYC Lab School for Collaborative Studies, and Clinton High School could also offer the geographic priority, the person said.

The geographic priority would apply to students across the entire borough of Manhattan rather than just those in District 2 — the zone spanning most of lower and midtown Manhattan and the Upper East Side. Most of the schools that would be affected are in District 2.

A Manhattan borough preference would mark a major change in admissions policy at some of the city’s most in-demand schools and reverberate across the NYC education system. It would also be the latest chapter in a years-long debate over whether and how schools should consider where students live in admissions.

Several of the schools that could offer the new borough priority had previously given preference to District 2 students until former Mayor Bill de Blasio scrapped that policy in 2020. Other schools being considered, including Beacon and Bard Early College, have not previously offered any geographic priority.

It’s not yet clear how many seats at each of the schools would be held for Manhattan students. Education officials are hoping to finalize a plan by the end of the month. The policy would go into effect for the upcoming admissions cycle for students who start high school in the fall of 2025, according to the sources.

Education Department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer declined to comment on the specifics of the plan. “Every year we engage parents around improving enrollment for all students and families in our schools. We will have more to say about updated policies soon,” Styer said.

In a forum with Manhattan parents Thursday night, schools Chancellor David Banks expressed support for the general idea of a Manhattan priority and sympathy for the borough’s parents.

“If you are a mom or dad and you have a child in District 2, I can only imagine how heartbreaking that is that you didn’t even have an opportunity to get your child into one of the District 2 middle schools or high schools as you’re watching kids coming from all around the city coming to the school and you live across the street,” he said. “I don’t think that is fair, and so I’m looking at a wide range of ways to try to find a common ground for everyone.”

Admissions proposal likely to draw mixed parent reactions

Giving preference to students across Manhattan instead of just District 2 — as Banks had previously hinted he might do — makes the priority available to a wider swath of kids who are more representative of the city.

Across Manhattan, 56% of K-8 students are Black or Latino, and 59% come from low-income families, according to state data. In District 2, 26% of K-8 students are Black or Latino and 35% come from low-income families.

Education Department officials forecast that socioeconomic demographics wouldn’t shift significantly in schools if they adopt the Manhattan preference, according to people familiar with the plans.

Many of the schools under consideration set aside a portion of their seats for students from low-income backgrounds. Those policies would remain in place alongside the geographic preference, the sources said.

Elissa Stein, a high school admissions consultant who works with many Manhattan families through her company HS 411, said “giving every family in Manhattan an opportunity to go to these schools is terrific,” and it’s “a really smart move to include more families” beyond just District 2.

Banks said in the Thursday forum he considered it a matter of fairness to give Manhattan students the kind of geographic priority that selective schools in other boroughs offer.

As of 2021, 235 of the city’s roughly 400 high schools offered a borough preference (Education Department officials didn’t provide an updated number). Another 30 schools, none of which are in Manhattan, prioritize students who live in the surrounding geographic zone, according to the city’s high school directory.

“We’ve got some enrollment policies in place in other boroughs that ensure that folks who are in those boroughs get some level of priority,” Banks said. “We don’t do that as much in Manhattan.”

But Maurice Frumkin, who’s also an admissions consultant and president of NYC Admissions Solutions, said he’s concerned the plan is moving forward without sufficient input from families outside of Manhattan. Such families apply in large numbers to Manhattan’s selective schools because of their strong reputation and their accessibility, and they could have strong negative reactions to the plan being weighed by officials.

“To think that they would be excluded potentially from many schools is really going to be a shock to their system,” said Frumkin, who previously worked in the Education Department’s office of enrollment.

Critics of the plan contend that instituting geographic priority in Manhattan’s most popular schools is more disruptive than adding geographic preferences in other boroughs, because Manhattan is a hub for kids from across the city in a way other boroughs aren’t.

More than half of the students currently enrolled in Manhattan high schools live in other boroughs, including nearly a quarter who commute from the Bronx, according to city figures. Fewer than 10% of students who attend high school in each of the other four boroughs commute across borough lines.

Manhattan also has a disproportionate share of the city’s most sought-after schools. There are at least eight schools in Manhattan that receive at least 10 times as many applications as seats, according to city data. No other borough has more than two.

Debate over geography and school admissions spans years

Some school integration advocates have pushed for years to eliminate all geographic weights in admissions, arguing that they exacerbate racial and socioeconomic segregation.

In December 2020, when he eliminated the District 2 priority, de Blasio seemed to be headed in that direction, promising to get rid of all “geographic screens.” But he reversed course in 2021 after significant pushback from families, and ended up eliminating only the district priority, but keeping the priorities for zones and boroughs.

Many of the city’s largest comprehensive high schools, like Francis Lewis High School in Queens and James Madison High School in Brooklyn, give out almost all their seats to students in their zone or borough. Other smaller competitive schools, like Millennium Brooklyn and the Academy of American Studies in Queens, admitted only students from their boroughs last year.

The city has recently opened several new high schools outside of Manhattan, including Bard Early College programs in the Bronx and Brooklyn. Both new Bard programs are located in lower-income neighborhoods and prioritize students from surrounding districts.

Manhattan has no zoned high schools. The high school directory doesn’t allow a search by borough priority. But a recent tally from the Citywide Council on High Schools, a group of parent representatives, found 19 schools in Manhattan that currently offer borough priority. Those schools tend to be less competitive.

Yael Denbo, a parent and member of the Community Education Council in District 3, which covers the Upper West Side and parts of Harlem, said she’s been hearing from lots of families who “are concerned, rightly so, about their children commuting out of borough for maybe an hour or two per trip.”

Students in District 2 were admitted at the lowest rate in the city to one of their top three high school choices, with 55% getting in last fall, according to Education Department figures. District 3 had the fourth-lowest rate in the city at 63%.

Only 42% and 44% of high school students who live in Districts 2 and 3, respectively, attend a high school in their home district, the second- and third-lowest rates in the city, according to city data.

Critics of geographic priority point out there are plenty of open seats in Manhattan high schools — more than 18,000 last year, according to Education Department figures — but they’re just not at the schools that generate the most interest.

Students from other NYC boroughs brace for impact

The impacts of adopting Manhattan priority at some of the borough’s most popular schools would be widespread.

At P.S. 218 in the South Bronx, where more than 90% of students are Latino and come from low-income families, a large number of students apply annually to some of Manhattan’s most competitive high schools because the families know their reputations and they are easy to get to, said Nicole Jennings, who runs a high school admissions support program through the non-profit WHEDco based at P.S. 218.

“We do have a decent number of students who go to those schools, maybe five to six a year” from P.S. 218, Jennings said. “And if this change goes into effect, I’m imagining it will just erase that.”

Jennings said she appreciates the city’s efforts to open more academically rigorous schools in the Bronx, like Bard Early College Bronx. But she said many of the families she works with are wary of sending their kids there because of neighborhood safety concerns.

“Schools in Manhattan tend to be much more appealing … than ones in the Bronx, sadly,” she said.

Frumkin, the admissions consultant, said his broader concern is that continuing to add more geographic priorities will chip away at the fundamental purpose of the citywide choice system.

“You have this matching process that was pioneered to create this ‘fair and equitable’ citywide choice process,” he said. “And yet you’re overlaying these little intricacies on top of that.”

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

NYC to open 9 new schools this fall. Here’s what to know.

2024-04-04T23:11:41+00:00

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Nine new schools will open this fall in New York City, aiming to provide families with more choices on where they enroll their children, schools Chancellor David Banks said Thursday.

The new schools will offer a mix of elementary, middle, and high school programs across three of the city’s boroughs. They include a Brooklyn outpost of the successful Bard Early College High School, a Queens high school for careers in film and television, a project-based elementary school modeled on the progressive Brooklyn New School, and the city’s first Montessori-inspired public school.

Banks said the new schools are a way to address the “serious hemorrhaging” of students in recent years, with enrollment falling by more than 100,000 students, despite ticking back up slightly last year.

“Parents and families are looking for a wide range of special schools that are appealing to them, and that’s what we’re delivering,” he said. “My goal here … is to provide school experiences that will draw more families to our schools.”

But the announcement comes as officials grapple with myriad complex, interlocking issues — expiring federal relief funds, dwindling enrollment in some of the city’s smallest schools, and a state law mandating smaller class sizes that will demand significant resources to implement.

While celebrating the launch of the new schools, Education Department officials said they were designed to fulfill the needs and desires of local communities.

“These nine schools really push the boundaries of traditional education models,” said Shawn Rux, senior executive director of the Education Department’s Office of New School Development and Design. “They are cutting edge. They are unique. And they are directly responsive to what we know and continue to hear from our students and communities about what they need.”

Five of the schools will be housed in new buildings that will open this fall, with another joining a school on a site that opened last September, said Nina Kubota, president of the NYC School Construction Authority. It’s part of a total 24 new buildings opening for the city’s schools this year, adding 11,000 seats citywide, she added.

The city had proposed more than $7 billion to expand school capacity and fund the construction of more than 80 buildings, according to the Education Department’s 2020-24 capital plan. The latest capital plan calls for nearly $5 billion to address capacity issues, including class sizes, overcrowding, and “infusing fresh resources into schools, communities, and neighborhoods.”

The development of the new schools in some ways runs counter to the recommendations of a working group tasked with advising New York City’s public schools on complying with the state law capping class sizes. In December, that group unveiled its 55-page report, which advised the city against opening new schools in shared buildings — instead suggesting that resources be directed to existing, underutilized schools to provide new programs and services.

In recent years, shrinking enrollment at some schools has pushed the city to consolidate, merging communities to shield them from the effects of their dwindling size.

On Thursday, First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said the department was working to revamp existing schools and introduce new programming, in addition to its development of new schools.

“It isn’t just about new schools, but they’re an important piece of the puzzle,” he said. “All of this has to happen within the context of the law around class size. We’re going to have to comply, and believe me, we are keenly focused on how we are going to do that.”

Here’s a look at the nine new schools coming to the city this fall:

Motion Picture Technical High School, Queens

Motion Picture Technical High School in Sunnyside will offer ninth-12th grade students a chance to explore potential careers in the film and television industry. The school will provide students with immersive training in video production, post-production, and production-design — aiming to broaden access to the industry and empower diverse filmmakers, according to the city’s Education Department.

Bard High School Early College, Brooklyn

Bard Early College is poised to launch a new campus in East New York, offering families in the borough access to the network of coveted public high schools that allow students to earn an associate degree by the time they graduate.

The Bard model allows students to take courses with college instructors, and engage in small, writing- and discussion-based seminars. It has highly sought-after sites in Manhattan and Queens with a new site in the Bronx that opened in September.

M.S. 644, the Bronx

M.S. 644 will offer a middle school education focused on debate, multilingualism, and experiential learning in the south Bronx. The school will push students to question and challenge what they learn.

M.S. 428, Brooklyn

M.S. 428 in Sunset Park will offer middle school students a dual language program in both Chinese and Spanish, according to the city’s Education Department.

M.S. 407, Brooklyn

M.S. 407 will offer a medical and STEAM focused middle school experience in District 20, allowing students to immerse themselves in curriculum across disciplines.

P.S. 413, Brooklyn

P.S. 413 will offer an inclusive learning community for elementary students in Bay Ridge, with students “on track to enrich their local and global communities in different careers, including law and medicine,” according to the city’s Education Department.

P.S. 331, Brooklyn

P.S. 331 will offer elementary students in Bay Ridge an education with an emphasis on “empowering graduates with a profound understanding of entrepreneurial pathways, sensible financial knowledge, and proficiency in strong communication and technology skills with a dedicated focus on a world language,” according to promotional materials.

P.S. 456, Brooklyn

P.S. 456 in Downtown Brooklyn will follow the model of the Brooklyn New School, offering “inquiry-based curriculum centering on exploration, problem-solving, and becoming change agents,” according to the city’s Education Department.

P.S. 482 Albee Square Montessori Public School,Brooklyn

P.S. 482 Albee Square Montessori Public School in Downtown Brooklyn is the first Montessori-inspired public school in the city, according to the city’s Education Department. It is designed to provide an equitable learning experience, allowing children to explore subjects in multi-age classrooms.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

NYC 5th graders receive middle school offers, as city considers changes to admissions process

2024-04-03T22:26:22+00:00

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Amanda Rinzel, a parent and educator who lives in Brooklyn, spent her spare moments on Wednesday nervously refreshing her MySchools account, waiting for the news of where her fifth grade son would attend middle school in the fall.

It was the family’s second time going through the middle school admissions process, but in some ways, this year felt different from her first experience. Her older son, a seventh grader at the Professional Performing Arts School, had always been interested in musical theater — making the Hell’s Kitchen school, which accepts students from across the five boroughs via audition, “an obvious choice.”

Stanley, her younger son, is “more well-rounded” in his interests, said Rinzel, who lives in District 17. They ended up ranking the Brooklyn Green School, a boroughwide program in nearby District 16, as their top choice. It drew them in with an administration that seemed especially receptive to student needs, as well as its strong arts and athletics programs, she said.

On Wednesday, Rinzel was elated to learn Stanley had been admitted to his top choice school.

“Middle school can be so hard,” said Rinzel, who teaches at a middle school in the Bronx. “It just seems like a happy place, and I’m so excited for him to be in a school that is uplifting.”

For many families, the Wednesday placements marked the end of the city’s middle school admissions process. In December, fifth grade families across the city ranked as many as 12 middle schools as they submitted their applications.

Over the next week, the city’s Education Department will host three virtual sessions for families to learn more about offers and waitlists.

Unlike the city’s notorious high school admissions process, many middle schools across the city feature district programs that are open only to students who live in the area — with some zoned schools only allowing applicants from within a smaller subset of the district. Other programs offer boroughwide admissions, allowing all students who live in the borough to apply, while other schools allow any student in the city to apply.

Some middle schools also use academic screens to determine admissions, sorting students as young as nine based on their grades. Those screens were initially paused during the pandemic, then brought back in some districts at the discretion of each of the city’s 32 local school district superintendents.

Further change to the admissions process may be on the horizon.

For months, the city’s Education Department has been floating a potential change to the process at parent leader meetings — soliciting feedback on a possible shift that would allow students to apply widely outside of their district. Students applying to schools in their own district would still have priority for seats, according to discussions at various meetings.

Still, it may be some time before any changes are enacted.

In a statement, the city’s Education Department confirmed its Office of Student Enrollment was considering possible changes.

“One of the potential changes we are exploring with parents, advocates and educators is allowing students to apply to middle schools outside of their districts,” a spokesperson said. “Conversations are ongoing and no decisions have been made.”

For Rinzel, a citywide process would have meant more options for her and Stanley to consider. She added they may have looked at more schools beyond their district and borough.

More options for students could also mean a more equitable system, opening up seats at schools that may have more resources than those close to home, Rinzel said. But still, she noted that traveling outside of the borough to attend school each day could add potential safety concerns for young students.

“There are a lot of factors that parents and kids have to take into account if they’re applying citywide,” she said.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

NYC chancellor says controversial school building swap had a happy ending. Teachers disagree.

2024-03-20T19:49:31+00:00

To hear New York City schools Chancellor David Banks tell it, a bitter fight last year over the decision to swap the buildings of two Manhattan high schools had a happy ending.

Students at Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School, an under-enrolled transfer school for kids at risk of dropping out, were forced to switch buildings with The Young Women’s Leadership School, or TYWLS, a crowded school occupying a smaller space across town. The move sparked an uproar last year from West Side’s community, who argued it would deprive already marginalized kids of critical resources housed in its long-time building.

In recent months Banks has shared an upbeat update, telling reporters and members of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, a board that approves decisions to relocate schools, that he heard from West Side staff that “after the dust settled … everything worked out.”

“They couldn’t be happier,” he added last week, paraphrasing a letter from the principal and the school’s chapter leader, the official representative to the teachers union.

Banks’ update seemed to tie a neat bow on a messy public dispute. It also bolsters his argument for advancing other contentious school merger and relocation proposals and validates his decision-making at a moment when he’s urging the state legislature to extend mayoral control over schools.

There’s just one problem: According to teachers and students at West Side, the move has had anything but a happy ending.

Seven West Side teachers and a student who spoke to Chalkbeat said the move to the new space has worsened their school experience in almost every way. It has reduced access to organized sports and deprived students of the health clinic and on-site day care available in the old building. Forcing kids and staff into more cramped quarters has exacerbated tensions between students and diminished teachers’ ability to provide individualized support, teachers and students said.

“The chancellor was characterizing the move as being good and fine in the end … which is just utterly false,” said Joel Solow, a West Side teacher. “This has been an incredibly challenging year on almost every count.”

For students like Joel Gomez, 17, who started at West Side in October 2022, moving to the new space has felt like having the best part of his school experience “ripped away.”

Spending last year in the old building was “one of the best years of my life,” he said.

But “this year just feels like everything is dampened down,” he said. The move, for him, “did not work out in a great way.”

Even the city’s original justification for the move – that West Side needed much less space, while TYWLS needed much more – hasn’t panned out.

Last year, West Side had only 230 students last year in a building that can fit nearly 800, while TYWLS has hovered between 450-480 students in a building that could hold 560. Officials had predicted West Side’s enrollment would stay flat, while TYWLS would immediately grow when it moved to the larger space.

But the opposite has happened: Enrollment at West Side has surged, to 344 as of this month, thanks to an influx of migrant students and the addition of a bilingual program. Enrollment at Young Women’s Leadership, meanwhile, has shrunk to 363 – leaving the two schools now at almost the same size, according to Education Department records.

Education Department officials noted that despite its enrollment increases, West Side’s daily attendance still hovers around 51%.

An Education Department spokesperson attributed the drop in enrollment at TYWLS to smaller classes of entering 6th and 9th graders, and said the school couldn’t offer more new seats because the move was approved too late in the year. But state data shows that the drops in 6th and 9th grade classes account for only a fraction of the overall enrollment reduction at TYWLS, and other grades shrunk as well.

The West Side building swap reverberates beyond the two schools

The city Education Department is facing increasing pressure to move, merge or even close schools as a result of pandemic enrollment losses – and Banks will need the approval of the Panel for Educational Policy to advance those proposals.

A happy ending to the West Side saga, one of the most high-profile fights in Banks’ tenure, strengthens Banks’ case to move forward on other controversial proposals, offering evidence that dire predictions from angry communities don’t always come true. Already, several proposals on the docket in the coming months have spurred fierce community pushback, some of which echoes the concerns raised by the West Side community.

West Side also is relevant to the ongoing negotiations in the state legislature over if and how to extend mayoral control over city schools. The current governance structure gives Mayor Eric Adams power to appoint the majority of the Panel for Educational Policy, an arrangement Banks says allows him to “make the best decisions on behalf of the entire school system,” even when it means fighting through some opposition, he said last week.

But critics of mayoral control say the West Side move is a case study in the limitations of a system that allows officials to ignore community input to the detriment of kids.

“In mayoral control,” Solow said at a January town hall in Manhattan, “the people who have to deal with the consequences have no voice that needs to be listened to. And the people who get to determine the consequences need to listen to no one.”

Dueling interpretations of a letter

Part of the ongoing dispute comes down to dueling interpretations of a letter sent in the fall by West Side Principal Mara Rivera and chapter leader Mark Weller.

The letter, a copy of which was reviewed by Chalkbeat, thanked facilities officials for the “excellent job” in upgrading the new building, praising the “remarkable” difference in the condition of the facility now compared to last year, and calling the atmosphere in the building “much more uplifting … than we had expected.”

The principal and chapter leader didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Multiple staffers who spoke with the chapter leader said he had explained that the letter, which was written without the knowledge of staff and was not addressed to Banks, was meant to build goodwill with facilities staff to help secure future upgrades. It wasn’t meant as an endorsement of the move or affirmation that it had worked out for the best. The letter writers weren’t notified that Banks was going to share the letter publicly, staffers added.

It was a “fairly simple message about ‘thanks for making the move a little less bad,’” Solow said.

An Education Department spokesperson didn’t directly address criticism that Banks misrepresented the letter, but said he only stated that the “principal wrote a letter of appreciation for the work done to get the space ready for the students of West Side High School.”

Banks heard about the letter through a regular update from facilities staff, the spokesperson said.

“We promised we would ensure the building meets both our standards and those of the school community, and the upgrades have made a true impact in the way students and staff view their new learning environment,” spokesperson Chyann Tull said in a statement.

Enrollment numbers don’t tell the full story

West Side staffers and students argued that there were features of the old building – which the school has occupied since the late 1980s – that were critical to its success and would be lost in the new facility, a prediction they said has come to fruition.

The old space had a child care program and health clinic on site, as well as a full-size gymnasium and access to an adjacent sports field. Those amenities filled specific needs for the school’s students, who are older, often juggle competing responsibilities, and struggle with attendance.

The new space, located on the seventh to 11th floors of an office building, has none of those things. The difficulty of restarting organized sports, such as volleyball, has been a particular blow, since that’s what helps keep many kids engaged in school, staffers said.

An Education Department spokesperson said officials are working to sustain services for students in the new space, including connecting the school to a nearby Mount Sinai location.

Staffers said they appreciated the facilities repairs, but those can’t alter some structural differences in the new building, including classrooms that are often about half the size of their old home.

One teacher described moving into a smaller classroom with multiple students with emotional disabilities. In the old building, there was enough space to separate students during conflicts. The new room doesn’t allow for that, said the teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Gomez, the student, said the new building is “claustrophobic” and “dreary.” He misses the joy of seeing the little kids at the old on-site day care, the access to fields and a gym, and the spacious hallways and classrooms where kids could take a lap if they got overwhelmed.

He’s struggled to keep up his attendance this year. For one stretch, he missed a month of school.

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

As NYC eyes more mergers, one Upper West Side middle school navigates a newly combined community

2024-02-15T18:18:45+00:00

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Walking through the halls of Lafayette Academy, an Upper West Side middle school, Principal Brian Zager greeted each student by name.

The building on West 93rd Street was especially quiet that November morning, with seventh graders out on a field trip to Central Park.

In classrooms, eighth graders worked on finishing their high school applications. On the third floor — a space shared with the Manhattan School for Children — students in the dual language program practiced their French.

Lafayette Academy, where Zager has served as principal for the past decade, has prided itself on its small school community, allowing students and staff to develop close bonds. This year, the school saw its student body grow by roughly a quarter to about 200 students as Lafayette merged with West Side Collaborative, a small progressive middle school serving higher shares of students of color and students from low-income backgrounds. The move spurred ample protest from both school communities last year, even as officials said it could shield them from the negative effects of shrinking enrollment.

But in the halls of the newly merged school, that tension was no longer palpable. Each class has a mix of students from the two former communities, Zager said.

Lafayette Academy has about 200 students after its merger with West Side Collaborative.

Leadership at the school has remained optimistic about the outcome of the merger, praising the benefits of bringing staff and students from disparate communities together. But some families expressed concerns over whether the city’s Education Department provided adequate funding to support the larger and more diverse student population, while others continue to protest the decision to merge the schools at all. Some West Side Collaborative families remained unhappy that Lafayette kept its building, principal, and name.

Morana Mesic, a parent and former PTA president of West Side Collaborative, transferred her son to another school after the merger was approved — calling it a closure.

“We’re at a point where we wish that we never stepped into West Side Collaborative,” Mesic said. “Because it hurts that much more to be back in the same old public school system.”

Trying to stave off enrollment losses before a merger is needed

As the city continues to grapple with steep enrollment losses suffered during the pandemic, officials have warned more school mergers may loom ahead. At least half a dozen more proposed school mergers will be considered by the city’s Panel for Educational Policy over the next two months, according to its website.

“It’s hard to figure out how people can run a full comprehensive high school with 80 kids as your entire school,” schools Chancellor David Banks told Chalkbeat in November. “And we have schools with those numbers.”

West Side Collaborative had just 75 students last year, less than half of Lafayette’s roster. About 46 of its students moved into Lafayette’s building this year along with eight staffers, making up about a third of the newly merged school’s employees. (Others from West Side Collaborative’s 20-person staff were transferred to other schools or retired, according to the city’s Education Department.)

Despite its dwindling size, West Side Collaborative fostered a passionate community over its years in operation. Amy Stuart Wells, dean of the Bank Street Graduate School of Education, said there was a disconnect between outside perceptions of the school and the quality of education it provided.

Despite the enrollment losses the school was facing, it had strong support for students and a robust project-based, student-centered approach to learning, said Wells, who studied West Side Collaborative as part of a project on diverse public schools. Wells worked with the school to help shift the narrative by developing promotional materials like brochures, but she said it can be challenging to combat outside perceptions.

“In the school choice processes, sometimes schools get labeled as ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ particularly in the parent networks,” she said. “It’s hard to change that narrative and that framing, even if there’s some really, really good work going on within those schools.”

With time, the losses became especially steep. In the five years preceding the merger, West Side Collaborative had seen a 58% decline in enrollment.

Still, community members sought another solution. In the months leading up to the merger, parents and staff at West Side Collaborative fought against the proposal, arguing that its approval would in effect see their institution closed.

The school served overwhelmingly Black and Latino students, with more than 80% of students living in poverty, according to city data. Some community members felt uneasy about merging with Lafayette Academy, a school with a higher share of white students and fewer students from low-income backgrounds.

In some ways, the merger served a goal that has proved elusive in one of the nation’s most segregated school systems. It provided a path toward further integration in District 3, which encompasses both schools. The district is one of a handful in the city that has remained focused on integration. Last year, the school district won a federal grant to help foster diverse schools.

Meanwhile, some parents at Lafayette expressed concerns over the lack of concrete details on how staffing and other decisions would shake out.

Despite the pushback from families at the time, Superintendent Kamar Samuels said he viewed the schools as a good fit to merge because they shared “a student-centered approach” to instruction.

“Both schools had staff that cared deeply about the progress of all students, but in particular, the most marginalized students in the school,” he said.

Finding a balance when schools join together

The Upper West Side merger isn’t the first time two demographically distinct schools were joined together. In 2020, for example, the city approved a proposal to move the Academy of Arts & Letters, a disproportionately white school in Fort Greene, into P.S. 305, a majority-Black school in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Pilar Ramos, principal of the merged school, said it took time for the two communities to come together as one, particularly as the onset of the pandemic turned classes virtual. To avoid privileging one school over the other, the communities worked together to come up with a new name, referring to themselves as “Arts & Letters 305 United,” Ramos said.

“When people feel like they’re going to be included — that we’re together for something that’s going to be greater than what it was on its own, I think that’s an important part of a merger,” she said. “We’re not going to be just one school or the other, or just as good as one school or the other. We’re going to be better than both of them.”

At Lafayette, Zager said his work began even before the merger was approved. He met with parents and students from West Side Collaborative before the vote and in the months leading up to the school year, trying to alleviate any concerns or anxieties they might have about the move.

Families from both schools were afraid of losing their school identities, he said. But months into the school year, Zager noted the students haven’t had trouble acclimating. A few former West Side Collaborative students were even elected to student council, he said.

“When it comes down to the kids, there’s this innocence that just finds its own way to fly,” he said.

Although it was controversial, the merger also created more integration in District 3 by bringing together the two school communities.

To Shawn West, a dean at Lafayette, the small school environment has allowed the merged community to develop bonds quickly.

“We feel like we’ve known these kids for two years,” he said.

Staff came together ahead of the school year to build team cohesion, swapping best practices and working to align their approach for the coming year, Zager said. He’s hoping to incorporate further elements from West Side Collaborative into the school, pointing to student-led conferences as one example.

“It’s been a great experience,” Zager said. “When it comes to it, I now have more children, and I have more staff, all of which I love. I think they are great additions to the community.”

But some parents at the school raised concerns over whether the city’s Education Department had allocated enough resources to properly support the newly merged community, and alleged communications at the time of the merger had been misleading.

Last spring, district officials indicated the merged school might be eligible to receive federal dollars to support low-income students, depending on its combined enrollment. But this year, when parents learned the school didn’t qualify — and that the federal funds were allocated based on enrollment numbers as of October in the prior school year — they questioned why district officials hadn’t made it clear from the outset. Parents also argued those figures didn’t account for newly arrived migrant students that both schools had taken in during the year. (During the last school year, West Side Collaborative qualified for the federal funds, but Lafayette didn’t.)

One parent at the school, who requested anonymity, praised the principal and his staff for “working hard with everyone to make both student bodies feel as one,” but worried the school might not have sufficient funding to support its increased enrollment, particularly as the city’s Education Department faces significant budget cuts.

“The challenges come with the fact that there are now larger classes, and more students at more diverse levels from both communities,” the parent said. “What I’m concerned about is that the DOE has taken the approach that once the merger is approved, they can move onto the next agenda item.”

Mesic, the former West Side Collaborative parent, transferred her son to West End Secondary School, though she said it has paled in comparison to the community they lost. She also helped other families navigate the transfer process, as unhappy parents sought to leave the merged community ahead of the school year.

In total, about 17 students from the former West Side Collaborative did not enroll in the merged school this year — or about a quarter of the incoming seventh and eighth grade classes.

Despite the challenges in the months that led up to the merger, Samuels believes it has been successful so far. He noted his office is in the same building as Lafayette, meaning he can watch students and staff interact each day.

“In a perfect world, we’d have had more time to engage,” Samuels said. “But the process and the outcome that we have had has really been a model for other people possibly to look at.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Public school enrollment in Colorado: Here’s what you need to know

2024-02-02T20:42:30+00:00

Leer en español.

As migrants continue to arrive in Colorado, many schools are seeing a record number of students enrolling in the middle of the year.

School enrollment liaisons are trying to reach families to offer help enrolling students, but as the number of migrants and shelters grow, their ability to connect quickly with everyone is slowing down.

In the meantime, you or someone you know might have questions about the process of enrolling a child in a Colorado public school. Here’s what you need to know.

Where do I start to enroll my child in school?

The first thing to know is that public schools have an obligation to enroll and educate students regardless of their immigration status, income, or housing situation. Public schools are free in Colorado for children ages 5 through 18 and in some cases, through age 21.

The first step is to identify which school district you are in and which schools are nearest to you. If you know what district you’re in, you can often use that school district’s website to find the schools closest to you and to learn about their programs.

If you aren’t sure where to start, walking into your nearest school is an option. Many schools have bilingual staff in their offices, and if they don’t, you can ask for an interpreter. You can ask for the name of the district you’re in, and tell them you need help enrolling.

“Language should never be an intimidation point,” said Frida Rodriguez, a student and family advocate in Adams 12, a district north of Denver largely covering Thornton.

Many school districts, including Denver and Aurora, will ask parents to make an account online and fill out forms through their website. The websites are available in Spanish, and the districts can provide assistance if you need help walking through how to fill the forms out. After you submit the forms, it may take a few days to hear back on next steps.

When should I enroll my child?

Educators suggest you enroll your children in school as soon as possible.

If the semester is about to end, there’s a possibility your child will need to wait to start attending until the following semester, but you won’t be turned away from enrolling, and you may be able to connect to other resources through the schools in the meantime.

To enroll in kindergarten, children must be at least 5 years old by a certain date. Different districts have different dates, but it’s usually near Oct. 1 of the school year in which they’re enrolling. Some children wait to start kindergarten until age 6.

Colorado has also started free preschool for four-year-olds, but enrolling in preschool requires a different process. Some public schools offer preschool, but not all do.

What documents will I need to submit?

There are requirements for enrolling in schools, but district enrollment leaders say it’s important for parents to know that they will work with you if you don’t think you have all of the necessary paperwork.

“We are committed to finding ways to make it work,” said Laurie Premer, director of enrollment services in Denver.

Schools may ask for a birth certificate or other official document like a passport that shows a child’s date of birth. They may ask you for a document that shows your address and where you are living. If you are staying with friends or family, a letter from the homeowner stating that you and your children are living with them can work.

Colorado law also has some vaccine requirements for children to enroll in school, so you may be asked to provide proof of those vaccines. If you don’t have proof, or have decided you do not want to vaccinate your child, you may need to fill out opt-out forms or get your child re-vaccinated. Schools often have clinics and can point you to where to get any missing vaccines for free or at low cost.

If you are living in a shelter at the time you enroll, districts have different policies and will be able to enroll your children with fewer required documents.

How long will it take to enroll in public school?

Typically, enrollment can take just a couple of days. But in districts like Denver where the number of new students each week is growing, enrollment leaders say families should be prepared to wait longer. Currently, it may take a week to hear back from the district before you’ll be able to complete enrollment and registration.

Sary Portillo, manager of multilingual family engagement in Denver schools, is one of the specialists who visit migrant shelters to help families enroll children in schools. She goes out once a week, but now that there are more shelters, her team is only able to visit each shelter every two weeks.

Once you’ve filled out the enrollment forms, district administrators will let you know if there is space at the school you requested or will work with you to place your children at a school with space. If your child needs Spanish language support, they will try to enroll your child in a school that meets that need.

What is school choice?

Because of a Colorado law, you can choose schools outside of your neighborhood or district. Schools will usually give priority to the kids who live nearby, but if they have space, they will accept families from elsewhere who want to attend that school.

While this allows families to find a school with the programming that is the best fit for their children, you should know that using school choice could make your children ineligible to ride the school bus, so you would need to take them to school or arrange transportation. Some rules for transportation are different for students living in shelters.

In some parts of Denver, school choice is always part of the process, because no school has a neighborhood boundary. That means students are not automatically assigned to schools based on their address. In the far northeast, for example, all families must choose one of the many area schools.

Will public schools help my child learn English?

There are federal requirements for how schools must support students and families who don’t speak English. While not all schools are prepared to do this well, the federal government requires that schools help students learn English and that students will be able to access their learning. There are different variations of what this might look like. In Denver, some schools are set up specifically to provide this type of support and have staff that teach in both Spanish and English.

You can always ask how the school you want to enroll in will support your child.

What is a newcomer center?

Many districts have schools that are designated as newcomer centers. Denver and some other districts have added new centers to accommodate the growing number of immigrant and refugee students. These schools provide more support to newcomers — students who have been in the country less than a year or two. In Denver, some students admitted to newcomer centers have also had interrupted schooling and have limited literacy skills in their primary language.

The newcomer center schools may have more staff that are bilingual, more accelerated support for high school students who need to get caught up to meet Colorado graduation requirements, and have social workers who understand other needs newcomer families might be facing. Students may also feel more comfortable attending school with other students who are also new to the country.

You can ask your district if enrolling in a newcomer center is an option for your children.

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

MSCS’ building strategy in the works: See which schools may be affected

2024-01-29T12:00:00+00:00

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Nearly 50 Memphis-Shelby County public schools would receive new investments for their physical buildings or their academic programming under an ambitious plan that district leaders are developing in an effort to improve learning experiences for children.

Another 21 school buildings could close under the plan, district documents show, meaning their students would have to go to school elsewhere.

In all, nearly half of the district’s buildings, and their communities, could be affected if the district follows through on the plan.

The facility plan is described in general terms in draft documents and maps compiled by Memphis-Shelby County Schools that Chalkbeat obtained through open-records requests. Chalkbeat used further research to identify the specific schools targeted for new investments or closure. (To learn more about how Chalkbeat reported this, see below.)

The broad plan has been shown to select community members convening for early rounds of input, along with maps showing the school locations, but the documents haven’t been shared in any public forum. Chalkbeat’s analysis of the documents provides the general public with the first look at which schools the district is considering for possible closure or consolidation, all identified by name.

The plan is still in the draft stage as district leaders collect feedback from some community partners. But as described in the documents, it represents an effort by district leaders to formulate a comprehensive strategy to tackle a complex set of problems: academic struggles that undermine faith in public schools, persistent funding shortages for capital projects, enrollment shifts, and the high cost of maintenance for aging buildings.

“I think it’s appropriate to have an investment discussion before you have a closure discussion,” interim Superintendent Toni Williams recently told a group gathered at Colonial Middle School to discuss the draft plan.

In touting their approach over the past year, school district leaders have said they want their infrastructure vision to stand out from previous ones in key ways: They want the community to feel involved in the decisions. They want to play a more active role in facilitating redevelopments when schools close, so that neighborhoods aren’t left with empty buildings.

And they want the plan to stick.

Community partners are helping to shape the facilities plan

In presentations in the fall and winter, officials have suggested that a first round of building changes would take place over the next five years, with more to come. Board policy describes a set of community meetings and reports that must take place by the end of February for any school to be closed by the following fall.

The district has been active in engaging community partners, and has convened one steering committee and nine neighborhood-based subcommittees to solicit input on the general draft plans. Many of the roughly 100 people across those committees — comprising school board members, other elected and government officials, plus business leaders, community leaders, parents, and students — have already received the district’s early proposals, which include the maps that show where major changes would take place.

The maps produced by the district use color-coded dots to show the locations of schools targeted for investment or possible closure, but the district documents don’t identify the schools by name. Using other public records, Chalkbeat was able to connect the dots with the school names to give Memphians a clearer picture of the proposals the school district is making.

Chalkbeat’s review did not include preschool locations or administrative buildings, which are also set for changes.

Chalkbeat gave the district an opportunity to review the matched data that it compiled based on the district’s documents, to check its accuracy, correct any discrepancies, and provide updates. District officials did not dispute the specific information we shared.

The district responded with a copy of a statement from Williams that was published to social media on Jan. 24 and distributed to district employees. The statement broadly dismissed any reporting about plans for Memphis school buildings.

“Any potential changes to our educational landscape will only be brought forth after thorough evaluation, community engagement, and formal board approval,” the statement said.

Several MSCS board members contacted by Chalkbeat said that figuring out how to deal with the district’s building issues is a critical step, but stressed that the plan is still being worked out with the community.

“We need probably fewer schools so we can offer more things to the schools that we have,” board member Mauricio Calvo said. He said he recalled a school visit where students without desks were seated on filing cabinets, and their librarian was wearing multiple scarves to stay warm.

He said that difficult conversations about how the district uses its resources can lead to better learning experiences but that any board decisions about closures are still months away.

Board member Michelle McKissack said, “It’s going to take an entire community” to figure out how to deal with the legacy of decades of deferred maintenance and declining conditions in school buildings. “So that’s where we are right now.”

In an email to Chalkbeat, board member Amber Huett-Garcia said she was concerned that publishing the names of schools that may close could be “destabilizing” to communities amid district efforts to “build a culture of trust, safety, and achievement.”

“Nothing is decided right now,” she wrote, “and words such as draft or pending community input can be lost.”

Board Chair Althea Greene, pointing to the community meetings that are underway, said in a statement: “Our goal is to continue to be transparent throughout this process.”

How the Memphis district is analyzing schools

To sort out which schools would be affected and how, the draft proposal looks at a combination of criteria describing a school’s academic performance, enrollment, capacity, and facility needs. The district has said it analyzed those factors alongside how the school fits into district feeder patterns — the set of schools that students in a particular community are assigned to — and other neighborhood zoning and development trends.

Selected slides from a Memphis Shelby County Schools presentation on infrastructure planning discussions. The presentation explains the criteria and process district officials will use to make decisions about buildings.

Some 80 district schools would not see changes, and the district’s draft plan does not directly affect buildings or academic programs at most charter schools, which are managed by their own operators.

Many of the schools that stand to receive investments under the draft plan are ones that could get new students from other schools targeted for closure or consolidation. That means that the plan envisions reassigning some students to different schools based on where they live.

Some of the proposed closures and consolidations shown on the district’s map are expected, including six school buildings the district has said it expects to replace or sell. Another four are former MSCS schools that are currently operating as charters as part of the state-run Achievement School District. Some of these schools could remain open if they successfully apply to continue as charter schools after their 10-year terms in the ASD expire.

Delano Head Start, a preschool building, and Raineswood Residential Center, which has most recently been a service hub for students with disabilities, could also be closed.

The district has two new high schools in progress, in Cordova and in Frayser. The draft plans suggest a new Treadwell K-8 school, as well as a new Orange Mound elementary school, similar to the proposals for new school buildings made by former Superintendent Joris Ray’s administration in 2021.

Story continues after the table.

Success of new facilities plan depends on sustained support, funding

Williams has talked about a comprehensive facilities plan for a year now, and has just months to go in her term as interim superintendent. For her vision to materialize, the facilities plan her team is working on will have to survive the transition to a new superintendent, who is expected to take over this summer. (Williams’ contract allows her to stay on as finance chief or a consultant for one year after her superintendent term ends.)

It would also have to transcend any changes in the composition of the school board after this August’s election, when five of nine board seats will be on the ballot.

In her recent visit to Colonial Middle School, Williams met with a subcommittee of people representing school board District 9′s Orange Mound and Parkway Village neighborhoods. The interim superintendent criticized past facility plans that looked only at numbers.

Those plans erred in not incorporating the community, she said, and inflamed tensions between the district and neighborhoods — and, in some cases, among neighbors themselves.

Williams acknowledged that the district has left neighborhoods with vacant school properties, and that when closures happened, officials neglected to invest in schools that would be gaining additional students.

Shelby County leaders have also been talking about a comprehensive facilities strategy for a long time, and even considered setting up a separate agency to oversee school building construction projects across the county.

Williams thinks her vision will help rewrite the current dynamic where the district continually appeals to county commissioners for “piecemeal” funding for specific projects, or makes large capital budget requests that commissioners have been reluctant to grant.

A comprehensive plan that pitches investments in schools alongside redevelopment of old school buildings, she has said, could even bring access to new, nontraditional funding streams.

To that end, the district has been working on the plan with More for Memphis, a $100 million community development initiative spearheaded by the education-focused nonprofit Seeding Success.

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

Fewer students are enrolled in Colorado schools again this year

2024-01-17T17:00:00+00:00

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The number of students in Colorado schools continues to drop and is now lower than it was after the large decrease in enrollment at the start of the pandemic.

In October 2023, 881,464 students were enrolled in public schools, down 1,800, or 0.2%, from October 2022, according to official enrollment counts released by the Colorado Department of Education Wednesday.

Before the pandemic, enrollment numbers in Colorado had been increasing every year since the 1980s. But in fall of 2020, after months of mostly remote learning, enrollment sank by about 30,000 students from the previous year. In fall of 2021, enrollment went up slightly, but has been falling again since.

State Demographer Elizabeth Garner told the State Board of Education last week that the decline in enrollment is due partly to decreasing birth rates, but also to a slowdown in migration and mobility.

“We are forecasting that total school-age population to decline basically through 2028-2029, then start to increase, but not get back to levels that we saw in 2019 until about 2035,” Garner said.

She said the trend is statewide.

“Forty-three of the 64 counties had an absolute decline in the under-18 population over the last decade,” Garner said. “It doesn’t matter where you were — Eastern Plains, San Luis Valley, West Slope, Denver metro.”

In a statement, Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova noted concern about the drop in enrollment among the youngest students.

“We know that pre-kindergarten and kindergarten are where students build critical foundations for life-long academic success including language development, early literacy, and social skills,” she said.

Still, she said, “we are encouraged by the state’s commitment to early learning through the Colorado Universal Preschool Program.”

The universal preschool program provides free preschool to all Colorado 4-year-olds and some 3-year-olds. This year, about 50,000 students are enrolled in various types of public and private preschools across the state. Public school districts’ pre-K programs have 32,060 students, slightly fewer than a year earlier.

First grade and kindergarten saw some of the largest decreases in enrollment this year. First grade enrollment declined by 3.91%, or 2,478 students, compared with the first grader group of 2022. Kindergarten had 1,068 fewer students, a 1.79% drop. Eighth grade and ninth grade also had large enrollment declines.

Only five grade levels saw an increase in students compared with last year. The largest increase was among second graders, up by 5%, or more than 3,000 students.

Other segments that grew included those who are home-schooled, and those who are enrolled in online programs.

Enrollment in charter schools decreased by 1.8% to 135,223.

The number of students identified as experiencing homelessness statewide went up by 1,570 compared with last year.

Last school year only one district in Colorado, Adams 12, had more than 1,000 students identified as needing services related to homelessness. This year, there were four such districts — Aurora, Adams 12, Jeffco, and Poudre.

By percentage, the tiny district of Sheridan continues to have the highest proportion of its students experiencing homelessness in the metro area, but the number has dropped over the years. This school year, 149 Sheridan students, or 14.1%, are experiencing homelessness, down from 205, or 18.2%, last year.

Broken down by race, white students had the largest decreases in enrollment, while Hispanic or Latino students had the largest increases. Schools counted 312,687 Hispanic or Latino students in October 2023, up from 308,739 the year before.

By percentage, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students had the largest enrollment jump: 9.18% more than last year. These students make up a tiny proportion of all Colorado students.

Among the state’s largest districts, just a handful recorded more students than last year. They include Aurora Public Schools, which had a slight increase, and Denver Public Schools, which gained 371 students. Denver has attributed the increase to an influx of migrant students, many from Venezuela.

Among the metro-area districts, School District 27J in Brighton had the largest growth in enrollment. It gained more students than Denver, Aurora, or any of the large districts. Meanwhile, Sheridan, Westminster, and Adams 14 had the largest decreases in the metro area.

The state’s data reflect official student counts in October, and those are the counts typically used to determine funding levels.

But the state’s release acknowledged that several districts have seen a large number of students who are new to the country arriving throughout the school year.

“CDE is committed to working with districts and school teams to ensure they are supported in serving these multilingual learners,” the department’s statement notes.

Look up enrollment changes at your district in the table below:

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

Three things to know about the Chicago Board of Education’s resolution on school choice

2024-01-03T12:00:00+00:00

Chicago’s Board of Education made waves last month when officials revealed a vision to move away from its school choice system and boost neighborhood schools.

The declaration, included in a resolution the board passed in December, lays out priorities for the district’s five-year strategic plan, which will be finalized this summer. Any resulting changes will depend on feedback from the community, board members said.

But the board’s new vision immediately sparked misinformation. Here are three things to know about the board’s resolution.

Will schools close?

No. Not yet, at least.

The resolution does not say anything about closing schools. State law put a moratorium on school closures in Chicago until Jan. 15, 2025, the same day a new 21-member, partially-elected school is set to be sworn in. The current seven-member school board, appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, would not be able to close schools of any type – charters, magnets, or neighborhood schools – until that time.

School board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland did indicate the board is scrutinizing charter school performance through the usual renewal process and questioned whether poor-performing operators should “continue to exist.”

But even a recent board decision to revoke a charter agreement with Urban Prep did not ultimately mean those schools closed. First, the district proposed operating the two campuses as district-run schools. But after a court order, the board extended Urban Prep’s charter until June 2024.

Will I have to go to my neighborhood school?

No. The resolution does not say anything about requiring families to attend their neighborhood schools.

The closest it comes to addressing enrollment policies is a bullet point about a “reimagined vision” that includes a “transition away from privatization and admissions/enrollment policies and approaches that further stratification and inequity in CPS and drive student enrollment away from neighborhood schools.”

Any school-aged child living in Chicago is guaranteed a spot at their zoned neighborhood school. Additionally, board policy amended as recently as last summer, allows families to apply to a myriad of selective, magnet, charter, or other speciality programs that admit students from across the city. Some schools require a test for admission, while others are a straight lottery.

These policies have not changed, but could after community feedback sessions.

“There likely will be policies that need to be revised and changed,” Todd-Breland said. “The admissions and enrollment policy is on the table.”

Data shows half of elementary school students attend their zoned neighborhood school and only a quarter of high school students do. These numbers shifted over the course of the past 20 years, when roughly 75% of elementary school students went to their local school and half of high schoolers did.

What do parents and students think?

It varies greatly.

Chalkbeat Chicago asked readers for their thoughts on school choice and got nearly 80 responses from families across the city about how they’ve navigated the system. Five families shared more about how — and why — they chose their schools.

The wide range of responses could be a bellwether for the kind of debate or disagreement that could emerge during community feedback sessions.

The Board of Education was awarded a $500,000 federal grant to create socioeconomically diverse schools. The district said it plans to use the money to engage the community on how to draw more families into neighborhood schools. Their application included a goal to reduce the percentage of families attending a school outside of their regions by at least 3%. The district did not answer questions to clarify their definition of region or why 3% was their goal.

The district is already collecting feedback on the next five-year strategic plan through an online survey and community meetings for the next Educational Facilities Master Plan. Officials have said they will host in-person and online meetings in February to gather feedback on the strategic plan.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

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

Charter authorizer rejects bid from Indianapolis school with rocky academic, attendance history

2023-12-13T22:02:46+00:00

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The Genius School in Indianapolis has lost its bid for a charter from a second authorizer, after the Education One board at Trine University rejected its application Wednesday, citing concerns with inflated enrollment targets and financial projections.

The 3-0 vote creates uncertainty about the future of the troubled Genius School on the eastside of Indianapolis. The small school, which is co-located with GEO Next Generation High School, has a charter with the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation that expires at the end of this school year.

The Education One board on Wednesday also voted 3-0 to revoke the charter for Thea Bowman Leadership Academy in Gary, citing ongoing struggles with staff turnover, declining enrollment, and academic underperformance. The school is in the second year of a three-year charter extension set to expire in June 2025.

Without a charter, Thea Bowman’s roughly 850 students could be forced to look for new schools in June, when the revocation takes effect. However, the school is seeking approval from Calumet College of St. Joseph, another charter authorizer. In a press release after the vote, Education One’s executive director expressed disappointment that the school has decided to seek approval from another authorizer rather than rectify its deficiencies.

The votes follow a Chalkbeat analysis of Marion County charter schools that found a lack of guardrails in state law to ensure that charter schools and their authorizers are held accountable. State law provides little oversight of schools seeking approval from a new authorizer after facing scrutiny from their existing one.

The Genius School renamed itself after Indianapolis Public Schools removed it from the district’s network of autonomous Innovation schools. In its decision to sever ties with the school, which used to be called Ignite Achievement Academy, the district cited high staff turnover, poor academic results, and low attendance.

The school, which was placed on probationary status by the Office of Education Innovation around January 2022, withdrew from the renewal process with the authorizer earlier this year.

The Genius School’s head of school, Shy-Quon Ely II, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Chalkbeat’s analysis also found that roughly one-third of brick-and-mortar or blended-model charter schools in Indianapolis have closed since the passage of the state’s charter school law in 2001.

Education One staff also cited concerns with the school’s ability to implement a multi-faceted model focused on the whole child.

Staff also had concerns with the Genius School’s ability to hit projected enrollment targets. State records show it had an enrollment of 74 students last school year. In its application, the school set a goal of reaching 150 students in 2024-25.

Staff also cited an insufficient timeline for its facility plans, and noted that the proposed budget would put the school in a deficit within its first two years.

Education One Executive Director Lindsay Omlor said that staff shared their feedback with the school.

“I don’t know if they’ll apply to us again in the spring, if they’ll shoot for another authorizer, if they’ll just call it a day,” Omlor said.

Thea Bowman Leadership Academy’s charter revoked

Meanwhile, staff cited ongoing struggles with staff turnover, declining enrollment, and academic underperformance at Thea Bowman Leadership Academy.

This isn’t the first time a charter authorizer has spurned the school. In 2016, Ball State University declined to renew the school’s charter. That same year, the school sought authorization from the Indiana Charter School Board, but that board also declined to sponsor the school. Eventually, Education One authorized the school in 2016.

The school was able to rectify organizational concerns and greatly improve academic performance within its first two years at Trine, Omlor told board members at the meeting. But things have gone downhill since then, she indicated.

She said Education One staff have had “had really strong ongoing concerns related to both academic and organizational performance” over the last three years.

But in a statement, the school argued that the revocation was retaliation for seeking authorization from Calumet College of St. Joseph, which it pursued beginning in March because a “disconnect” had developed between Education One and the school. The school said it notified Education One of intent to change authorizers on Oct. 30.

The concerns cited in Education One’s notice of revocation are present in other urban school districts and said the authorizer has had “little to no in-person contact”, the school argued. “The challenges are real and require real time and real attention.”

Phalen Leadership Academies, which manages the school, referred comment to the school.

This school year alone, staff turnover at Thea Bowman is the highest it’s been for the school at over 50%, Omlor said. Enrollment has also declined from over 1,200 students seven years ago to 850 this year, she said.

The school also underperforms on state tests compared to some similar nearby schools, according to annual performance reviews — most notably at the high school level. It has consistently failed to meet overall academic standards in such annual reviews.

The school has also not set performance goals with Phalen Leadership Academies and has failed to communicate with stakeholders such as Education One, Omlor said at Wednesday’s meeting.

“Today’s difficult decision was made first and foremost with the interests of students, families, and taxpayers in mind,” Omlor said in a statement after the vote. “While we never set out to close a school, it is our obligation to ensure our schools are upholding their duty to provide high quality educational options for kids and communities across the state.”

This article was updated to include a statement from Thea Bowman Leadership Academy.

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

How does it feel to apply to high school in Chicago? Four eighth graders share their experiences.

2023-12-11T11:00:00+00:00

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Chloe Athanasiou was rippling with nervous energy. It was Oct. 11 and they — and 28,000 of their eighth grade peers — were about to take Chicago Public Schools’ High School Admissions Test, or HSAT.

“Everybody’s so nervous. Either everybody’s really quiet or screaming their heads off,” Chloe said. “I was one of the people who was screaming their heads off to try to feel better. It actually worked, strangely.”

The test would be a crucial factor in determining the next stage in their lives: where they will go to high school.

In Chicago, every eighth grade student is guaranteed a spot at their local neighborhood school, but according to data from previous years, about 70% of high schoolers attend schools outside their neighborhood.

What was once an effort to desegregate Chicago Public Schools has turned into a fiercely competitive process to get a seat at top-performing, well-resourced high schools. Admissions decisions are still based on a “tier system,” which assigns every student’s address in the city a “tier” based on the socioeconomics and educational attainment of people living in the census tract and admits a mix of students living in different tiers.

Applicants spend months attending open houses, researching schools, and ranking them in order of preference. Next, they take the HSAT. When their scores come back a few weeks later, students have a chance to re-rank their school choices — a new twist added this year.

Then, everybody waits — until May, when admissions offers are made.

The whole process, as eighth grader Elias Gray put it, causes “mostly anxiety and fear.”

CPS made some changes to this year’s test meant to help alleviate stress, said Sara McPhee, executive director of the CPS Office of Access & Enrollment. After feedback from families, for example, the HSAT was shortened to one hour instead of two-and-a-half and reduced from four sections to two.

But the anxiety is deep-seated because what’s at stake, these students say, are their futures.

Chalkbeat followed four eighth graders from different parts of the city and different types of schools through this year’s enrollment process – which came with some changes and a test day glitch. Here’s what it’s like to go through Chicago’s high school enrollment process.

High school is one key to unlocking dreams

Many students begin thinking about where to apply to high school well before eighth grade.

That’s partly because students’ grades in seventh grade factor into admission at the city’s selective enrollment schools. The other half of a student’s overall score is based on their HSAT results.

Students try to prepare however they can, including by shelling out for private tutoring – even though CPS warns that it has seen no correlation between test preparation and acceptance rates.

Katherine Athanasiou (left) and Chloe Athanasiou (right). Chloe is in eighth grade in Chicago Public Schools and hopes to one day help to repair some of the flaws in the youth mental health system.

Chloe Athanasiou wants to be a therapist when they grow up. In their own personal experiences with therapists, Chloe has seen many ways that mental health treatment for young people, especially queer youth, needs to be improved.

That is why Chloe hopes to attend a high school that offers an Advanced Placement Psychology course, something available at the city’s top selective enrollment high schools.

In order to make that hope a reality, Chloe began preparing for the admissions process in the spring, but it’s been in the back of their mind for years.

“You start thinking about it in sixth grade a lot, because you’re like, ‘Okay, next year is the year that I have to get all As,’” said Chloe. “And then in seventh grade, you’re like, ‘Okay, [now] I have to get all As. So how am I going to do that? How am I gonna accomplish that with the amount of homework and the different really big projects?’”

To prepare, Chloe did test prep courses, took practice tests, and participated in a Test Anxiety group offered through their school. Despite all of the preparation, said Chloe, the anxiety and stress remained.

“Logically, I know that really all that’s at stake is the next four years of my life. But mentally, it turns into this gigantic thing,” said Chloe. “It turns into a bigger thing than it actually is because of peer pressure and parent [pressure] just evoking a lot of anxiety.”

Nicole Watson (left) and Daniel Watson (right), a CPS eighth grader who is applying to career-focused high school programs. Daniel said he leaned on art techniques to help manage his stress during the enrollment process.

Art helped Daniel Watson ease some of the pressure of going through the admissions process, but his interests in science and technology are driving his and his family’s choices about high school.

His mother, Nicole Watson, began looking into Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs at local high schools as a strategy to counter the high competition of selective enrollment high schools.

“It’s just another way of potentially having my child at a high-performing school,” she said. “I’m looking at all of the options because I think we all know that selective enrollment schools only have so many seats.”

For admission to high school in the 2022-23 school year, 6,239 students ranked Lane Tech, which has about 1,200 seats for incoming freshmen, as their top choice school.

Whitney Young and Jones high schools were the second and third most frequently ranked as student’s top choices, with over 3,400 students ranking them as their first choices.

Nicole Watson wants to give her son more options, but as a social worker she worries about the kids who don’t have “parents or community that’s invested in their education and don’t have access to programming that can make up and fill in those gaps.”

Shayna Gray (left) and Elias Gray (right) outside of Kellogg Elementary in Beverly on Chicago’s South Side. Elias is eyeing high schools with strong STEM programs, but the application process has him thinking even further into the future.

Eighth grader Elias Gray let out a long sigh and shook his head before describing his feelings about the impending HSAT last month.

“This test basically decides the next course of your life in education,” he said.

His mother, Shanya Gray, admitted to feeling just as nervous. A few days before the test, she took the day off from work just to help her son study and try to ease the anxiety for both of them.

“This whole thing is very new to me, because I didn’t grow up in the US. I grew up in the Caribbean,” said Shanya Gray. “So I’m learning as I go along, learning about this process here in the U.S., and there are, even now, some things I wish I knew a year ago.”

She was surprised that there was not more preparation for the test built into the CPS curriculum. She ended up paying for tutoring and a test prep workshop to help her son prepare, but she’s keenly aware of the fact that such preparation isn’t available to everyone.

Elias says he wishes there was more preparation and support from CPS and within the classroom in the form of practice tests and lesson plans specifically targeting the HSAT.

While Elias is hoping to attend a school that can best support his interests in engineering, his goal is simply to attend “an actually good school.”

This whole process, he says, forces students to look forward, even beyond high school, and consider how the choices they make now will have a significant impact on where they go to college and their entire future.

Selah Zayas (left) hopes to follow in her mother Andrea Zayas’ (right) footsteps and attend her alma mater: Lane Tech College Prep.

Selah Zayas looked on as her grandmother evaluated her little brother’s vital signs this summer. He had started having difficulty breathing and Selah’s grandmother is a nurse. Watching her jump into action, she saw how important that kind of knowledge can be, and she wants to help people in the same way some day.

Following in the family’s footsteps is kind of a thing in the Zayas family. All of Selah’s siblings attend the same public charter school where her mother teaches fifth grade, and Selah’s sights for high school are set on Lane Tech, which her mother attended.

After her older brother went through the high school enrollment process last year, Selah went in with eyes wide open. Plus, her school has a High School Placement Manager who prepares students for high school and the enrollment process.

Even so, Selah and her mother had some concerns.

Selah learned some of the foundational math skills tested on the HSAT when schools were fumbling with virtual learning during the pandemic. Studies show that students have had significant and lingering learning loss due to the pandemic, and as a teacher, Selah’s mom, Andrea Zayas, has seen some of these impacts first-hand.

This, she said, is part of what makes the enrollment process inequitable.

“I feel like this system is unfair,” she said. “It’s one test, one day. It’s an hour of their life to determine the high school that will lead to their college.”

In addition, Selah learned math at her dual-language school entirely in Spanish, and while CPS offers the opportunity to take the HSAT in Spanish, Selah feels she is stronger at reading in English. So she opted to take the test in English.

These concerns compounded the pressure, said Selah, because the stakes are so high.

It’s about “who I’m trusting to take the next four years of my life at school [and who] will help guide me,” she said.

Chicago Public Schools canceled and rescheduled the High School Admissions Test after technical problems caused problems on the original date all eighth graders were scheduled to take the exam.

Glitch adds to test day stress

On HSAT test day, the test that 20,000 eighth graders had spent months worrying about malfunctioned. Some students had been able to complete the test before the system crashed, others had completed half, some had never even been able to log in.

Meanwhile, at schools across the city, cell phones were buzzing as eighth graders texted friends about what was going on – discussing questions they remembered from the test, telling friends what to expect, and maybe freaking out a little bit.

CPS decided to reschedule the test, allowing those who finished the chance to keep their scores from this session or retake it at a later date.

Before scheduling a retest date, CPS worked with the vendor to make sure the test wouldn’t crash again. The new testing dates were finally set for Oct. 24 and 25.

Chloe

“I thought the stress would be totally gone, the stress of actually counting down the days until the test,” said Chloe Athanasiou the day after the initial test. “It’s not gone, it’s still there, because nobody knows what’s going on.”

Although Chloe was able to finish the test before the system crashed, their mother was incredibly frustrated by the technical issue.

“It really feels like a nightmare. The kids who are in tier four and have supportive parents and have resources, their parents are going to be able to navigate this in one way or another,” said Katherine Athanasiou.

Families with means, she said, might leave CPS altogether, “and then it’s just inequity upon inequity upon inequity.”

Daniel

Daniel completed the reading section on Oct. 11 and finished the test “with one minute to spare” when he retook it on the 25th. Knowing he had cut it so close made it more stressful as he awaited his scores

He had more anxiety leading up to the retake than he’d had for the initial test, he said, because there was less information available about when the test would be rescheduled. So he didn’t know how to schedule his studying time.

Elias

When Elias Gray sat down on Oct. 11 to take the test, he said all “the questions were in Spanish, and there were numbers all over the screen.”

After hearing the district would cancel and reschedule the exam, Elias felt “shock and relief at the same time.”

No one at his school was able to finish the test, he said. The principal shut down the test once malfunctions started. Knowing that kids at other schools were able to finish the test, Elias felt that the whole testing situation this year was compromised.

“That was unfair because kids at our school are friends with kids at other schools and they might use the answers there to try to [do better] on the test,” he said.

Selah

At Selah’s charter school, students were able to complete the reading section, but when they came back from break, the test was no longer working.

The whole situation had her feeling “a little bit salty,” she said.

For her, there had been more surprises than just the technical difficulties. While she had signed up to take the test in English, she found out on test day that students taking the test in Spanish were allowed to use a dictionary.

Knowing that, she said, might have changed her mind about taking the test in Spanish.

In addition, Selah was particularly put off by the timer that pops up in the corner of the screen as a warning that time was almost up.

“It was very stressful to have to keep seeing that,” she said. “I kept checking in, seeing how much time I have left.”

In the end though, Selah was mostly relieved to have more time to study and go into the test with a little more knowledge about what it would look like.

Selah Zayas is currently in eighth grade at a public charter school where their mother teaches.

After scores come back, reality sets in

After HSAT scores were released just before the Thanksgiving holiday, families had a week to re-rank their school choices if they wanted to. McPhee said people are encouraged to rank by their preference, not by where they think they have the best chance of getting in.

Many seats go to students who have ranked a school second or third, she said. “The seats aren’t gone because we filled them up with the kids who put them first.”

“If school A is your dream, always put your dream at the top of the list.”

But McPhee, a mother of two CPS students herself, hopes families will consider their neighborhood schools and realize that there are more than just a few good options for their soon-to-be high school students.

Chloe

After watching Chloe waiting for their scores and seeing the stress this process has caused, Katherine Athanasiou can only think of two words to describe the process: “developmentally inappropriate.”

“You think these kids can handle so much,” she said. “Now you turn around and you’re like … ‘they are just brand-new teenagers.’”

Despite Chloe’s high scores, the Athanasious have begun an application process for a local private school just to keep their options open. Both were disappointed by the way CPS handled the system malfunction in October.

“I really believe in public education, and I’m still hopeful that it will work out – we’ll get into either the top choice or the second choice,” said Katherine Athanasiou. “But I also want to think about a place where the application process sees a child for not just test scores and grades but for all of the things that make the child who they are.”

Chloe feels pretty good about their chances at one of their top choices and excited that their friends received similar scores so they might attend the same selective enrollment school together.

Chloe switched schools in the middle of elementary school and it made a significant difference in their mental health and happiness.

“It really makes you see that school environments can be really different,” said Chloe. “You have to find the one that’s right for you and that’s not so easy to do.”

Daniel

Daniel’s test scores – in the 90th percentile – were almost exactly what his mother expected. She feels that gives him a good chance at getting into some of the selective enrollment schools on his list.

They evaluated last year’s cutoff scores for each school and decided to re-rank his top three schools, believing he had the best chance to get into Brooks or Lindblom – both selective enrollment schools on the South Side.

While they wait for offers to be made in the spring, she plans to help her son prepare for the Algebra Exit Exam. If he passes, he’ll be able to take geometry as a freshman.

But Daniel’s mom also hopes for broader improvements for all public schools.

“The fact that there are selective enrollment schools shows us CPS knows how to create high-performing schools,” she said. “There needs to be some more equity, so that we have high-performing neighborhood schools.”

Elias

While waiting for his scores to come in, Elias went to a second open house at Gwendolyn Brooks High School, a selective enrollment school in the Pullman neighborhood. The first visit was with his class earlier in the year. This time he was impressed, and it prompted him to re-rank his top school choices – his number one is now Brooks.

Now he’s nervous again. He did well on the test, but the few Bs he got in seventh grade brought his overall score to only a little bit above last year’s cutoff score for Brooks.

He’s trying not to think about what-ifs. Instead he’s reflecting on the process so far and thinking about where he can improve. He’s already thinking about how his experience with the high school enrollment process might prepare him for four years down the line when he’s applying to college.

Selah

When Selah’s scores came in at slightly above average, she was crushed. She had expected to do better.

Her dreams of attending one of the top selective enrollment schools in the city suddenly felt out of reach and she decided to readjust her rankings during the re-ranking period. She began to think her best option might be the charter school her brother attends where sibling preference guarantees her a seat.

Her mother, on the other hand, was baffled. The scores, she said, were inconsistent with her daughter’s grades and how she performed on other standardized tests throughout the year. It made her rethink everything. Is the school not adequately preparing her children? Was there a problem with the test? Did she miss something?

This isn’t the first admissions rodeo for Andrea Zayas and it likely won’t be the last. Her eldest son went through the process last year and did not get an offer at his top choice school.

“That was a disappointment for him and it wasn’t just one day; that disappointment lingers, you know?” she said. “I really feel like it impacts how they see themselves.”

Zayas has two younger children as well – a second grader and a sixth grader – and after seeing the ways this process has impacted her two older children, she isn’t sure if it’s worth it to put her youngest two children through it too.

Her focus now is making sure her daughter understands that “a person is not one thing.”

“A person is many things all at once and there are different strengths” she said. “What is that famous quote? If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will spend its whole life believing it’s stupid.”

Why does this West Side high school have only 33 students?

2023-12-01T18:51:50+00:00

Dismissal time at many high schools is often a crowded scene, with school buses and parents jockeying for parking and kids spilling out in every direction.

But at Frederick Douglass Academy High School, 543 N. Waller Ave. in Austin, just 33 students emerge from the school when classes wrap at 3 p.m. A student body that’s roughly the size of a single English class roams the campus briefly before heading home.

“This is so boring. There is nobody in here,” one student said after leaving Douglass on a recent school day.

At one point a beacon of academic excellence and point of pride for West Siders, Douglass’ low enrollment is now unsurprising to students and neighbors, they said. It’s indicative of the disinvestment West Side residents have suffered for generations, which has led to an exodus of local kids going elsewhere for school.

During the 2007-08 school year — when Douglass converted from a middle school to a high school — there were 561 students, Chicago Public Schools historic enrollment data shows. By the 2015-16 school year, enrollment dropped to 234 students, a nearly 60 percent decrease.

Since 2007, enrollment at Douglass has dropped about 94 percent.

The only community member or parent on Douglass’ Local School Council is Catherine Jones, leaving six open seats for parent representatives and one for community members.

Jones, an Austin resident, has watched the school’s enrollment diminish but said she would not stop advocating for the school’s improvement as it falls into decline from a lack of students and needed repairs.

“These kids deserve a good school, and it feels as if nobody hears us,” she said. “I won’t stop fighting for it.”

Chicago Public Schools said Douglass is not in jeopardy of closing, and efforts are underway to boost under-enrolled schools.

Douglass Principal Michael Durr did not respond to repeated requests for comment, nor did other staff and faculty at the school.

Front entrance to Frederick Douglass Academy High School in Austin.

Ongoing fallout of Chicago’s closed schools

Statistically, the low enrollment means Douglass has some of the highest per-pupil spending in the district.

The high school is spending just over $68,000 per student compared to the district average of $18,287, statistics from the Illinois State Board of Education show.

Douglass’ spending per student is up 20 percent this year, according to the state.

The only CPS school to spend more on a per-student basis is Simpson Academy High School for Young Women, a small alternative high school on the Near West Side. Simpson Academy has 27 students and spends over $94,000 per student, state records show.

Though graduation rates are up in recent years, the increase in funding hasn’t led to the expansion or creation of certain advantageous programs for students, such as STEM classes and extracurricular activities, said Hal Woods, chief of policy for education nonprofit Kids First Chicago.

The school’s lack of resources, plus the decline in the city’s Black population, have led to fewer students attending neighborhood schools, according to neighbors and statistics.

Fifty-eight percent of West Side high school students attended school outside of the district’s West Side region in the 2022-23 school year, according to the Chicago Public School’s Annual Regional Analysis.

Of those leaving the West Side for high school, the majority head to the Far Northwest Side and Near West Side, according to the CPS regional analysis.

Bradley Johnson, chief community officer for youth development group BUILD Inc., said many of the problems with Douglass extend to inequalities the West Side has faced for decades. These include drug arrests, the savings and loan crisis of the ‘90s that lost billions for bank customers, the 2008 financial crash, and the closure of 50 schools in 2013 under Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Four of the closed schools were in Austin, including Key Elementary, just across from Douglass. CPS sold the building in 2018 to The Field School, a private Christian institution.

Emanuel justified the closings by saying under-enrolled, low-performing and crumbling schools did not best serve kids.

A WBEZ-Sun-Times investigation showed the closures largely did not deliver on its promises that students would be better off elsewhere, their new schools would be improved, and their old school buildings would be overhauled.

A Chalkbeat investigation showed that roughly one-third of the students who attended closed schools transferred out of CPS entirely. Those families who left CPS after their schools closed dried up pipelines for local high schools. Families and advocates worried the school closures would exacerbate displacement and disinvestment in segregated Black neighborhoods.

An Austin native, Johnson said access to local resources begins to decline after elementary school, and high school recruitment is lacking due to the absence of things such as advanced placement classes and afterschool programs like sports or music.

“You have vastly different outcomes in life and in your education based on your ZIP code. They aren’t recruiting because of their reputation as a school without resources,” he said. “Equitable access to resources is the key, and this is a citywide issue.”

Banner of Frederick Douglass Academy High School.

If attendance at Douglass doesn’t improve, Jones and others fear that the school could be forced to close, a prospect that has concerned parents at the school since at least 2017.

Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th), whose ward includes Douglass, acknowledged the lack of students as a problem but said closing the school would only exacerbate the situation and further remove resources from the neighborhood.

“Closing schools is never good for the community. Doing so would only further disrupt the education of the students,” he said.

Asked about the low attendance of the school, a CPS spokesperson said the district would abide by the moratorium on closing public schools, a state mandate that expires in January 2025.

“We would avoid speculation on hypothetical future closures that have not been proposed and are not up for consideration by the Board [of Education],” the spokesperson said.

CPS is increasing the Equity Grant program from $50 million in this year to $55 million next year to stabilize funding for smaller and under-enrolled schools, mostly on the South and West sides.

The district also plans to update its Opportunity Index, a formula used by CPS to identify barriers to success such as race, income, education, health, and other factors when making certain funding and staff allocation decisions, the spokesperson said.

“By applying the updated Opportunity Index to allocate additional teacher positions, instructional coaches, counselors and other staff positions, the District can ensure that the families who are most impacted by inequity have additional support to create strong, vibrant and healthy school communities,” the CPS representative said.

The issues that have led to the situation at Douglass have unfolded for years. It will take a long-term strategy to fix it, Woods said.

“This is not a problem you can’t solve in one year,” Woods said. “The schools are still dealing with the fallout of the school closures a decade ago. CPS should listen to the broader community for what their needs are.”

This story was originally published by Block Club Chicago.

Essays, tests, auditions, frustration, stress: What it’s like to apply to high school in NYC

2023-11-30T21:24:27+00:00

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One mom called it hell. Another felt like she was drowning in information. Some stretched their budgets to pay for test prep and coaches for their children’s art portfolios and auditions.

Welcome to New York City’s high school application process, where parents — often moms — take on what amounts to part-time jobs to help their 13-year-olds find the “right” school.

Families have until Friday to rank their 12 choices from among 700 programs in 400 schools. Despite the vast array of options, families feel like they’re fighting for seats.

In many ways, they are. In talking to more than a dozen families of eighth graders about their admissions journeys, Chalkbeat found a handful of coveted schools repeatedly came up. And admissions data confirms that a small number of high schools are ranked on an outsized number of applications.

The top 15 schools represented about 20% of all the choices that eighth graders picked on their applications in 2021, according to an analysis by Sean Corcoran, associate professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University.

And this data doesn’t include the eight prestigious specialized high schools, like Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech, that require the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT, or LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, which requires auditions. Thousands of students apply to those schools through a separate process.

“When people are confronted with an overwhelming amount of information, they want to simplify things as much as possible. You start with the schools that everybody knows, with the best reputation,” said Corcoran, whose research focuses on how to provide information to families to help them expand their choices.

The odds can feel overwhelming. At Manhattan’s Eleanor Roosevelt, there were 37 applicants for every general education seat, according to stats from the MySchools directory. There were 27 applicants per seat at Bard Early College High School in Queens. (This school was the 18th on the popular schools list.)

As with so many things in the public school system, those with time and means often have an advantage, contributing to New York having among the most segregated schools in the nation. Families jockey for limited spots on tours. They go down rabbit holes in Facebook groups to figure out their children’s odds. And a whole cottage industry has developed around the process, including consultants advising on a good fit.

Below are stories from six families from across the city reflecting on the lengths they’ve gone to figure out their school rankings.

“It’s just like the college application process,” said southeast Queens mom Trina Mitchell. “But it’s high school! It’s insane.”

The experienced project manager

Carina Li, left, with her mom, Karen Li.

Karen Li is hedging her bets.

The day after Li’s daughter Carina finished seventh grade, Li enrolled her in an SHSAT prep course. Carina studied all summer and took the prep course until Nov. 8, when the Education Department administered the test in public middle schools across the city.

Carina also took the Test for Admissions into Catholic School, or TACHS, and will sit for Catholic school scholarship exams on Saturday.

Then there’s the application for LaGuardia High School. Carina started planning her visual art portfolio in July and was still working on it four months later. She needed to submit eight pieces (including a still life that she redid three times) and make a video explaining her choices.

Even with help from an artistic aunt, the process is a lot. In fact, it’s all a lot.

Studying for the SHSAT was “terrible,” and the practice tests were “horrible,” said Carina, who lives in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. The art portfolio was “very demanding.”

“People always think that you have to spend money to pay for SHSAT prep,” said Li, who works in tax reporting. She now realizes that many kids vying for arts schools have to work just as hard as those studying for the SHSAT, plus they’ve been taking pricey arts classes for years. “They dance when they’re in diapers.”

Li said she has felt like her daughter’s “project manager,” reminding her to study, keeping track of due dates, and obtaining transcripts and recommendation letters for Catholic schools.

She has had practice: She went through the high school application process a few years ago with her older daughter, who went to Brooklyn Tech. So Li knew she had to start researching high schools for her younger daughter in seventh grade.

Carina, a competitive swimmer, would also like to go to Brooklyn Tech, especially for its swim team. But the family isn’t pinning its hopes on one school.

On top of it all, Li sees her daughter feeling overwhelmed and tries not to add stress.

“All this will be over by Dec. 2,” Li said.

The community activist

Jason Sosa spent months on SHSAT prep.

Expensive SHSAT courses were out of reach for the Sosa family of Sunset Park, Brooklyn. But they still managed to find creative ways to get their son Jason test prep.

Jovita Sosa recently got a grant that helped fund a six-week summer SHSAT test prep course through the literacy-focused nonprofit she started 10 years ago, Grupo Juego y Lectura. Jason was one of roughly six students who met twice a week for the course.

The Sosa family also received study materials from an acquaintance who got into Stuyvesant after completing the city’s DREAM program, offering free test prep. Sosa was amazed at how much more detailed the study materials were than the free materials the Education Department offers.

“I can’t afford the prep that some other people are getting,” said Sosa, a paraprofessional.

Jason, who attends a Catholic school, had been studying independently about 20 minutes a day this fall using the DREAM workbook. He worked with a high school senior on math for an hour every Saturday and Sunday. He also signed up for a free TACHS test prep program through his school. Though Sosa said she can no longer afford to pay for Catholic school, Jason wanted to take the test in case he got a scholarship.

“I found the SHSAT as expected, challenging, but not out of my grasp,” Jason said. “I feel like I could’ve done a better job with taking more time to understand the questions, but being under pressure blurs your thinking.”

The experience brought out the activist in Sosa.

She wrote to her state senator who had boasted in a constituent email of securing millions of dollars for SHSAT prep, asking for help to make free DREAM workbooks widely available to children who can’t afford test prep.

Sosa is trying to remain grounded.

“I lived it with my oldest child. We stressed him out when he was younger,” she said. “You learn it’s not the end all.”

One family. Two kids. Many art programs.

The Doucette family on a recent trip to Walt Disney World. Zach and Lexie's older brother (standing behind the twins) went to LaGuardia High School.

“It’s hell.”

That’s how Upper East Side mom Caren Doucette describes the application process for her twins.

Lexie — who has ADHD and dyslexia — is looking at visual arts. Zach is interested in performing arts. While there’s some overlap between their schools of interest, Doucette estimates that she devotes at least two hours daily to the process (and more on weekends). She’s researching websites, comparing notes with other parents, sending questions to schools, and attending tours.

“If you don’t sign up in the first 24 hours, you miss a spot,” said Doucette, a tutor with a flexible schedule. “My days are spent on the computer scouring all of this, and my husband will take the kids on evening tours.”

Doucette is especially concerned about whether her daughter, who has specific learning needs, will land at a school that can support her.

Lexie bonded with her visual arts coach, who also has dyslexia. Zach, who enjoys musical theater, had a drama coach and a voice coach, who each charge about $150 an hour. He also completed a free bootcamp in August through the Education Department’s Summer Arts Institute, where he studied with an acting coach.

“It’s a financial commitment,” Doucette said. “It straps us, but we can figure it out.”

Lexie is in “priority group 3,” because of a low grade she got last year in math from an unsupportive teacher, according to her mom, who has complained to their middle school, Wagner. Zach is in “priority group 1,” but didn’t have a high lottery number — a reality she wanted to shield him from.

Lexie and Zach went on all of the school tours as well. Even though it can be hard for her 13-year-olds to focus during the tours, they “get a vibe” being in the schools, Doucette said.

But that means they’ve missed about five days of eighth grade so far. One week they had five tours in three days, and now they’re wrapping up auditions and interviews and writing essays.

“It’s really annoying and unnecessary and stressful and time-consuming and set up awfully,” said Zach. “We have multiple things that cut into our school hours.” He wasn’t excited about the 7 p.m. open houses either.

“It’s annoying,” Lexie agreed.

A mother and daughter navigate language barriers

When Nancy Sagbay enrolled her daughter Jaleen in kindergarten nine years ago, her main priority felt clear.

Sagbay, who emigrated from Ecuador before Jaleen was born, didn’t want her daughter to lose her native tongue. So Jaleen attended P.S./I.S. 218, a dual-language K-8 school near their home in the Highbridge neighborhood of the Bronx.

Nancy Sagbay, left, with her daughter Jaleen Sagbay.

Now Jaleen can read, write, and speak in Spanish and English, and averaged above a 90% in her classes last year, to Sagbay’s great pride.

But as Jaleen turns her sights towards high school, the choices — and the application process — feel a lot more complicated.

“No one is ready for so much information,” said Sagbay, who still struggles with English.

Sagbay works at a barbershop and is constantly asking colleagues and clients for school recommendations and advice, which she relays to her daughter, Jaleen said.

As Jaleen finalized her list, she crossed off some she’d initially been eyeing once she saw their four-year graduation rates on MySchools. The 13-year-old hasn’t been on any school visits, and three of the schools she’s considering — Columbia Secondary, her top choice, Bard High School Early College in Manhattan, and Beacon, which one of her teachers recommended — require essays and other prompts.

With just a week left before the due date, Jaleen still hadn’t started them and was getting “stressed and anxious,” she said. But teachers at her middle school gave her time during the school day this week to work on them.

“I feel like I could do it,” Jaleen said of the selective schools. “I like competition. If there’s competition for it, it must be a good school.”

Sagbay, however, is worried about commuting to Manhattan.

“I didn’t want it because the trains can be dangerous,” she said, “but she wants to explore, to see people outside (her neighborhood).”

For now, they’re compromising: Jaleen is including some schools closer to home on her list.

They’re also compromising on academic focus. Jaleen is interested in art, but her mom has encouraged her to consider schools with a technology focus, since Jaleen is strong in math.

“One way or another,” Jaleen said, “she would … put that pressure on me to do better.”

The fierce parent advocate

Justin Mitchell playing drums for the NY Alliance Drumline.

What if a child’s performance in seventh grade did not reflect their abilities because of a series of extenuating circumstances?

Trina Mitchell demanded answers to that question on behalf of her son Justin.

Despite other public schools reopening after COVID shutdowns, Justin’s charter school in St. Albans, Queens, remained remote during his sixth grade year because of a problem with its roof, Mitchell said. Upon returning in seventh grade, his school lacked sufficient staffing to provide services mandated by his Individualized Education Program.

Mitchell’s letter to the Education Department through MySchools explaining the situation went unanswered until she brought it up again at an October high school admissions forum for families of children with disabilities.

The department agreed to rank Justin based on his GPA from the first semester of eighth grade.

“I didn’t give up,” said Mitchell, who works as a court clerk in Queens.

She was not able to prevail, however, in her quest to get a hard copy of the high school directory. She wanted it to mark up with sticky notes and carry around with her on tours for note-taking, “like a little bible.” She hoped it would help her discover new options.

The Education Department no longer prints hard copies.

Mitchell wished that things were easier, and that her son could just go to a zoned high school, but District 29 no longer has one. Nearby, the campus that housed Andrew Jackson High School — her husband’s alma mater — has been carved up into several small schools.

These schools read like a “country club” to Mitchell, boasting of tennis courts, football and soccer fields, and a track. Digging deeper, Mitchell said she found most students aren’t on grade level.

In general, she was concerned about the overcrowding of many Queens high schools and also was perplexed by all of the specialty programs, like law and STEM. Her son does well in science and is a good writer, but doesn’t have a career path in mind. He’s interested in being on the drumline and football team.

“For your average kid that doesn’t have a clue what they want in life, how do they lock into a program at 12 or 13 years old?” Mitchell asked. “The system is designed to cater to a kid who has it together and knows what they want to do.”

To stay or leave Staten Island?

Miles Curatolo-Boylan, left, and his mother, Lucia Curatolo-Boylan.

In drawing up their list of high schools to rank, Staten Island mom Lucia Curatolo-Boylan and her son Miles have been studying MTA schedules. By ferry or bus, he would commute more than an hour each way if he chooses a high school outside the borough.

Miles, the oldest of four, expressed an early interest in Staten Island Technical High School, a specialized school. But they’re casting a wider net.

They’ve toured schools across the city, including some Miles wasn’t thrilled about. They’ve considered Catholic high schools, too.

His deep love for illustration and drawing cartoons, as well as his interest in engineering, have helped inform the search.

But with some of his choices comes added stress — the anxiety over competition for coveted spots, the pressure of standardized tests and portfolios, as well as the reality of a long commute.

Curatolo-Boylan said she and her husband consider themselves lower-middle class, but still invested in getting Miles a tutor shortly before the SHSAT and TACHS, as well as paying for a few classes to help him strengthen his art portfolio. The standardized tests aren’t something that kids learn to tackle organically in school, she added.

“That’s a really difficult thing to stomach,” said Curatolo-Boylan, a private music teacher and acting and vocal coach who is also president of her local Community Education Council. “Knowing that there are kids that could really use that leg up in our community, especially here in Staten Island, and they’re never going to be able to afford that.”

Curatolo-Boylan said getting into public school here has always been stressful, but the “constant run-around of open house after open house” has been particularly grueling.

“So much of his life would change if he chose the city,” she said, referring to Manhattan.

With such a long commute, she knows he’ll leave early in the morning and return late in the evening. In a sense, this would mean letting go of him earlier than she anticipated, she said.

“It would be so exciting for him, and I would be so excited for him,” she said. “But at the same time, I think my heart might break a little.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

CUNY sees ‘enormous’ October application spike, as efforts to boost enrollment continue

2023-11-20T21:47:21+00:00

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An effort to bolster enrollment numbers at the City University of New York is seeing early signs of success, as the number of prospective students applying to schools in the system more than quadrupled last month.

Applications for the fall 2024 semester reached nearly 41,000 in October — a roughly 386% jump from the same time last year, when 8,420 students had applied, CUNY officials said last week.

Of those, more than 34,000 applications — or roughly 83% — came from New York City public school students.

The figures come as both city and state officials have worked to increase enrollment in the city’s network of public colleges, which saw dramatic downturns in student numbers during the pandemic, like many institutions across the country.

Systemwide, the number of enrolled students at CUNY schools fell about 17% over the course of the pandemic, with even steeper losses at the network’s community colleges. Overall, the number of students dropped from roughly 271,000 in the 2019-20 school year to about 226,000 last school year, though preliminary enrollment data shared last month indicated that decline had begun to level off.

To combat those trends, officials sent each senior expected to graduate from one of the city’s public high schools a personalized acceptance letter indicating they had a spot at CUNY and encouraging them to apply.

CUNY’s community colleges have open admissions for high school graduates, and the letters aimed to motivate those on the fence about applying to the network’s schools.

The college system also waived application fees for all NYC public school students for the entirety of October, while eliminating the cost for other high school seniors in the state between Oct. 16 and Oct. 31. The personalized letters included information about the fee waivers, which were also promoted via social media and an ad campaign, officials added.

About 88% of applicants during October received a fee waiver, up from about 52% at the same time last year, officials said.

It isn’t the first time the city’s network of public colleges has waived application fees for local students, but this year, the move came much earlier in the application process.

Schools Chancellor David Banks said he was “thrilled” by the application figures.

“The dramatic increase in applications tells us that our students heard the message: higher education is within their reach, and we have a place for them at our city’s university,” he said in a statement. “We look forward to seeing the impact of a CUNY education on the long-term outcomes for both our students and our city.”

CUNY application spike ‘an outlier,’ expert says

Though college applications have risen across the country this year, CUNY’s October jump in applicants was “enormous, and absolutely an outlier,” said Joshua Hyman, an economics professor at Amherst College who has studied higher education.

The two policy changes at CUNY appeared to complement one another, potentially amplifying the impact that either could have on their own, he said.

“The massive outreach in the letters by themselves would have had some impact,” Hyman said. “But there would have been those students who would have been excited about this, but for whom the application fee is a real barrier.”

And even among those who can afford them, fees can discourage potential applicants, said Philip Oreopoulos, an economics professor at the University of Toronto.

“Even a small fee, where you have to whip out your credit card or you have to get your parents to do that, can cause delays, can cause like, ‘Oh, I’m going to do this later,’ and then it just never happens,” he said.

Applications were up last month even when compared to pre-pandemic figures, with the network receiving roughly 18,000 applicants as of the same time in 2018 and 2019, according to officials.

Any efforts to streamlining the application process can have significant impacts.

“When you make the process of applying easier, it can make the difference between someone going and not going,” Oreopoulos said.

Still, Hyman added, “There’s a big difference between applying and then ultimately enrolling.”

Though he expects to see enrollment increase next year after the spike in applications, Hyman said any growth would likely occur at a smaller scale.

Affordability can be major draw on whether to enroll

For students deciding whether to enroll in the network’s colleges, affordability can be a major draw.

Tuition at CUNY costs about $3,500 a semester for state residents at four-year colleges and $2,400 a semester for New Yorkers at community colleges, though roughly two-thirds of in-state students pay no tuition because of a combination of state and federal financial aid, according to the university.

Among graduates, 75% leave with no debt, officials said. CUNY forgave roughly $100 million in debt accrued during the pandemic.

With more students potentially enrolling next year, experts said it’s critical to ensure new students receive the support they need. Across the country, colleges saw more students dropping out since the onset of the pandemic, and traditionally disadvantaged students who may have been swayed to apply by CUNY’s outreach efforts could be at especially high risk.

Oreopoulos pointed to CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs initiative as one example of strong support systems. The program offers additional financial resources, academic structure, and direct support services to students seeking associate degrees within the network — aiming to help them graduate on time.

“It’s nice to see that CUNY is doing this combination of not only trying to help more get in, but also help more stay,” he said.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

With influx of migrants, NYC school enrollment ticks up for first time in 8 years

2023-11-15T20:36:46+00:00

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The number of students attending New York City’s public schools increased for the first time in eight years, a sign that enrollment may be stabilizing in the wake of deep declines during the pandemic.

About 915,000 children from 3-K to 12th grade enrolled this year, up 0.9% from last year, or roughly 8,000 additional students, according to preliminary Education Department data released Wednesday.

Still, city schools enrolled about 92,000 fewer children compared with the year before the pandemic hit, a decline of roughly 9%.

An influx of asylum-seeking families appeared to be a major factor in reversing the yearslong trend of declining enrollment. About 13,000 migrant students have enrolled in the city’s schools since June, city officials said.

Mayor Eric Adams has previously taken a harsh posture on the wave of arriving asylum seekers, saying, “This issue will destroy New York City.” He traveled to the border last month to persuade migrants not to come. Meanwhile, to finance services for migrant families, the mayor has ordered funding reductions elsewhere — including up to $2.1 billion from the Education Department’s budget.

In a joint press release with schools Chancellor David Banks, Adams celebrated the rise in enrollment and some of the city’s efforts to welcome new arrivals in the city’s public schools.

“Chancellor Banks and our administration are focused on delivering the best education possible for our young New Yorkers by cutting through bureaucracy, expanding outreach, and making enrollment easier,” Adams said in a statement. “New Yorkers are voting with their feet, and we are excited to see funding increase for so many of our public schools.”

City officials cautioned that the enrollment figures are preliminary and will likely fluctuate as students continue to enter or leave the system midyear. (The numbers do not include charter schools.)

Enrollment is a key issue because the lion’s share of school budgets are determined based on how many students are on their registers. Over the past few years, the Education Department avoided some enrollment-related cuts to individual schools by using hundreds of millions worth of one-time federal relief funding as campuses recover from the pandemic.

That money is dwindling, though, which means schools face growing budget pressures.

For the first time since the pandemic hit, the Education Department is forcing schools to return money in the middle of the year if they end up enrolling fewer students than the city projected.

Because of higher than expected enrollment, about 57% of schools will see midyear funding bumps, averaging about $209,000 per school, officials said. The remaining 43% of schools will see midyear cuts averaging $167,000.

Declining enrollment can pose other significant problems for schools. As the number of students on a given campus dwindles, it typically becomes increasingly difficult to fund a full range of programs and extracurricular activities. The number of schools with tiny enrollments has grown in recent years, prompting questions about whether city officials may propose a wave of mergers or closures.

In a recent interview with Chalkbeat, Banks said district leaders are planning to have “community conversations” this year about potential mergers.

“Some level of consolidation is something that I think we would be irresponsible if we were not looking at that,” Banks said, “particularly in light of the fiscal challenges that we’re having.”

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

NYC high school applications are due next month. Here are 5 tips for navigating the process.

2023-11-03T22:06:46+00:00

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With a month left to go in New York City’s notoriously complex high school admissions process, families are striving to determine which of the city’s more than 700 programs across 400 schools will be a good fit for their students.

Families have until Dec. 1 to submit high school applications in a process that can be daunting for the tens of thousands of eighth grade families applying to public high schools. It can also feel inequitable, with some parents feeling that families who have more time and resources to devote to the process have an upper hand.

The process can take a lot of work. Schools across the city hold open houses, inviting families to tour the facilities and better understand what each institution offers. The city also offers other resources, like virtual admissions events and school fairs. Online resources, like InsideSchools, further help families assess their options.

At one recent city event — a fair held at George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School — Brooklyn families browsed dozens of options in their local community, chatting with current students and staff about what makes each school unique.

Mink Chung, a Brooklyn parent and a teacher at P.S. 20, The Clinton Hill School, said the process so far has been both “overwhelming” and “exciting.” For his son, he’s looking for a school with a wide range of programs for students with different interests.

“We don’t know what we’re looking for right now,” he said. “I mean, he’s 12 years old. So it’s a lot to be like, ‘Do you want an engineering school? Do you want a performing arts school?’”

Meanwhile, many schools at the fair highlighted their career and technical education, or CTE, programs, emphasizing to families that their schools could prepare students for a career after high school. Those programs have become increasingly popular, according to school representatives at the event.

For families still considering their options, here’s some additional advice from those who have gone through the process before, as well as those who help guide families through it:

Focus on fit, not names

“Everybody applying to high school is looking for that undiscovered gem,” Pamela Wheaton, an admissions consultant who runs SchoolScoutNYC, told Chalkbeat earlier this year. “Every time I work with parents, I try to make sure that they really explore beyond the ‘it’ schools, the schools that people are talking about.”

While many families know name-brand schools — especially the specialized schools like Stuyvesant or Brooklyn Tech, or some of the city’s selective schools like Beacon or Townsend Harris — there’s a lot more out there.

Admissions experts urge families to cast a broad net and focus on finding the right fit over gravitating toward schools that may already be on their radar.

Some schools, including large, comprehensive ones like Bayside, Francis Lewis, and New Utrecht, have “educational option,” or “ed opt” programs that admit students across academic levels to promote academic diversity. There are “consortium schools,” where students focus on project-based learning instead of Regents exams. The city’s “community schools” provide wraparound social services, often for the entire family, and other schools might have school-based health clinics, while some are dedicated to working with newcomer immigrants or kids who might be over-age and under-credited and have not been successful in other school settings. And there are a range of CTE programs, from ones that focus on health professions to robotics to food.

“Your child does not have to be in the school that gets 40 applicants per seat,” Wheaton said. “There are many other good options, and even if your child is waitlisted at 11 out of the 12 schools on their list, chances are that at the 12th school, they’ll be very, very happy.”

Ask questions at open houses

When touring many schools, it can sometimes become difficult to distinguish between them, said Queens parent leader Deborah Alexander, who went through the process three years ago with her son and is now doing it again with her eighth grade daughter.

She likes to ask students and educators, “What makes your school unique,” as a way that lets them share something that’s likely not in the official presentation. At one school, for instance, a student talked about how they had a teaching assistant program, where students worked for teachers and developed meaningful mentorships.

“It’s those little things that spark something,” Alexander said. “Otherwise these presentations run into each other.”

Other helpful questions include asking about advanced coursework, typical daily assignments, and whether students can leave campus for lunch, she added.

While some families focus on Advanced Placement, or AP courses, many schools offer other options. At some schools, there are International Baccalaureate programs that offer advanced coursework — and many students can enroll in College Now, which allows them to take CUNY courses.

Also, at some small schools that can’t offer a plethora of AP courses, they might participate in an initiative allowing their students to take online courses taught by public school teachers in other parts of the city from the comfort of their own school buildings and with supervision from an on-site staff member.

Stay organized

Elissa Stein, an admissions consultant who runs High School 411, recommends being organized, urging parents to take notes on tours, have a calendar, and save information schools may hand out.

“By the time that you’re done touring and have to revisit things in your minds to rank schools, it will all get mushed together into something you can’t decipher,” she told Chalkbeat earlier this year. “Being organized as you go will help you tremendously.”

Know the commute

Whether a family is willing to take public transit to commute to school, and how far they’re willing to travel, are some of the first questions that Sindy Nuesi, director of the Middle School Student Success Center at the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, asks in her work.

“If you don’t feel comfortable with your child going on the train or the bus, then it really limits your options,” she previously told Chalkbeat. “I don’t encourage that necessarily, but I am going to support whatever the family decides.”

Families can also test out the commute to potential schools before applying to better understand what day-to-day travel to and from school would look like.

A 30-minute subway commute with a transfer in Times Square, for example, might feel more stressful for a kid than a one-seat, hour-long bus ride, Alexander said.

“The question isn’t how long is the train ride, but it’s about the ease of the commute,” she said.

Consider starting early

For seventh grade families, the admissions process can also offer an opportunity to learn more about schools ahead of the application cycle next year.

Parents often say the two-month window from when applications open and close is too tight to pack in enough research and open house visits.

Attending open houses or high school fairs, or compiling an early list of schools of interest, can give families more time over the summer to consider programs, test commutes, and think through all their options.

Moreover, seventh grade is a critical year: Selective high schools use seventh graders’ GPAs to determine admissions.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC families push for special education open houses as high school admissions season heats up

2023-10-31T19:24:47+00:00

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Manhattan dad Tom Fiorella wanted a public high school that could challenge his child and accommodate learning disabilities. He spent countless hours scouring websites, attending open houses, and emailing parent coordinators in search of answers.

Does the school integrate students with disabilities alongside typically developing children in classes at all grade levels? Is support available for students who could handle advanced coursework but, like his child, also have a language-based learning disability? Would the environment feel welcoming?

“It’s complex – it’s a lot of work,” said Fiorella, whose child began ninth grade this year. “It was hard to get solid information.”

Now, a group of parent advocates is pushing for more high schools to offer open houses specifically geared toward students with disabilities. They’ve sent a flurry of messages to school leaders to persuade them to roll out the information sessions more widely.

That advocacy effort, which began last year, is already starting to bear fruit, said Jenn Choi, a special education advocate who created an email template and encouraged parents to send it to school leaders and superintendents.

The Brooklyn North high school superintendent has required all of the 47 campuses under her supervision to offer special education information sessions. And two other district leaders have been receptive or encouraged principals to offer them, including those who represent Queens North as well as the superintendent responsible for schools that use alternate graduation assessments, international schools serving recently arrived immigrants, and Outward Bound schools, messages sent to parents show.

Open houses are an important way for families to narrow down which 12 high schools to list on their application out of more than 400 options. All families, including those with disabilities, are welcome to attend those sessions. But parents and advocates say the traditional open houses may fill up quickly, gloss over special education, or wind up with little time for families to ask questions about whether the school is prepared to offer the services their child needs.

The city’s online high school directory makes it simple to filter schools by a wide range of categories — from sports teams to uniform requirements. Still, clear information about what types of special education classes are typically offered, what types of therapists are on staff, and even information about school building accessibility for those with mobility issues can be difficult to come by. Officials have improved access to information about physical building accessibility in recent years.

Using the city’s directory, “a parent can find the 30 high schools with girls’ golf teams in NYC in under 8 seconds,” Choi wrote in a guide for school leaders who want to offer special education open houses. If a parent wants to find schools that regularly provide a certain type of special education class, “they will have to pick up the phone and start calling over 500 schools, one school at a time.”

Although some schools have offered special education open houses for years, it’s unclear how common they are. An Education Department spokesperson could not say how many schools offer them now or in recent years.

Choi, who runs a special education consulting business and also navigated the admissions process as a parent of two children with disabilities, said they are relatively rare. Requiring all schools to offer them would help make the high school process friendlier to students with disabilities, she argues. Plus, they can serve an important accountability purpose, as school officials may commit to providing a range of services during the sessions.

“Parents are going to expect that promises are going to be kept,” Choi said. “And that’s how change happens.”

Even as some schools are embracing special education open houses, it can still be tricky to find basic information about them. For some schools, the city’s centralized directory lists whether a school offers such a session. In other cases, that information appears to be missing and individual school websites don’t always list them.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein emphasized that “open houses are organized at the school level” and did not indicate whether the city would consider requiring all high schools to offer them. She also did not respond to a question about how families can find out about them given some of the inconsistencies in where they’re posted.

Maggie Moroff, a special education policy expert at Advocates for Children, said she felt torn about special education open houses. In an ideal world, information about specialized services should be woven into traditional sessions, she said, though that can be a challenge.

“You don’t want it to be siloed, but you want to make sure the right attention gets paid” to students with disabilities, Moroff said, adding that in practice she supports more special education open houses.

Specialized open houses can also make it more difficult for schools to hide that they’re not actually set up to support students with a variety of news, advocates said.

“You can have a school that can check off all the right boxes on paper,” Moroff said, “but when a family gets there, the way they are welcomed is quite different. You can glean a lot from that.”

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

NYC schools with enrollment shortfalls face cuts; more budget losses loom

2023-10-25T23:00:06+00:00

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New York City schools with lower than projected enrollments will see their budgets slashed midyear for the first time in four years.

School and Education Department staffers said the move comes as little surprise given the city’s bleak fiscal situation and dwindling federal COVID relief funds. City officials had used federal funding the past three school years to avert the midyear cuts and hold schools “harmless” if their student rosters fell short of the Education Department’s estimates.

“As NYCPS navigates the current fiscal landscape, we’ve made the necessary decision to revert to our pre-COVID-19 budgeting process,” said Education Department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer.

Schools get money in the summer based on the city’s projections of how many students are expected to fill their seats. After the final tallies are taken on Oct. 31, the Education Department adjusts school budgets, clawing back money from schools that enroll fewer students than anticipated. Schools with higher than projected enrollment will still get additional money, similar to past years, though administrators have said it can be difficult to spend the sudden influx of cash effectively in the middle of the school year.

Calee Prindle, an assistant principal at the Facing History School in Manhattan, said her school stands to lose about $160,000 if no more students enroll before Oct. 31.

“Losing that money, it sucks, but for us it’s not going to be wildly detrimental,” she said. “For me, it’s always about the communication, and I’m glad we know now.”

Still, the return to midyear cuts deals a significant blow to schools that may already be reeling from years of shrinking budgets due to enrollment losses and heightened needs in the wake of the pandemic.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew argued that the increase in state funding in recent years should be enough to continue the policy of propping budgets up even if schools miss their enrollment projections.

“It is unacceptable for NYC to cut funding to its public schools especially when the state has made such a strong financial commitment to our students,” he said in a statement.

Education Department faces major budget strain

Even with an increase in state aid, it’s a particularly precarious financial moment for the Education Department and the city as a whole.

More than $7 billion in federal relief funds that the Education Department has received since the beginning of the pandemic expires next September. The city has used that money to fund summer programming and social workers, along with propping up school budgets amid enrollment losses.

On top of that, Mayor Eric Adams earlier this fall ordered all city agencies to cut 5% of their budgets in November, an additional 5% in January, and another 5% in April in response to rising costs as the city faces an influx of asylum-seekers.

The three rounds of cuts would slash a total of $2.1 billion from the Education Department’s budget, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute. It’s an enormous sum that schools Chancellor David Banks has said will likely “affect every aspect of what we do.”

The Education Department has not made final decisions about what to cut in the first round, and the decision to reinstate the midyear adjustment was not related to the budget cut mandate, Styer said.

Officials didn’t say how much the Education Department will save in the cost-cutting move. Last year, the Education Department spent $200 million to avert the midyear cut.

Fiscal belt-tightening plays out in other ways

As part of the Adams administration’s budget cut mandate, the city’s Office of Management and Budget imposed a hiring freeze, according to Education Department staffers and budget documents.

The hiring freeze doesn’t apply to school-based staff, but affects many other positions, including central personnel tasked with supporting schools and specific student populations, such as those who live in temporary housing and children with disabilities, according to staffers and advocates.

“Hiring for each position is going under a lot more scrutiny, and we realize that some may end up getting delayed for some period of time — and we don’t know for how long,” said one central staffer familiar with the budget, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A plan to hire more than a dozen temporary staffers to support kids in shelters with educational needs was delayed because of the freeze, and vacant positions on the teams that ensure students with disabilities get necessary services have gone unfilled, according to Advocates for Children, a group that supports vulnerable students.

“We have seen significant delays in students in shelter receiving the school placements and transportation they need,” said Randi Levine, the policy director at Advocates for Children. She noted that some of the Education Department’s federal relief money is earmarked to support students in temporary housing and can’t be spent on other things.

“We don’t want the DOE to squander the resources it has available given the huge need we’re seeing on the ground,” she added.

The worst is likely yet to come. Another central staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity said teams in central offices have been asked to start preparing for significant cuts – far deeper than in past years.

And while the cuts to the Education Department’s central offices are likely to be the steepest, that division only accounts for between 1-2 % of the Education Department’s overall budget, meaning cuts outside of central offices will almost certainly be necessary.

Two areas likely to get spared: Banks’s signature NYC Reads initiative, which seeks to revamp elementary school literacy instruction by forcing districts to adopt one of three pre-selected reading curricula, and his FutureReadyNYC program, which funds schools to expand career-connected learning, according to the chancellor.

“The reading work that we’re doing and the pathways work that we’re doing is going to be prioritized,” Banks recently told reporters. “That’s where we’re going to be making sure that the investments are still there.”

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

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

How to navigate IPS’ school reorganization and new enrollment policies for 2024-25

2023-10-25T21:24:16+00:00

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Thousands of Indianapolis Public Schools students will see big changes next year when the district splits up more than a dozen schools, gives families a wider choice of schools, and expands the reach of its specialized academic programs.

The changes are the second part of the district’s massive Rebuilding Stronger reorganization, which seeks to bring more diverse academic programming and extracurricular activities to more students in a push for equity. The plan also seeks to stabilize enrollment amid growing competition from charter schools.

The plan could have a big impact on where families choose to enroll.

Starting in 2024-25, the district will break up 17 K-8 schools into 16 standalone elementary schools and one middle school. Other schools will switch from serving grades K-6 to K-5, and from 7-8 to 6-8.

The district is organizing its schools into four new enrollment zones encompassing different educational options. Families can apply for a spot at any of the schools located in their zone, rather than being restricted to their neighborhood school or to old school-choice boundaries.

Each zone has a mix of schools that specialize in different subjects or programs, such as arts, STEM, Montessori, International Baccalaureate, dual language, high ability, or the Reggio-Emilia approach. Some schools that do not have these specific programs are “exploratory” schools. The plan also assigns new feeder schools for these specialized schools, guiding students from elementary to middle school.

Some schools serve multiple zones.

High schools will serve all zones and will still be open to all students in the district, no matter where they live.

The first enrollment period for 2024-25 runs from Nov. 1, 2023, to Jan. 24, 2024, with results of the lottery released on Feb. 22. The second enrollment period runs from Jan. 25 through April 19, with results released on May 16.

The district has held school tours and open houses every weekday for the past month, and plans a showcase event Nov. 1 from 4 to 8 p.m. in which every school will be open for families to visit.

Here are answers to some of the big questions inspired by Chalkbeat Indiana readers about the upcoming enrollment process:

What is the easiest way for me to enroll?

The district encourages families to enroll online through Enroll Indy, which runs the lottery for IPS. Families who visit a school to enroll will still use Enroll Indy’s online application.

Will my child get transportation to any school in our zone?

Yes, families who choose a school in the zone where they live will receive transportation to and from that school. However, families who live close enough to the school to be classified as a “walker” will not receive transportation. See if you qualify as a “walker” here.

Families can apply to a school outside their zone, but IPS gives preference to students who live in the zone. Families must also provide their own transportation to a school outside of their zone beyond the 2024-25 school year.

Schools in the IPS Innovation Network may not offer transportation through IPS, and may require families to contact the school directly for transportation.

The proposed new enrollment policy talks about ‘priority groups.’ What are those, and how will they affect my chances of getting into the school I want?

The lottery gives certain groups of students preferences that can increase their chances of getting a spot in the school they want. Priority is given, in this order, to:

Students living in the IPS district
Siblings of a current student at the school
Families who live in the same zone as the school
Students who attended a closing school
Students with a guardian who is an IPS employee

My child is attending a school that will be in our zone next year. Do I need to do anything to reenroll them?

If families are happy in their current school and plan to stay there for the 2024-25 school year, they do not need to reapply or reenroll, according to the district.

What happens if the school I want in my zone is at capacity?

Families can select another school in their zone, according to the district.

When IPS unveiled the plan last year, Evan Hawkins, school board president at the time, said the district has not historically seen families crowd any one school.

My child’s new zone is different from the one in which their current school is located. Can they stay at that school next year?

Yes, families can remain at their current school until the student graduates from the school’s highest grade, according to the district.

If families are eligible for transportation at the school this year, they will be offered transportation in 2024-25, but not after that.

What happens if I want or need to transfer to another IPS school midyear?

Families who move in the middle of the school year to a different zone can apply for a seat at a school in their new zone through Enroll Indy, according to the district. Or the student can stay at their current school, provided they have their own transportation.

But students won’t be permitted to switch schools midyear for a personal preference. They would need to wait until the next enrollment period to apply to a different school.

There are exceptions, though, for students who:

Need special medical services offered by the desired school
Experience bullying at their current school
Are in physical danger due to documented issues with other students at the current school
Have a sibling who attends a special education program in the desired school

How can I easily compare school options?

IPS advises visiting Enroll Indy to preview school options.

Have a question about IPS enrollment that’s not answered? Email us at in.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Corrections and clarifications: This article has been updated to correctly note transportation options and clarify that some schools serve multiple zones. The accompanying map has also been updated to correct information on schools and add schools that were omitted.

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

Shaped by pandemic hardships, more Colorado college students are sticking with school

2023-10-20T01:03:46+00:00

Stephanie Araiza tries to keep the tough days at the University of Colorado Boulder in context.

Her parents struggled to earn money during the pandemic because they weren’t getting as many hours. Unlike many who could do their jobs remotely or whose work was considered essential, they didn’t have a college degree.

That’s helped Araiza, 20, a junior who is studying integrated psychology and wants to be a doctor, keep her goals in mind. It’s also helped her keep her struggles to acclimate to the academic demands and find a community at CU Boulder in perspective — none of them can compare to the difficulties her family endured during the pandemic. She wants to graduate for her family, and also to ensure she can always find work.

“I personally want to pay them back back for all the sacrifices they made, especially during the pandemic,” said Araiza.

Araiza is one of a record number of students this year sticking with school from year-to-year at CU Boulder.

In the wake of the pandemic and deep disruptions to education, fewer graduating high school students have gone to college. But recently released retention numbers show that the share of students who are sticking with college is on the rise. The improvement reflects the ways institutions like CU Boulder have put more priority on supporting students, especially students of color. It also reflects the resilience of students like Araiza after enduringing pandemic hardships.

“I do feel like they’ve done better,” Araiza said of the school.

This year, 89% of CU Boulder students stayed enrolled into their second year, according to school numbers. And 81.7% of students entered into their third year. Each are all-time highs for the school.

The focus on retention, or the ability of schools to keep students enrolled on a yearly basis, has become crucial for CU Boulder and nearly every school in the state.

College leaders worry about an upcoming enrollment cliff, or the dropoff in college-aged students that would impact enrollment numbers. Keeping students on campus keeps enrollment up. Some college leaders in Colorado also worry about competition from other universities, especially out of state, impacting their pool of applicants.

But when school leaders like those at CU Boulder focus on retention, the benefits don’t just go to the institutions.

Retention efforts most benefit students, especially students of color and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Graduating opens up higher paying job opportunities. And students who only have some college are saddled with debt and federal labor data shows they make far less than graduates. Statewide, Colorado has over 700,000 residents with some college, but no degree.

Despite the positive overall trend at CU Boulder, the numbers show the university still hasn’t bridged the gap between students of color and white students, although the numbers improved for both groups.

About 82% of Black freshmen persisted into their sophomore year, up by 1.2 percentage points from the 2021 freshman class. Hispanic freshmen students stayed on campus into their sophomore year at a rate of 85.9%, up 4.3 percentage points from the previous class.

Meanwhile, about 91% of white students stayed enrolled into their sophomore year.

Retention rates were lower among freshmen during the 2021-22 academic year who are now juniors and spent most of their high school senior year in remote learning. About 69% of Black students and 74% of Hispanic students made it to their junior year. That’s compared to 84% of white students.

Luis Licon, a junior studying political science who is also running for CU System regent in 2024, said the school does a lot of general outreach to help students, although sometimes it’s not targeted enough to individuals who might be struggling. He’s felt the school has done a better job at recognizing the cultural backgrounds of students and making them feel like a part of campus.

“But I do feel like I can manage this, because I’ve experienced much worse,” Licon said, who at one point lived in his car.

Efforts to retain students focus on mentoring, housing

CU Boulder leaders began to take a deeper look at undergraduate retention about two years ago, because the school hadn’t historically helped enough students return every year, said Katherine Eggert, senior vice provost for academic planning and assessment.

The committee, called the The Buff Undergraduate Success Leadership Implementation Team, got school leaders talking for the first time to understand how best to support students from year to year, she said.

The committee has made some changes and plans for others. Changes in the spring included a published directory of tutoring resources and inclusive spaces. Priorities for this fall include streamlining academic advising and improving campus tutoring.

The committee also wants to make it more affordable for students from low-income backgrounds, and to refocus some support programs to provide consistent help to some students.

“The goal is just to serve our students better and that includes closing the gaps between student populations who need more help,” Eggert said. “We want everybody to have the same opportunities to succeed and if we’re not making those opportunities real we need to figure out why.”

Other Colorado schools have also increased student retention.

Fort Lewis College increased student retention from 59% last year to 63% this year among its freshmen. CSU’s retention is up by 1.4 points to 84.9%, and made strides retaining more students of color and those who are the first to go to college in their family.

Like CU Boulder, the University of Northern Colorado has also posted some of its strongest numbers. The school’s fall 2023 retention rate of 74.5% is its second-highest ever.

The school has focused heavily on student-to-student mentoring in recent years to help students with questions they have about college and how to get help, said Cedric Howard, Northern Colorado’s vice president for student affairs and enrollment services.

The school has also tried harder to address food and housing insecurity, as well mental health and anxiety, Howard said. The school wants students to feel like they belong on campus.

“I think all that has allowed students to feel that UNC is not just a place for them to learn, but it is actually a place for me to grow and develop as a person,” Howard said.

At CU Boulder, Paola Medrano, 19, a sophomore studying political science, said a sense of belonging has helped her feel like she can get to graduation. With the help of staff, she has participated in specialized programs on campus such as the McNeill Academic Program, which helps a cohort of about 400 students get academic advising, and Por La Cultura for Multicultural and Latinx students, where she’s made friends.

Like Araiza, Medrano also said the pandemic has had a big impact on her motivation to stick with college.

She watched as her parents struggled, especially her dad, who couldn’t get consistent work farming. She wants the security a college education can help provide. The pandemic made her determined to persevere.

“If I can go through that I can go through anything,” she said.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

At one magnet school, Chicago’s bus crisis has parents grasping for options — or leaving

2023-10-13T18:14:26+00:00

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Mónica Meléndez spent the first half of the last school year driving her three kids at least an hour each way to Inter-American Magnet School in Lake View.

She felt she had no choice after the district said it would not provide transportation at the beginning of the year for two of her children.

By the time all her kids got bus service in the second semester, Meléndez was exhausted — especially on days she spent another hour driving to work.

So shortly after Chicago Public Schools announced this summer that it wouldn’t provide busing to about 5,500 eligible general education students, largely those in gifted and magnet programs, Meléndez and her husband pulled their two youngest children out of the school. It was a wrenching decision: The Spanish dual language school felt perfect for the couple, who are originally from Puerto Rico and want their children to be bilingual.

Meléndez recalls telling her husband: “Sweetie, I can’t do this anymore.” Their oldest, a seventh grader, now takes a CTA bus two hours each way.

The family’s decision illustrates one way Chicago’s school bus crisis could impact enrollment and the socioeconomic and racial diversity of the city’s magnet and gifted programs. Many of these schools were created under a federal desegregation consent decree, but have been criticized for lacking diversity and enrolling larger shares of white and Asian American students since federal oversight ended in 2009. As working-class families find it difficult or impossible to take their children far distances to school, the absence of a transportation option could segregate the schools even more.

Parents at Inter-American are looking for solutions, as other gifted and magnet programs have also sought their own alternatives to the lack of busing.

Inter-American is already seeing the impact and some families have left.

“I would be really worried about what this change would mean for the demographics for these schools and for the goals of magnet schools in Chicago more generally,” said Halley Potter, an expert on school integration policy and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation.

Parents share transportation challenges

Citing a severe driver shortage, Chicago Public Schools announced in late July that it would limit bus transportation this year to students with disabilities and those who are homeless, both groups which are legally required to receive transportation. The district is currently under state watch to make sure it’s meeting those legal requirements.

The district said it has pursued several solutions to hire more drivers, including boosting driver pay rates by $2 – to $22 to $27 an hour – and hosting hiring fairs. But as of late last month, the district still had only half the number of drivers on hand and announced that busing would not be extended to more families for the rest of the semester. The district offered CTA cards to the 5,500 children who lost busing, but as of late last month, just about 1,600 took that option.

In a statement, CPS spokesperson Samantha Hart said the district is “acutely aware” of the challenges families are facing with longer commutes.

“We are committed to continuing to work with our vendors, City partners and our families to identify solutions and ensure every eligible student has safe, secure, and reliable transportation to and from school,” Hart said.

The transportation crisis has already had a small impact on enrollment at Inter-American, where nearly half of the school’s 641 students come from low-income families. Fifty-three families were eligible for transportation at the school. As of Oct. 2, six children have transferred out of the school due to the lack of transportation, according to the district.

At least two more children transferred out after Oct. 2 because of transportation issues, said Maria Ugarte, chair of Inter-American’s Local School Council. Ugarte has also heard from many parents who are considering leaving, and she wonders how lack of busing will impact next year’s enrollment.

At a meeting last month with the school’s principal, one parent said he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep up the commute to school. A mother shared that her commute involves taking the CTA with her three children, including a 2-year-old, every morning and evening— and doing that daily is becoming stressful.

Alexis Luna, who lives in Belmont Cragin, splits dropoff and pickup responsibilities for her third grade daughter with the girl’s father. But her daughter may have to miss school on days that the girl’s father is out of town for work, since Luna’s work schedule is inflexible and she can’t take days off.

Luna “lost everything” when her business closed during the pandemic, so she cannot afford to miss work or quit. She said she is struggling to pay for the increased gas costs.

For Rocio Meza, the lack of transportation means she can’t search for a job this year as she handles the hourlong pickup and dropoff each way at Inter-American for her 12-year-old daughter. She’s also responsible for driving her older son with disabilities to doctor’s appointments on some mornings, which sometimes makes one of the children late.

She and her husband have discussed transferring their daughter out of Inter-American – two other schools are within a few blocks of their house – but the family loves the school.

”Do I really want to do this and give up the education and experience she’s getting at Inter-American to go to another school?” Meza said.

Some attempts to find solutions at the school level haven’t come to fruition.

The school’s principal, Juan Carlos Zayas, launched a voluntary task force with parents to look for ways to ease the transportation issue. Ideas included a rideshare app and hiring a bus company on their own, according to recordings of the meetings. Both options would likely be too costly for parents, task force members said. For example, one parent found a company that would charge $158 per child this month — if the bus was full with just a couple of stops.

The district granted the school $157,000 in funding to host before- and after-school programs to accommodate more flexible pickup and dropoff times. The principal recently surveyed families for their interest and expects programming to start Oct. 23, a district spokesperson said.

Last month, Luna tried to distribute a survey to arrange carpooling for interested parents. The survey asked for information such as where their child’s old bus stop was and how many children they had. Zayas emailed Luna and several other parents that the “attempt to collect personal information” was a “clear violation” of district policy and that it was circulated to teachers without his knowledge.

District officials pointed to a CPS policy that prevents anyone from circulating ads, subscription lists, meeting invitations, books, maps, articles, or other political or commercial materials among school employees or students without approval from the principal or other district officials.

Still, some parents are trying to figure out carpool arrangements, Luna said.

Transportation woes could decrease diversity in magnet programs

During CPS board meetings, parents at magnet and gifted programs have said they are worried that the lack of transportation will most greatly impact children whose parents don’t have flexible work schedules to take young children on lengthy transit commutes or the money and time to drive them. That could force less-resourced families to transfer out of magnet programs or gifted programs or choose not to apply for them for next school year.

Once seen as a solution to the city’s segregated schools, the city’s magnet, gifted, and selective enrollment programs have been criticized for failing to achieve their diversity goals. A 2019 WBEZ analysis found that just 20% of these schools met the definition of racial diversity embedded in a now-lifted court order for Chicago to integrate its schools.

CPS uses a lottery for enrollment in magnet programs like Inter-American. Seats are offered based on the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood a student lives in. Sometimes priority is given to siblings or to students living close to the school.

Inter-American lacks racial diversity — 85% of its students this year are Hispanic, and 10% are white, according to district data. However, the school is more socioeconomically diverse, with 47% of its students coming from low-income families, still far below the district’s average of about 71%.

During one of the task force meetings, one parent expressed concern that working-class families would leave, and more local families from the surrounding affluent Lake View neighborhood would get seats — changing the face of the school.

At the same time, less transportation for magnet and gifted families could mean more students enrolling in their neighborhood schools. Bolstering neighborhood schools is a priority for Mayor Brandon Johnson.

After pulling her daughter and son out of Inter-American, Meléndez enrolled them in her local neighborhood school, Canty Elementary. There, about half of the students are Hispanic, 44% are white, and about 2% are each Black and Asian American. Just over 43% come from low-income households.

Her daughters like the school so far, Meléndez said. Canty, which is not a dual-language school like Inter-American, is just a five-minute drive away from home. But the outcome of their story is likely not the norm: In a city as segregated as Chicago, more integrated neighborhood schools like Canty are a rarity.

Potter, from The Century Foundation, said Chicago Public Schools has done “really important work” in finding ways to spur diversity in selective and magnet schools. The district’s lotteries that try to enroll students from different socioeconomic backgrounds often result in more racial diversity, too, she said.

But, Potter said, “without transportation support, a lot of that can fall apart.”

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

Memphis-Shelby County Schools facilities proposals envision $215 million in savings

2023-10-13T11:30:00+00:00

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Draft plans from Memphis-Shelby County Schools for overhauling its aging facilities include proposals to save the district more than $200 million by repurposing 20 academic buildings and consolidating administrative offices.

MSCS officials shared the plans on Wednesday during the first meeting of a new steering committee that’s helping the district develop its buildings strategy and generate community support for it. The committee is made up of a school board member and other elected officials, and leaders from government agencies, local nonprofit organizations, and community groups.

The final plan will include school closures and consolidations. But MSCS wants the committee to help the district broaden the scope of the plan to determine new uses for the buildings that will close, improve academic programming at existing schools, and enhance the role of schools as community centers. Such an overhaul could affect students in almost every MSCS school in some way over the next 10 years.

It’s a big, complex task that will have to navigate Memphis school traditions and overcome the controversial legacy of previous consolidation plans. Success will depend on the district’s ability to build support among school board and community members, find new funding sources, and see its plan through a leadership transition that will begin next spring, when interim Superintendent Toni Williams’ tenure winds down.

For months, Williams has been promising a comprehensive facilities plan to deal with underused buildings and a growing list of deferred maintenance projects. Previous district leaders made the same promise, but their plans never fully materialized.

Williams hopes the involvement of the steering committee will set the latest effort apart. She reminded the members that they weren’t there to create “Toni’s plan.”

During the closed-door meeting Wednesday, district officials avoided naming specific schools targeted for closure, consolidation or redevelopment, concerned that doing so would provoke “emotional decisions” rather than strategic ones, Williams told the committee.

“Let’s do this together,” she said.

MSCS proposes $215 million in savings from closures, consolidations

The draft proposals shared Wednesday broadly outline a first round of potential closures and investments over the next five years, affecting some 50 schools and administrative buildings. If additional funding comes through, the impact could spread to a total of 110 buildings and properties over the next decade, or roughly half of MSCS’ sites.

The most specific elements of the district’s proposals so far involve efforts to reduce costs upfront — before seeking new funding — which the district projects would produce a saving of $215 million.

The bulk of that would come from repurposing — likely closing — 23 buildings, and eliminating nearly $110 million in estimated deferred maintenance costs. The move would free up $24 million annually in operating funds.

District officials described these plans as “academic spaces for reuse,” rather than “school closures.” No one identified the proposed 23 sites by name.

District officials offered an overview of how the broader strategy could produce changes in different parts of town. The district has used a combination of factors — enrollment, building utilization, proximity to other schools, demographic trends, deferred maintenance needs, and feeder patterns — to determine which schools to consider for proposed closure or consolidation.

Schools that are set to receive new students would get new investments, as would schools with historically low academic performance.

For the buildings that do close, the district envisions being more engaged in determining what happens to them afterward, including vetting redevelopment proposals.

“You all have an opportunity to really ask for proposals that specify impact,” said Ernest Strickland, a steering committee member who heads the Black Business Association of Memphis.

The chair of the committee, school board member Kevin Woods, added that MSCS should consider ways that reusing closed schools could generate revenue and create excitement in the community, rather than leaving a blighted, vacant site.

“I think too often, the reason that these meetings aren’t often as courageous as we need them to be is because anytime you lead with the idea of closing schools, that’s the only image” shared by news media, Woods said.

John Zeanah, director of the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development and a former employee of the Memphis City Schools’ planning office, suggested that the district start earlier to find ways to reuse buildings, as enrollment drops below capacity.

“Let’s not wait until a building is ready to be closed to be thinking about adaptive reuse,” Zeanah said.

Another chunk of savings would come from consolidating nine of the district’s administrative buildings. This is what the district had in mind when the school board approved the purchase of the Bayer Building at 3030 Jackson Ave. in 2018 as a new district headquarters.

The consolidation would free up an estimated $65 million, counting savings on maintenance costs and proceeds from the sales of the administrative buildings. The plans did not make clear which buildings would remain, but suggested some 1,700 staffers would relocate. Currently, most of the district’s central office staff work from 160 S. Hollywood St., about 3 miles south of the Bayer Building.

Facilities overhaul hinges on funding

To execute the kind of broad, long-range strategy that it envisions, the district will need steady cooperation from the school board that carries through the expected superintendent transition this spring and summer. It will need the steering committee to remain engaged and united behind the broader objectives of optimizing the way the district uses its space. And it will need members of the community to buy in to a plan that is certain to disrupt routines and traditions in neighborhoods across the city.

But more than that, it will need money.

This summer, the Shelby County Commission approved a tax increase to help fund two new high schools in Frayser and Cordova, but those projects account for just a fraction of the district’s building needs. And the commission in recent years has approved only half the district’s requests for capital funds.

On Wednesday, Williams repeated calls for new funds from the federal government, plus the City of Memphis. Neither source is a sure bet.

The federal COVID relief aid that has helped many school districts around the country fund their construction projects is about to run out. And in Tennessee, a legislative panel is actually exploring whether the state can feasibly forgo federal education funding altogether rather than submit to the regulations that come with it.

Mayor-elect Paul Young has said he would support city funding for improved school buildings, but that would require support from the City Council. Council Chairman Martavius Jones is a former school board member who sits on the steering committee. But because of term limits, he won’t be on the council next year when Young takes over as mayor.

The district could benefit from private support through its collaboration with More for Memphis, a community development initiative spearheaded by the education-focused nonprofit Seeding Success.

“Our unique opportunity is to position this infrastructure plan at the heart of our total community redevelopment,” said Mark Sturgis, the CEO of Seeding Success. Sturgis explained how federal infrastructure goals align with the local incentives within the More for Memphis plan for community redevelopment.

More for Memphis is a five-year, $100 million investment that can be applied to this work, Sturgis said.

The final MSCS plans will reflect the results coming from an updated facilities assessment the school board approved last month. The district says its current estimate of deferred maintenance costs is $458 million, a figure that hasn’t budged much despite years of investments from Shelby County and the district.

“All this is simply a dream if we don’t have the proper resources to make it a reality,” Woods said.

Steering committee will meet again Oct. 31

The committee’s suggestions will inform meetings of subcommittees, groups that will include other board members, plus people from school campuses and the communities, MSCS leaders said.

Another steering committee meeting is set for Oct. 31. MSCS board members will be updated on the draft proposals and suggestions during a retreat scheduled for Nov. 3 and 4.

Wednesday’s committee meeting, facilitated by former politician and public relations professional Deidre Malone, was not open to the public. But a Chalkbeat Tennessee reporter learned of the meeting and attended it. No other media or members of the public were present.

Deborah Fisher, executive director for the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said that whether the committee is subject to open-meetings laws depends on how it was created and what it’s being asked to do.

Williams announced the steering committee during a school board meeting last month.

Documents associated with the committee should be public records, Fisher said.

“Closing schools is a big deal, and sometimes needs to be done. It’s a hard decision that school districts make,” Fisher added. “So it needs to be a transparent process.”

Committee members have access to additional information that wasn’t included in the district’s slide presentation Wednesday, and will receive more data and draft proposals. Williams cautioned them against sharing details of what they received.

Who is on the Memphis-Shelby County Schools facilities steering committee?

MSCS tapped a group of 14 people to help develop its plan for improving the district’s aging buildings. They are:

Kevin Woods, Chairperson: Memphis-Shelby County Schools board member
Raumesh Akbari: State senator from Memphis and minority leader of the Senate
Darrell Cobbins: President of Universal Commercial Real Estate, Tennessee State Board of Education appointee
Miska Clay-Bibbs: Chairperson of the Shelby County Commission
Martavius Jones: Chairperson of the Memphis City Council
Reginald Milton: Deputy administrator of the Shelby County Office of Education and Youth Services
Keith Norman: Vice president of governmental affairs for Baptist Memorial Hospital
Greg Spillyards: CEO and managing director of real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield Commercial Advisors
Ernest Strickland: President and CEO of the Black Business Association of Memphis
Michelle Stuart: Director of facility planning for Memphis-Shelby County Schools
Mark Sturgis: CEO of Seeding Success
Ted Townsend: President and CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber
Toni Williams: Interim superintendent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools
John Zeanah: Director of the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development

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

Jeffco board votes to close two more schools amid enrollment decline

2023-10-13T02:00:20+00:00

Jeffco’s school board voted 4-1 Thursday night to close two district K-8 schools that together serve more than 500 students and have nearly 100 staff.

The two schools, Coal Creek Canyon K-8 and Arvada K-8, are the smallest of five K-8 schools in Jeffco Public Schools. Board members said that although closing schools is difficult, they worried that not closing schools would just kick the problem down the road instead of solving it.

“When you spread too thin then you leave an articulation area with just a little bit here and there, rather than really being able to concentrate those resources to the benefit of the whole area,” said board member Paula Reed, who voted in favor of closing the schools. “I believe in the end it serves the greatest good to the greatest number.”

Arvada K-8 will close at the end of this school year. When Coal Creek Canyon K-8 closes depends on whether the school board approves a charter replacement this January.

The closures, which the school district recommended in August, come amid a long-term decline in enrollment in Jeffco schools. Colorado funds school districts based on student count, and districts like Jeffco, in turn fund their schools based on enrollment as well, but small schools require extra money to maintain the basics. The district closed 16 elementary schools last year, and earlier this year approved a plan for a middle school to close at the end of this school year and merge with a high school.

Parents have publicly opposed closing Coal Creek and Arvada K-8, citing concerns about longer drives to school and the district’s budget strategy.

School board member Danielle Varda voted against the closures. Varda called the plan into question and asked for better solutions for these two schools.

“What I see is a need for a comprehensive plan for this area,” Varda said. “I lost sight of the urgency.”

The moves to close more schools at once are meant to prevent surprises, like when the district announced the closures of Allendale and Fitzmorris elementary schools in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Families had just months of notice before those closures.

The vote brings the total number of school closures in Jeffco — Colorado’s second-largest district — to 21 since 2021. Jeffco’s official enrollment last school year was 77,078 students, down from more than 86,000 in 2017-18. Additionally, the district notes that their buildings had space to serve 96,000 students, but were only serving 69,000 last year.

There are currently no plans to close any Jeffco high schools.

The resolution approved to close the schools also included an update on a plan to try to replace at least the elementary portion of Coal Creek Canyon K-8 with a charter school.

District leaders have said that although they believe it is not sustainable for them to continue operating that school, which is currently serving fewer than 100 students, they think a charter school may be more successful. They are also considering a charter school because the community in the canyon, and against the border with Boulder County, wouldn’t have many nearby Jeffco schools as options if Coal Canyon closes.

If one is approved, the district may allow the charter school to operate out of the Coal Creek Canyon building, at least to begin with. It’s rare in Colorado, outside of Denver, for a school district to share space with a charter school.

So far, the district has received letters of interest from three applicants: Jefferson Academy, Compass for Lifelong Discovery, and Sojournings Academy. All three of the applicants are proposing schools that would serve multiple grade levels beyond elementary school.

In an accelerated timeline, the board would be able to vote on whether to approve a charter application on Jan. 10 — just two days before the district’s choice enrollment window closes.

As a result, the district is suggesting that current families of Coal Creek Canyon K-8 use the choice enrollment form to select an option the district will create for a “Charter school serving Coal Creek Canyon - pending board of education authorization.” If the school board approves one of the charter applicants, then families can receive an offer from the approved school and can decide whether to accept it.

In that scenario, the district would change the attendance boundaries so that families in the canyon would otherwise be assigned to Three Creeks K-8, a 1,000 student school about 10 miles away.

If the school board doesn’t approve a charter school for Coal Canyon, then the district will delay the closure of the school’s elementary grades for one more school year. Middle school students would be educated through the district’s remote learning program during the next school year; they would have the option of being in the Coal Creek Canyon building with a staff member supervising the online learning.

Arvada K-8, one of two schools the Jeffco school board voted to close on Oct. 12, has approximately 560 students. Of those, 86% qualify for free or reduced-price lunch based on their household income.

Lawmaker makes last-minute plea for community school

Parents have spoken out against the closure of the two schools in past meetings. There were also designated hearings this month that allowed for one hour of public comment about each of the two closed schools.

In past meetings, one mother talked about how the additional 10-mile drive to another school during winter weather conditions would require a lot more than 15 minutes.

Another parent questioned the board and district’s stance that it can’t afford to subsidize or give extra money to support Coal Creek Canyon K-8, while still spending much more on increasing salaries and other projects.

The district has countered that the challenge isn’t exclusively about the district’s budget, but the resources and opportunities that schools can or can’t offer when they’re too small.

While the small schools may have some benefits that appeal to parents, Superintendent Tracy Dorland said at a previous meeting that the fewer staff a school can afford, for example, the staff who do work at them have to wear multiple hats, such as when secretaries also serve as school nurses.

Families against the closures were in attendance at Thursday’s school board meeting, but did not sign up to speak again.

Colorado Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, a Democrat, did attend Thursday and asked the school board not to close Arvada K-8 and instead to consider turning it into a community school. That’s a school model that partners with nonprofit organizations to address external factors — such as poverty, hunger, or medical issues — that affect families and children’s ability to learn.

Zenzinger pointed out that about 15% of the students at Arvada K-8 are learning English as a new language, and that the school serves as an informal newcomer center for new immigrant students in the area.

Varda noted that although the district is committing to hire bilingual staff at the schools that will receive Arvada K-8 students, that staff could be used to strengthen the school instead of closing it.

This fall, Arvada K-8 learned that it finally earned a state rating that would be high enough for it to avoid state intervention. Board members said that while they would still have to close the school, they acknowledged it’s unfair that Arvada K-8 won’t be able to truly celebrate the achievement.

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

Chicago Public Schools cancels this weekend’s High School Admissions Test for non-district students

2023-10-12T21:52:35+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools is canceling this weekend’s High School Admissions Test for students who are not currently enrolled in the district but are planning to apply for the city’s selective and magnet high schools.

District officials cited ongoing technical difficulties with the vendor’s testing platform.

The cancellation comes after similar issues forced the district to pause testing Wednesday, when all CPS’ roughly 24,000 eighth graders were supposed to take the exam in school.

“We are working now to reschedule all students who were scheduled to test this weekend and will share updates to families as soon as possible,” district spokesperson Samantha Hart said in a statement.

The district said it is working with the vendor, Riverside Assessments, LLC, to solve the technical problems and to provide new testing dates “for students who were impacted by the vendor’s technical issues.”

In July, the Board of Education authorized a $1.2 million no-bid contract with Riverside, in part to provide testing materials for the HSAT.

The vendor’s website Thursday included a note that it was aware schools in several regions were unable to log in or complete testing and that a team is “working around the clock to resolve this issue.”

Applications for next school year are currently due Nov. 9. In previous years, CPS has extended the deadline.

The glitches Wednesday prevented students from logging into the testing platform to take the exam, school leaders told Chalkbeat. Some students at one North Side school also encountered some Spanish words on their exam and needed teachers to translate, according to an administrator.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

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

As NYC middle school applications open, selective programs surge in one Brooklyn district

2023-10-11T22:51:31+00:00

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The number of middle schools across New York City using academic screens to sort fifth grade applicants continues to remain well below pre-pandemic levels — but in one Brooklyn school district, they’re growing dramatically.

This year, 78 middle school programs across 69 schools will screen applicants based on their academic records, according to Education Department data.

That was up from last year, when 59 of the city’s more than 470 middle schools selected at least some of their incoming sixth graders using their fourth grade academic performance. But it was still down when compared to pre-pandemic admissions cycles. For the 2020-21 academic year, 196 middle schools across the city screened at least some of their applicants.

The latest figures come as middle school applications opened on Wednesday.

Families and parent leaders have fiercely debated whether and how academic screens should play a role in middle school admissions. While some have called for more screened options and the inclusion of other measures of student performance, like state test scores, others warn the practice harms integration efforts in a school system that is already among the most segregated in the nation. Integration advocates add it is unfair to sort students as young as nine based on their grades.

The tension follows several years of pandemic-spurred changes to admissions, with academic screens initially paused, then brought back in some districts at the discretion of each of the city’s 32 local school district superintendents.

This year, District 20 in Brooklyn, which covers Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Borough Park, and part of Sunset Park, will more than quadruple the number of middle schools with academically screened programs. Alone, the district will be home to more than a quarter of the city’s academically screened middle school programs.

It will offer 23 academically screened programs across 14 schools — up from the three middle schools that offered screened programs last year.

Academic screens fuel debates across the city

Deciding to reinstate academic screens, or drop them, can be controversial. Debates across the city have sparked controversy this year, with parents split on many facets of the process.

District 20 is one of several across the city where the group Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, has established a stronghold on local parent-led Community Education Councils — with endorsed candidates winning all elected seats in the district. The group advocates for test-based and other selective school admissions.

Stephen Stowe, president of the District 20 CEC, praised the local expansion of screened programs.

“There is high demand for these programs,” he said, adding that many parents complained about long waitlists at the three district middle schools that used academic screens last year.

The “Superintendent’s Program,” a screened program adopted by about a dozen schools in the district, will align with the state’s new learning standards and offer accelerated learning in core subjects, Stowe added.

Others expressed concerns about the surge in screened programs. Nyah Berg, executive director of New York Appleseed, an organization that advocates for integrated schools, called District 20’s decision “an egregious policy to implement.”

“It’s literally a step back in time,” she said. “Trying to return to a status quo that was exclusionary and discriminatory for some of our most marginalized student groups in the city.”

“I’m enraged for the students and families in District 20 that have had opportunities potentially taken away from them, and access taken away from them, when they had just gained it for a couple of years,” Berg added.

Other districts have made smaller changes.

In District 2 — which covers broad swaths of Manhattan including TriBeCa, Greenwich Village, Gramercy, and the Upper East Side — screened programs will return to four zoned middle schools. It’s a reversal of a move last year to drop academic screens in the district, and the first time middle schools in District 2 will screen applicants based on their fourth grade academic performance since the onset of the pandemic. (Prior to the pandemic, about 18 out of 23 middle schools in the district screened at least some of their applicants.)

Schools using academic screens in admissions rank applicants based on their fourth grade GPAs in core subjects.

Families have until Dec. 8 to submit their middle school applications. Offers are expected to be released in April.

Here’s how many academically screened programs each district’s middle schools will offer. The data, provided by the city’s Education Department, does not include several arts programs across the city that rely on auditions, nor other programs that use “talent tests” to screen applicants, like computer and math, creative writing and journalism, and science programs at Mark Twain.

District 1: 1

District 2: 4

District 3: 1

District 4: 2

District 5: 3

District 6: 1

District 7: 1

District 8: 0

District 9: 1

District 10: 4

District 11: 0

District 12: 0

District 13: 0

District 14: 0

District 15: 0

District 16: 0

District 17: 4

District 18: 1

District 19: 0

District 20: 23

District 21: 0

District 22: 1

District 23: 1

District 24: 3

District 25: 3

District 26: 5

District 27: 2

District 28: 1

District 29: 5

District 30: 5

District 31: 4

District 32: 2

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools pauses High School Admissions Test amid technical problems

2023-10-11T21:43:28+00:00

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Chicago Public Schools paused the High School Admissions Test that was underway Wednesday morning due to technical problems on the testing platform, officials told principals.

“For any students currently testing successfully, they can continue and complete,” Peter Leonard, executive director of student assessment for CPS, wrote in an email to principals. “In any other case, schools should stop testing today.”

Students take the HSAT as part of admissions requirements for the city’s selective-enrollment high schools and to enroll at some schools outside of their neighborhood boundaries. On Wednesday all eighth graders were set to take the exam on computers in school. This year’s exam was set to last an hour instead of the previous 2½ hours. CPS made the change in order to “reduce anxiety for students” and increase accessibility, a spokesperson said last month.

In his note, Leonard said students who finish the test today can use their scores as they apply for high schools in GoCPS. For students who couldn’t finish, the district will share alternative testing dates “as soon as possible,” Leonard wrote.

District spokesperson Samantha Hart said in a statement that the district is working with the testing vendor to resolve the technical problems. They don’t expect any changes to this weekend’s scheduled HSAT testing for non-CPS students, Hart said.

“We recognize the stress many students and families experience when it comes to admissions testing,” Hart wrote.

The district authorized a $1.2 million no-bid contract over the summer with Riverside Assessments LLC to provide test materials for high school admissions and other placements, including gifted programs.

At one North Side school, students received error messages as they tried to log in to the testing platform, even after refreshing the page, according to an administrator at the school, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. The school’s testing coordinator tried to call a help desk for the testing vendor but got a busy signal.

Similar problems cropped up at Brentano Elementary Math and Science Academy in Logan Square, said the school’s principal, Seth Lavin.

“They came in anxious and focused, and then they sat down, and for about an hour and a half, proctors tried to log kids into the test and they could not — and nobody knew what was going on,” Lavin said.

By the time CPS notified schools at 10:30 a.m. that it would pause the test, a handful of students were able to complete the exam at both Brentano and the North Side school.

Other students at the North Side school were finally able to log in by that time, the administrator said. But there were other issues. Some students saw words in Spanish pop up and had to ask teachers to translate, the administrator said. This is the first year the test is being offered in Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, Urdu, and Polish.

The North Side administrator called the glitches a “gross oversight” by the district, and said that it should have ensured that the system could handle tens of thousands of students taking the exam on the same day. CPS enrolled nearly 24,000 eighth graders this year, district data shows.

The administrator said all students — not just those who weren’t able to complete the exam — should be allowed to retake the test, since the process was so stressful. Students were already “very anxious” about the HSAT, this person said.

Asked about the testing issues at an unrelated press conference Wednesday, Mayor Brandon Johnson said the public school system should “not reject the hopes and aspirations and desires” of families — Black families, in particular.

“The ultimate desire is to actually build a school system that no matter where you are in the city of Chicago, that you have access to a high quality education,” he said. “I’m committed to doing just that.”

Lavin, who has criticized the district’s selective-enrollment system for being inequitable, said Wednesday’s problems underscore that the admissions system “is so fragile and arbitrary.” The exam accounts for 50% of the admissions rubric for selective-enrollment high schools.

“Kids who are 13 years old should not have a 60-minute experience that decides so much about the next four years of their life,” Lavin said.

He added, “If we are going to let some kids into some high schools and not let some kids into some high schools, we have to find a better way to do it than this.”

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

Detroit special ed aides call for increased hourly pay

2023-10-11T15:40:40+00:00

Special education aides and paraeducators in the Detroit school district are calling for higher hourly wages as demanding workloads, staff vacancies, and inflation amid the pandemic have taxed support staff.

Members of Local 345 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees came to Tuesday’s school board meeting to criticize the Detroit Public Schools Community District’s offers in its current negotiations with the union.

“Despite the love and passion that we all share for our students, our wages remain mediocre,” said Sheila Wilson, a special ed paraeducator at Moses Field Center. “On any given day we perform multiple roles, from being a security guard to a substitute teacher. We desperately need a raise to support ourselves and our families.”

The board on Tuesday approved contracts with other employee unions representing security officers, office employees, and school administrators. District officials also reported improvements in the number of students enrolled in college courses, and encouraging enrollment trends following Count Day last week.

Special ed aides call for increased wages

In 2021, AFSCME and DPSCD agreed to a two-year deal that increased hourly wages to roughly $15 to $17.66 for the union’s district employees, who include trainable aides, custodians, bus attendants, and food service workers. Special ed aides currently make $16 an hour.

Michelle Lee, president of AFSCME Local 345, said union members “expect the recognition of our sacrifices and dedication. However, all the district can offer us is a mere 3% to 5% increase.”

“When the world faced the daunting challenges of the COVID pandemic, it was the members of Local 345 that stepped up,” Lee said. “We put our lives and our family’s lives on the line.”

DPSCD and other Michigan school districts have struggled to recruit and retain school employees in light of statewide staffing challenges and budget cuts. In recent years, the district has hosted monthly hiring fairs for hard-to-staff positions such as security guards, cafeteria workers, and bus attendants. This past spring, the district moved to cut and consolidate hundreds of positions due to enrollment losses and the loss of federal pandemic aid.

The district has about 20 special ed paraeducator vacancies, according to Superintendent Nikolai Vitti. The district employs roughly 400 special ed paraprofessionals and aides.

DPSCD’s negotiations with AFSCME come on the heels of a one-year contract the board approved with the Detroit Federation of Teachers in September. The contract raised pay for senior teachers by 6% and provided retention bonuses to all members. In recent years, the district has prioritized improving teacher salaries to compete with neighboring districts.

In the past several weeks, the board also approved contracts with other unions for hourly employees.

AFSCME members “deserve a fair contract, or the district will continue to shed staff,” said DFT Vice President Jason Posey, and AFSCME members’ duties will fall on the shoulders of DFT members.

Crystal Lee, a DPSCD special ed teacher, said that when she was a paraprofessional at Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency 25 years ago, she made $14.51 an hour, only a dollar less than what district employees currently earn.

“That is not a livable wage for no one,” Crystal Lee said.

Vitti said the district remains committed to increasing salaries and wages for teachers and support staff. Hourly wages for special ed aides, he added, have improved from $13 at the beginning of his tenure in 2017.

Vitti did not say what the district’s current offer for special ed paraprofessionals and aides is, but said it is above Michigan’s livable wage. That would be $16.27 for an adult with no children according to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator.

“That offer is there and could possibly increase,” he said. Another bargaining session between AFSCME and DPSCD officials will take place Wednesday.

More DPSCD students flock to college-level classes

College-level course enrollment in DPSCD is back to pre-pandemic levels, following a sharp increase in the number of students seeking credit recovery over the past several years.

Fifty-five percent of high school students are currently enrolled in college and career-prep courses this year, the same percentage as the 2018-19 school year. During the 2021-22 school year, only 39% of students were enrolled.

“We’re starting to make inroads in the damage that was created by the pandemic when students were losing credit,” said Vitti.

The number of DPSCD high school students enrolled in credit recovery programs jumped from 2,742 in 2019-20 to 4,901 the following year. By 2021-22, credit recovery enrollment was 7,480, over half of the roughly 14,000 high school students the district enrolls each year.

School districts have long used credit recovery programs to give students another chance to earn course credits. However, the numbers increased in Detroit and around the country as schools tried to recover from pandemic-related disruptions that left many students off track for graduation due to failing grades, absences, and challenges with online learning.

“As we have more students catch up and (get to) where they should be as far as credits by grade level, then we opened the schedule up for more dual enrollment, more advanced placement, more international baccalaureate classes, more JROTC and general elective classes,” Vitti said.

District enrollment trend looks positive following Count Day

DPSCD student enrollment is projected to be up from this time last year, Vitti said.

The district reported that it has 47,843 students, roughly 350 more than last October. DPSCD schools, however, are still struggling to keep students. The district’s re-enrollment rate has remained roughly 70% since before the pandemic.

“We’re bringing in new students to the district, the lower grades and ninth grade in particular, which is again positive,” Vitti said. “What’s happening, though, is we’re not retaining students that are already in the district from year to year.”

That’s primarily due to the “high transiency rates of our families just moving around the city and out of the city,” he added, as well as competition with city charters and neighboring school districts.

Despite that, Detroit-area charters have consistently reported greater enrollment losses than DPSCD in recent years.

Vitti said he will give a more detailed account of the district’s enrollment trends at the November board meeting.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit, where she covers arts, culture, and education. Contact Micah at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Thrival Indy Academy Innovation school to close after 2023-24 amid low enrollment

2023-10-07T00:43:55+00:00

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Thrival Indy Academy, designed to offer study abroad opportunities to students as an Indianapolis Public Schools Innovation Network high school, will close at the end of the 2023-24 school year after failing to meet enrollment targets.

The school’s board of directors voted on Friday to not renew its Innovation agreement with IPS once it expires at the end of this school year. The high school, located within Arlington Middle School, has 107 students this year who will have guaranteed spots at an IPS high school in 2024-25, according to the district.

Year after year, Thrival could not meet the enrollment targets set forth in its latest Innovation agreement, signed in 2019. This year, that target was set at 300 students.

“When we look at student numbers and enrollment, we have to ask ourselves the question of what student experience can we really give the students?” Julius Mansa, Thrival’s board chairperson, said during the meeting.

The Thrival board also voted to offer retention stipends of $10,000 for teachers and support staff and $12,000 for administrative staff who stay through the end of the school year.

“This is always the hardest decision to share as a superintendent, but I am committed to getting this transition right for Thrival students, families, and staff,” IPS Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said in a statement. “My pledge to Thrival families is that IPS will have your back every step of the way by helping you find a great IPS high school for your child next school year.”

The high school is one of the few IPS Innovation Network schools that is not a charter school. It is run by a nonprofit organization and a board of directors.

Thrival opened in 2017 as a small pilot program within IPS that allowed students to study abroad in Thailand for free. It later grew to a one-year school that only enrolled juniors.

But the school paused operations for one-year in 2019-20 as officials figured how to help students fit the one-year opportunity into four years of high school. Thrival relaunched in 2020-21 as a four-year high school, after signing a new Innovation agreement with IPS that allowed it to start with ninth graders and grow by one grade each school year.

Students were unable to travel for two school years after the pandemic, Mansa said. Last school year, students took a domestic trip. A Puerto Rico trip is planned for some students this year, he said.

Loki Lavin, a sophomore at the school, expressed concern about the transition of Thrival students into much larger schools after Friday’s meeting.

“This school is small and we’re very close-knit like a family,” Lavin said. “And I think that’s part of what makes us different.”

Mansa said he was unsure if the pandemic caused the school’s low enrollment.

“I know it’s a tough enrollment environment in general,” he said. “There’s a lot of options. Students have a lot of choices.”

The district will offer enrollment sessions for each Thrival family, IPS said in a statement.

Enrollment at IPS schools for next school year begins Nov. 1, and families can apply to schools at enrollindy.org/apply. All IPS school buildings will be open for families to visit during a showcase of schools from 4 to 8 p.m. Nov. 1.

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

Selective middle school admissions return to one Manhattan district after fierce debate

2023-10-05T20:16:00+00:00

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A Manhattan school district is reversing course, allowing some schools to screen middle school applicants for accelerated programs in the upcoming admissions cycle, according to a letter its superintendent sent to families this week.

It’s the first time middle schools in District 2 will screen applicants based on their fourth grade academic performance since the onset of the pandemic, when the city paused academic screens for middle schools.

Selective admissions for New York City’s 10-year-olds were later reinstated for this year’s incoming sixth graders in some districts, but at dramatically reduced rates.

Instead of a blanket approach across the city, schools Chancellor David Banks last year tasked superintendents of the city’s 32 local school districts to work with their communities to decide their middle school admissions guidelines. Manhattan’s District 2, along with about nine other districts that previously used selective admissions at some of its middle schools, opted to ditch screens.

This year, once again, the chancellor tapped superintendents to choose their admissions policies. The Education Department has yet to share the decisions of districts across the five boroughs.

Changes to middle school admissions have sparked debate across the city, particularly in District 2 — one of the city’s most affluent school districts, spanning such neighborhoods as TriBeCa, Greenwich Village, Gramercy, and the Upper East Side. Some families argue the elimination of screens reduces academic rigor in some classrooms, while others say practices like screened admissions harm integration efforts in a school system that remains among the most segregated in the nation.

District 2’s decision to drop screens last year spurred some ire in the area, where the group Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, has a foothold on the district’s parent-led Community Education Council — with endorsed candidates winning seven of the 10 elected seats. The group advocates for test-based and other selective school admissions.

For this year’s admissions cycle, which starts next week, District 2 will offer programs that select students based on grades at four zoned middle schools, Superintendent Kelly McGuire said in the Oct. 3 letter to families.

The four schools are the Sun Yat Sen Middle School (M.S. 131), Wagner Middle School (M.S. 167), 75 Morton (M.S. 297), and Baruch Middle School (M.S. 104), according to the letter.

“Over the past several months we have spoken with District 2 parents and families about middle school admissions,” McGuire said in the letter. “While there is a wide diversity of perspectives across our district, we have developed a plan that offers pathways for accelerated learning through screened programs, maintained sibling priority, and ensured that all students have access to every District 2 middle school.”

The programs would offer accelerated learning in core subjects, McGuire said. Several non-zoned schools in the district also offer accelerated academics and a pathway to Regents-level coursework, he added.

Students applying to the four schools can include the general program and/or the screened program on their child’s middle school application, according to the letter.

Schools using academic screens in admissions rank 10-year-olds based on their fourth grade GPAs in core subjects.

Parent council pushes for more academic screening

During a September meeting, some members of the district’s Community Education Council urged the district to reinstate academic screens at middle schools that had used them prior to the pandemic. About 18 out of 23 middle schools in the district screened at least some segment of their applicants for the 2020-21 school year, according to city data.

Leonard Silverman, president of the council, called the district’s decision “a good start.”

“If it comes down to four over nothing, we’ll take four,” he said. “This was the culmination of a lot of advocacy, and fighting, and pushing, and prodding, and parents letting their voices be heard.”

Some details about the screened programs remained unclear, he said, like how many seats they’ll have.

“I hope we’ll continue to expand these types of programs to meet the needs of all students — not just the higher performing students, but to slot kids into where they are academically,” Silverman said.

Silverman said he wished there had been more engagement with families in the district, adding he worried some parents had left district schools over a lack of screened middle school options.

A letter the education council sent to the superintendent last month also called for state test scores to be considered in the admissions process, arguing grades are too subjective a measure. But others contest the claim that state test scores are an objective measure.

Nyah Berg, executive director of New York Appleseed, an organization that advocates for integrated schools, said the district’s decision was “disappointing.”

“You’re talking about judging the educational attainment of students that are as young as 9 years old,” she said. “To narrowly put them on a track at that age, I think, is just fundamentally inappropriate for learning, for teaching — and it’s essentially a gatekeeping tool that can create haves and have-nots.”

Though just four schools in the district will see academic screens reinstated in this year’s admissions cycle, Berg remains concerned about its potential impact, particularly as it can take years to understand the effects of a policy change.

“I’m very wary of chipping away at progressive policies,” she said. “Whether we’re going backwards at a lightning speed or at a slower pace, it still means that we’re going backwards.”

The city’s Education Department has said middle school admissions will broadly operate the same as last year, though this week declined to provide specific information for each district.

Applications open on Oct. 11, giving families until Dec. 8 to submit. Offers are expected to be released in April.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

CUNY sees slight enrollment uptick, but big challenges remain

2023-10-03T22:49:28+00:00

A yearslong pandemic-fueled enrollment decline at the City University of New York may finally be starting to level off, according to preliminary figures released Tuesday.

Enrollment in the city’s network of public colleges — like that at many colleges across the country — had been in freefall since the start of the COVID pandemic, dropping 17% from roughly 271,000 in 2019-20 to about 226,000 last school year, according to city figures.

The losses in CUNY’s community colleges, which enroll greater shares of low-income, Black and Latino students, have been even steeper, falling by 26% over four years.

But that trend may finally be tapering off. Overall undergraduate student enrollment is up about 2% from last year, with the new freshmen classes bigger than last year’s counterparts, according to preliminary enrollment data from CUNY.

“Enrollment might just sound like a lot of numbers, but it’s fundamental,” said Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez during his State of CUNY address Tuesday. “It’s a tangible measure of how well we’re delivering on our core mission of providing access to a first-rate education to everyone in our city.”

He added: “We have a reason to believe we have turned a corner.”

But even with the modest increases this year, CUNY’s enrollment remains far below pre-pandemic numbers, reflecting a seismic shift in recent years in college enrollment across the country.

The economic pressures of the pandemic, the ongoing burdens of student debt, and shifting perspectives on the value of college have combined to take a massive bite out of college enrollment nationwide.

New York City hasn’t escaped that pattern.

After a decade of rising college enrollment rates, the percentage of New York City public high school graduates entering college or other postsecondary programs dropped from nearly 81% in 2019 to 71% in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available.

The declines were even steeper for Black, Latino, and male students, who enrolled in college at a lower rate to begin with.

“I’m definitely also noticing a rise in interest in non-college options,” said Danielle Insel, the director of postsecondary readiness at Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women in Brooklyn. “I definitely think there’s economic pressure, and I do think there’s some kind of societal shift in what their futures can look like… I think they’re so exhausted by school, so drained that the idea of more college is overwhelming to them.”

Enrollment in the city’s public universities is an important indicator of the city’s overall economic health. CUNY’s colleges are unusually effective at lifting students from low-income families into middle class jobs, and the majority of jobs posted in New York City still require a bachelor’s degree.

More than 80% of CUNY freshmen are New York City public high school graduates, making the relationship between the two systems a critical part of any effort to boost college enrollment.

CUNY, NYC’s Education Department seek to strengthen partnership

The day before his speech, Matos Rodriguez and Banks touted a joint initiative to send each senior expected to graduate from a New York City public high school a personalized acceptance letter indicating they had a spot at CUNY if they wanted it and inviting them to apply.

That’s not a change in admissions policy — CUNY’s community colleges have long had open admissions for high school graduates — but it could help give a recent graduate waffling about starting college an extra bit of motivation, the two leaders argued.

Multiple experts who have studied similar interventions said the effort will likely have a small impact, at best. But given the ease of distributing the letters, even a tiny bump could be worthwhile. Guidance counselors began handing them out this week, and students may also receive them via email.

“A lot of these types of nudges are cost effective not because they’re hugely effective but because they’re low on cost,” said Philip Oreopoulos, an economics professor at the University of Toronto who has studied similar efforts. “I think for some [students] it’s likely to make a difference.”

Other experts noted that the effectiveness of the letters hinge on the specific barriers students face.

“Maybe a small piece of information can be really motivating, particularly for families who are unaware this [admissions] guarantee already exists for them,” said Oded Gurantz, a professor at the University of Colorado–Boulder who studied an unsuccessful effort by the College Board to reduce roadblocks in the college application process. “If the barrier is costs, then sending the letter is unlikely to produce a big benefit.”

CUNY is also waiving application fees for New York City high school seniors, a move that is immensely helpful in convincing reticent students to submit CUNY applications, said Insel, from the Brooklyn high school.

Affordability takes center stage

For students who do decide to enroll in CUNY, the system’s affordability often takes center stage in their calculations.

CUNY’s tuition runs just under $3,500 a semester for state residents at four-year colleges and $2,400 a semester for New Yorkers at community colleges. Roughly two-thirds of CUNY students pay no tuition because of a combination of state and federal financial aid, and 75% graduate with no debt, according to the university. CUNY forgave roughly $100 million in debt accrued during the pandemic.

For recent Queens high school graduate Paul Blake, enrolling at CUNY’s Queensborough Community College was a way to enter a nursing program while avoiding the extra costs of room and board.

“I always knew I didn’t want to go out of state, it costs a lot and I felt with CUNY, I’d be closer to home,” said Blake, who hopes to either transfer to a four-year college or transition directly into work after completing his nursing program.

Elizabeth Nicotra, who graduated from Tottenville High School in Staten Island last spring, got into SUNY Cortland — the school that was initially her top choice — but ended up choosing Macaulay Honors College at CUNY’s College of Staten Island because it offers free tuition.

“Why would you choose debt over free college, especially when the program at Macaulay is so amazing,” said Nicotra, who hopes to be a physical education teacher or physical therapist.

CUNY officials are trying to spread the word about the affordability of their programs, and recently launched an ad campaign called “Degrees Without the Debt.”

CUNY’s recent expansion of online programs could also be a helpful way to lure in students not ready for a traditional college experience, Insel believes.

“I think now they’re recognizing that people want to do college in different way,” she said.

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

Migrant students boosting Denver Public Schools’ enrollment after years of declines

2023-10-03T21:17:52+00:00

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Newly arrived migrant students are boosting Denver Public Schools’ enrollment this fall, especially at the elementary school level.

The spike follows a years-long decline in enrollment in DPS, which is still Colorado’s largest school district with about 89,000 students last year. The enrollment decreases have been so steep that Superintendent Alex Marrero recommended closing 10 schools at the end of last school year, though the school board agreed to close only three.

While this boost in enrollment will mean more per-pupil state funding for DPS this year, and likely more funding targeted to help English language learners next year, district staff and school board members acknowledged the enrollment increase could be temporary.

“We don’t know how many of these students are going to stay for how long,” board member Scott Esserman said at a meeting of the board’s finance committee Monday.

More than 1,470 new students from another country enrolled in DPS between July and September this year, according to a presentation by district staff at Monday’s meeting. That’s 76% more students from other countries than last year.

Elementary schools are receiving the most students, with 747 new elementary-age students coming from other countries to DPS this summer and fall.

About a third of all the new students are from three countries: Venezuela, Mexico, and Colombia. That aligns with the increase in new migrants arriving by bus in Denver this fall, many from Venezuela. Over the past week, an average of nearly 300 migrants have arrived in the city each day, according to a press release from city officials Monday.

City officials are working to temporarily house newly arrived families, and DPS teachers have been scrambling to help when families’ assistance runs out. On Monday, Denver Human Services extended the time that migrant families can stay in city-provided shelter to 37 days, a week longer than before. That change takes effect Wednesday.

Some DPS schools, especially those with dedicated programming and classrooms for Spanish-speaking students, are receiving more newly arrived students than others.

The schools that have received the most are Lena Archuleta Elementary, Ashley Elementary, Bryant Webster Dual Language School, McMeen Elementary, Place Bridge Academy, Denver Green School Southeast, Hamilton Middle School, George Washington High, Thomas Jefferson High, and Abraham Lincoln High, according to the presentation.

Russell Ramsey, the district’s executive director of enrollment and campus planning, told the committee Monday that the boost in students has swelled some class sizes.

“As classes get close to the red alert of 35 or 36 (students), this is when we’re taking schools within the (enrollment) zone or schools nearby and trying to really assess where we have a place and space to make sure our classes are not getting too big,” Ramsey said.

Even though school budgets are based on enrollment projections made by DPS the previous spring, schools that are unexpectedly enrolling more students this fall are getting extra per-pupil funding through a budgeting process DPS calls its fall adjustment, district officials said. The official student count day for state funding was earlier this week.

School board member Scott Baldermann noted that migrant students may need extra support in school to deal with the trauma they’ve experienced or to learn a second language. District staff said state and federal funding targeted at helping English language learners is a year delayed, meaning that this year’s funding is based on last year’s student counts.

“I’m incredibly proud of the district for supporting the students new to the country,” Baldermann said.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan school districts brace for Count Day ahead of ESSER spending cliff

2023-10-02T21:31:14+00:00

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Wednesday’s official student headcount for Michigan schools could be more crucial than ever, as districts where enrollment has declined since the pandemic began are now facing the expiration of federal COVID relief.

The federal aid known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER, helped schools weather the pandemic in several ways. Some districts used a portion of that aid to cushion the fiscal blow from enrollment losses. But ESSER funds will run out in September 2024, and in response, districts could be forced into some budget cuts in the near future as long-term enrollment drops persist.

The stakes are high across the nation, including in Michigan, where the pandemic accounted for more than half of the 9% decline in statewide student enrollment over the past decade, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. In Michigan, where enrollment is tied to school funding, each student leaving local public schools could cost a district nearly $10,000 in annual funding without the backstop of COVID aid.

The end of ESSER funding could be especially challenging for high-poverty districts, which have typically received more federal relief and spent their funds at a slower pace than their more affluent counterparts.

And the end of federal COVID relief is approaching as students continue to struggle, both academically and emotionally, from the pandemic.

The end of ESSER money could on its own drive down funding significantly in many districts in Michigan and elsewhere. A national analysis estimates that on average, the loss of the federal pandemic funding will cause a drop in revenue of about $1,000 per student.

“There’s certainly more question marks than there are exclamation points at this point when it comes to where this is going to go,” said Robert McCann, executive director of K-12 Alliance, an organization that represents school superintendents across Michigan. “Every superintendent right now is looking at their budget, and trying to figure out how to best maintain some of those programs that were created during the pandemic.”

Michigan enrollment declines exacerbate spending cliff

School systems across Michigan were provided roughly $6 billion through ESSER that districts used for a variety of programming families wanted. Districts like Flint Community Schools that lost students throughout the pandemic also used ESSER funding to counteract the loss of state aid that followed enrollment declines.

No more ESSER dollars means Flint and other districts can only rely on that strategy for so long. Although that funding hasn’t run out yet, districts will use Wednesday’s student count to help determine their budgets for the 2024-25 school year.

COVID funding “has allowed us to have a fund balance to cushion us for the next couple of years,” said Kevelin Jones, Flint’s superintendent.

“We need every dime that we can get our hands on,” Jones said. “When you’re losing 50 to 100 students every year, it means that we can not properly staff and meet the needs of every one of our scholars.”

Jones added: “Once this fund balance is gone, we are back in the same situation that we were in prior to the pandemic of being in the red.”

The district has lost 66% of its student population, or roughly 5,700 students, in the past decade.

Alena Zachery-Ross, who has led Ypsilanti Community Schools since 2018, said high-poverty districts like hers are in dire straits. Ypsilanti saw a 280-student dip in K-12 enrollment at the start of the 2020-21 school year. The district is also still making up for the loss of students who left for neighboring districts in the wake of a district consolidation in 2013.

“For those of us who really need that additional support, who benefit by having social workers in every building, instructional coaches in every building, climate and culture coaches in every building, we use those [Count Day] dollars to provide those extra supports that are needed,” said Zachery-Ross.

Michigan counts students on two official days during the school year, this Wednesday and Feb. 7. District principals have led a daily attendance campaign in anticipation of Wednesday, and have sent letters home to families reminding them of Count Day’s significance.

Budget cuts can be especially challenging in districts that used ESSER money to maintain staff and programming that they would not have been able to afford otherwise.

This summer, the Detroit Public Schools Community District, Michigan’s largest school district, moved to cut and consolidate central office and support staff to make up for a loss of 2,000 students during the pandemic. DPSCD enrolled roughly 50,000 students pre-pandemic.

Heading into Wednesday, DPSCD is budgeting for at least 48,200 students, according to Superintendent Nikolai Vitti. The district is tasking its principals with creating their own Count Day plans, and they have received additional funding for those activities.

“You really go to any school during Count Day, you will see something different happening,” Vitti said at a DSPCD meeting on Monday. “We have to be realistic with how that drives funding and to make that a unique type of day for students.”

In some places, the cuts could extend beyond staff and programming. Districts like Flint and Grand Rapids Public Schools, where there’s been a 20% drop in enrollment over the past decade, have recently weighed whether to close underutilized schools in the coming years.

Some school leaders with rosier enrollment statistics or projections argue the ESSER spending cliff is no more daunting than the challenges cash-strapped districts have contended with before.

For the first time in over a decade, Coloma Community Schools may see a bump in enrollment according to preliminary figures ahead of Count Day, said Superintendent Dave Ehlers, who leads the rural, high-poverty school district on the shore of Lake Michigan.

The end of ESSER, he said, won’t come as much of a loss for his district, which enrolls roughly 1,300 students. Most of the district’s dollars went toward providing new technologies and social-emotional learning.

“I think we’re gonna be in a good spot,” Ehlers said. “We’ve invested well and made sure that we did good things with it, but we’re prepared to go with our regular school budget and be okay.”

Stiles Simmons, superintendent of Westwood Community Schools outside of Detroit, said financial belt-tightening has kept the district of nearly 1,500 students afloat amid previous enrollment losses. This past year, when the district gained 91 students, the district’s corresponding increase in state aid went directly to build up the district’s general fund balance.

How badly districts are faring enrollment-wise may also guide lawmakers’ decisions regarding next year’s school aid budget.

This summer, lawmakers approved a $21.5 billion budget that raised the state’s per-student allowance by nearly $500 and boosted funding for at-risk students and special ed services.

“What we’re hoping is that the legislature is going to look at that budget that got passed this year and say ‘That needs to be the baseline going forward, not an exception that we’re going to start scaling back from,’” McCann of K-12 Alliance said.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

Denver teachers scramble to help as migrant students face loss of housing

2023-09-29T20:50:43+00:00

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Editor’s note: On Monday, Denver Human Services extended the time that families can stay in city-provided shelter to 37 days, a week longer than previously. The change applies to people who arrive on or after Oct. 4. However, due to the large number of people arriving daily, individuals without children will get to stay in city-provided shelter for just 14 days, a week less than before.

As the number of migrants arriving daily in Denver rises, schools are starting to see a significant number of new students. And educators are worried about how to help them as migrant families encounter the limits of official support.

At Denver’s Bryant Webster Dual Language School, some teachers report classes of 38 students — a lot higher than last year. A teacher who screens students for whom English is not their home language has had to screen 60 students this year — up from a handful in typical years. And they’re trying to help students as they’re dealing with trauma, learning how to navigate a new country and a new school system.

“You work the whole day and you just want to make sure you do the best with the resources you have and so you build relationships with kids, and you have the connection to them,” said Alex Nelson, a fourth grade teacher at Bryant Webster. “Then you find out their story.”

Students who arrived near the start of the school year and were starting to settle in are facing a new challenge and a new trauma. Families get just 30 days in either a hotel or shelter paid for by the city. But then they have to find another place to live. In a city with soaring rents where many longtime residents also struggle to find housing, new arrivals sometimes find themselves with nowhere to go.

The first time a migrant family with children at Bryant Webster ran out of time on its housing voucher, teachers and a school intern spent hours calling shelters and everyone they could think of to try to find a place for the family to stay. They encountered waitlists and a lot of dead ends.

“We didn’t know what happened after the voucher expired until one of the new families said ‘our stay is up, and we don’t know where to go tonight,’” Nelson said. “We’ve never been prepared so we didn’t know how to handle it.”

The family ended up leaving to spend the night in a car, though Nelson said district officials were able to connect with them later that evening. Still, Nelson said it was really hard on the entire school to end the day that way.

Like in New York City schools and other districts nationwide, Denver school officials are on the frontline receiving requests from migrant families for help. In Denver, some teachers are just starting to connect their efforts with nonprofits, through the teachers union, and with other organizations, but coordination is still sporadic.

And even when working together, there are daunting obstacles. After the limited duration of city vouchers for migrants, the different social services available have different rules that can create confusion about what might jeopardize migrants’ legal standing. And the potential overlap between help for migrants and support for the city’s homeless population is something Denver officials are trying to avoid.

After helping the first Bryant Webster family, teachers heard from more families in the same situation. Some organizations are helping, but each time a new family comes forward, teachers worry if they’ll be able to find them assistance. At least three more are slated to lose their shelter this weekend.

“You can just feel the kids are stressed. It disrupts everything,” said Cecilia Quintanilla, an early childhood teacher at the school.

Denver has seen up to 250 migrants arriving per day this week, but it’s unclear how many are children.

Schools join Denver effort to help migrants find stability

Right now, it’s hard to track how widespread the surge of migrants in schools really is.

District officials in Denver did not respond to requests for comment. Teachers at Bryant Webster believe they’ve had around 60 newcomers arrive after the first day of school and counting. Other school districts in the state are also reporting surges of newcomers, the term schools use to refer to students arriving from outside the U.S., in the last few months.

The Colorado Department of Education doesn’t track those numbers and officials said they have not been asked to provide support to schools dealing with these surges.

Denver officials said that as of last week the city was currently sheltering 456 children under age 16. The city has seen up to 250 new individuals arriving per day this week, but numbers for children aren’t available for this week.

At another Denver school, Escuela Valdez, teacher Jessica Dominguez estimates they’ve received about 20 newcomer students this year. This week, they learned about a family that had already been sleeping outdoors after losing their shelter. Educators stayed up late into the night trying to find them a place to stay and ultimately were successful. But that may not always be the case.

“Kids are being involved now,” she said. “That puts a different face to what we might think is homelessness.”

Dominguez isn’t the only person who feels that way. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a former educator, said at a press conference Thursday that he has seen kids sleeping under blankets with families outside the city’s Wellington Webb building as they wait for staff to show up so they can ask for help.

“No kid should be in that context,” Johnston said.

Early that same day, at a migrant reception center in northeast Denver, a steady stream of men, women, and children arrived for processing. The official hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but staff often start earlier and stay until everyone has somewhere to go.

Some arrivals have family in the Denver area and ask to come here or even make their own way. Others get on buses in El Paso regardless of destination and then need to make a plan.

They’ve already made a hazardous journey and overcome many obstacles to leave behind dangerous situations in their home countries.

Jon Ewing, a spokesman for Denver Human Services, said the arrivals are smart, resourceful, and well-organized.

City workers collect basic information about the new arrivals, provide contact information for relevant social services and direct them to shelter. Individuals are eligible for 21 days of free shelter and families are eligible for 30 days. The city isn’t tracking what happens after that.

“Thirty days is not a long time to sort out your life, and we get that,” Ewing said. “But we have to move people through. There is a limit to what we are able to do.”

Ewing said city staff are working to coordinate as best they can between nonprofits, city services, and the school district — there are large group chats buzzing all day.

Ewing said the city tries to make sure people understand how expensive Denver is so they can make informed decisions. But they may have good reasons for wanting to stay here.

Ewing said the migrant and homeless populations are very different and face different challenges. New arrivals are never directed to homeless shelters, and many services are provided through different channels in order to be responsive to each group’s needs.

There are also different funding sources with different rules, when it comes to providing services for U.S. citizens and residents experiencing homelessness, versus migrants seeking asylum or another protected status.

Then there are legal concerns. Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said that organizations like hers are also concerned about inadvertently providing resources that would then make people ineligible for earning legal status — a common worry they hear from migrants, and one that Alderman and her team don’t have enough expertise to help navigate.

Still, she said that some of the migrant families might qualify for housing assistance from the coalition, but qualifying takes time.

“The problem is we have so many in the system right now waiting for housing,” Alderman said. “That system makes housing matches based on vulnerabilities. It’s a process. It certainly doesn’t move fast.”

She said that another problem for families is finding affordable housing with multiple bedrooms. Longer term vouchers, such as Section 8 vouchers, often don’t cover a large portion of the rents people might encounter in Denver.

“In Denver specifically we have a very, very, very minimal stock of really affordable housing,” she said. “We have a lot of market rate and luxury units that are sitting empty.”

With all the challenges migrant students and their families are confronting, teachers say they appreciate that so many are working to help. But they also wish they were more prepared to help students and families who come to them with such big worries.

“We don’t have what we need to welcome these families to the better life that they were searching for,” said Nelson, the teacher at Bryant Webster. “It’s just really hard to see the consequences of that.”

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

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s complex high school admissions process opens Oct. 3. Here’s what families should know.

2023-09-28T17:09:08+00:00

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The new school year has barely begun, and already New York City’s notoriously complex (and often controversial) high school admissions process kicks off next week, lasting through early December.

The process can be daunting for the tens of thousands of eighth grade families applying to public high schools, and economic and racial diversity concerns remain at the city’s most selective schools.

Last year, nearly half of the city’s eighth grade applicants were admitted to their top choice school, while about 75% were admitted to one of their top three picks. About 95% of applicants were admitted to one of the 12 schools they ranked in their application, according to city data.

The months-long process can lead to heightened levels of anxiety and confusion for families. It often feels inequitable, with families who have the time and resources to devote to the process having an upper hand, parents say.

Details about tours and application requirements can vary from school to school, and information posted online can at times be slow to update. Meanwhile, the roughly two-month timeline and wide array of options, with more than 700 programs at over 400 schools, add further stress to the equation.

Joyce Szuflita, a Brooklyn-based admissions consultant who runs NYC School Help, called it “a scavenger hunt with too little time.”

For families who are going through the middle and high school application process simultaneously, it can feel even more overwhelming. “How can those families not blow a gasket?” she said.

When do applications open? What is the deadline for high school applications in NYC?

The city’s high school application process is expected to open on Oct. 3.

Registration opens the same day for the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test, or SHSAT — the sole metric by which eight of the city’s prestigious specialized high schools admit students.

The test will take place during the school day at public schools, with additional weekend test dates available for public school students, 9th grade testers, and charter/non-public school testers, according to Education Department officials.

Families will have until Oct. 27 to register for the SHSAT.

High school applications will remain open until Dec. 1, with offers set to release on March 7.

Meanwhile, middle school admissions are staggered by about a week, with applications opening Oct. 11 and closing Dec. 8. Middle school offers are expected to be released on April 3.

The city’s Education Department will hold several virtual admissions events in October. Many schools list their open houses and tours on the city’s MySchools directory. High school fairs are listed there as well.

How did NYC high schools admit students last year?

Schools across the city employ different methods of determining admissions, with various application requirements specific to each.

For admissions to the city’s selective screened schools, this fall’s incoming ninth graders were sorted into four different priority groups based on their seventh grade GPAs in core subjects. In cases where there were more applicants in a priority group than seats, selections were made based on a random number assigned to each applicant, often referred to as a lottery number.

Some schools also required admissions essays or auditions, which were further used to make determinations.

More than 40 selective schools also participate in a diversity initiative, setting aside a certain number of seats to students who are low-income, English language learners, or live in temporary housing. There was a separate lottery for these seats.

Other schools used open or educational option admissions, which primarily used an applicant’s random number for admissions, though some took into account additional criteria to create priority groups. (Educational option programs set aside seats for students at different academic levels to promote academic diversity.)

Will this year use the same application guidelines?

Screened schools will follow the same admissions process as last year, according to the city’s Education Department — though the grade averages for each priority group have shifted slightly.

Middle school admissions will also follow the same broad format as last year, officials said.

What do experts recommend to get started?

Sindy Nuesi, director of the Middle School Student Success Center at the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, recommends families start by narrowing down the vast field of possible schools.

Nuesi advises families and students to first decide how far they’re willing to commute to school, or whether there are specific neighborhoods in which they’d like to attend school. From there, they can look for programs that fit their child’s interests.

“Even though a lot of students are still not too sure what they want, if they do have some particular interest that they really like, it narrows down the options,” she said, adding families can filter searches based on interest areas. “That makes it less overwhelming.”

Nuesi also suggests developing a relationship with your school counselor, who can help at each step of the admissions process.

Elissa Stein, an admissions consultant who runs High School 411, urges parents to look at the process holistically and not become fixated on a particular school or program.

“I always tell families that they should be taking things into consideration based on their child,” she said. “So think things through in terms of the size of the school, the things that they offer, the academic ranges, the commute, the building, the neighborhood — there are so many things that will make a school a good fit for your child or not.”

Opening your mind to exploring schools you’re not as familiar with also aids in the process, she added.

“There are schools that everybody knows by name and reputation,” Stein said. “But there are a lot of other schools that aren’t as well known that could be wonderful fits.”

What are some tips to avoid getting overwhelmed?

Staying organized, keeping track of important dates, and taking notes can help ease the process, Stein suggested.

Pamela Wheaton, an admissions consultant who runs SchoolScoutNYC, suggested families cast a wide net in their applications and take advantage of resources like InsideSchools, which posts information about schools across the city.

Families should also find ways to tap their communities. Parents can team up with other families to coordinate school visits, allowing them to cover more ground in the condensed timeline, Wheaton said.

What does your high school lottery number mean for admissions?

Last year, for the first time, the Education Department sent all families their lottery numbers — a string of 32 numbers and letters — at the beginning of the application process. Many families on Facebook groups sent around tip sheets on how to interpret the number to figure out where students fell to gauge their odds.

Education Department officials said families will be able to see their random numbers when they start their high school applications in MySchools on or after Oct. 3.

Szuflita warns against worrying too much about the number.

“Everybody calls this the lottery,” she said. “It’s not a lottery. It’s a match.”

Though the random number can be consequential, at many schools it is just one of many factors, Szuflita said. At some schools that require applicants to write essays, for example, the number is less likely to play a major role. And at the city’s eight specialized high schools, the number isn’t considered at all, Szuflita added.

“Your random number in this process is a tiebreaker,” she said. “When there are candidates of equal priority, then the random number comes into play.”

Ultimately, admissions consultants and counselors say to take a deep breath and trust that your student will land somewhere they can be successful.

“Be fluid, be calm, because everything will come in good time,” Szuflita said. “It will all be fine. There are so many great schools. There are so many worthy programs.”

Are you applying to high school this year? We want to hear from you.

If you are a NYC parent whose child is applying to high school this year, Chalkbeat wants to hear from you.

We’re interested in hearing about any concerns you may have as you embark on this process, and what kind of information would be helpful for your family in making decisions.

Please fill out the form below to let us know what’s on your mind as this year’s admissions season approaches.

If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Applying to NYC’s screened high schools? Selection criteria remains unchanged

2023-09-28T17:04:08+00:00

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Eighth grade families eyeing New York City’s selective screened high schools take note: Applicants will once again be sorted into different priority groups based on their seventh grade GPAs in core subjects.

This year’s groupings are nearly unchanged from last year’s, according to the Education Department’s website.

The updated guidance, released Thursday, comes just days before applications open on Oct. 3.

The city’s months-long high school application process is notoriously complex, often spiking anxiety and confusion among families. It can at times feel inequitable, too, as families with more time and resources are able to better navigate the more than 700 programs across New York City’s 400 schools, parents say.

The criteria used to determine priority groups has been the subject of some controversy, with some families pushing for state test scores to be reinstated in sorting the city’s 13-year-olds. But test scores will continue to be excluded from the process.

This year, the process for screened schools will operate much the same as the last cycle, though the citywide grade averages required to sort students into each group are slightly different. Applicants can qualify for a group based on either a citywide or school threshold.

Here’s how students will be grouped this year:

Group 1: Those with final seventh grade course grades with an average of at least 94 qualify for the citywide threshold, as do students who are in the top 15% of their school, with an average of at least 90.
Group 2: Those with an average of at least a 89.66 average qualify for the citywide threshold (if they’re not in Group 1), as do those in the top 30% of their school with an average of at least 80.
Group 3: Those with an 82.75 average qualify for the citywide threshold, along with those in the top 50% of their school with an average of at least 75.
Group 4: Those with a 76.33 average qualify for the citywide threshold, along with those with seventh grade course grades in the top 70% of their school with an average at least 65.
All others will be in Group 5.

When there are more applicants in a priority group than seats available at a particular school, admissions decisions will be made based on each applicant’s random number — often referred to as a lottery number.

Those numbers will be available to families in their MySchools account on or after Oct. 3. Admissions consultants have warned against placing too much weight on them.

“Your lottery number isn’t your fate,” said Joyce Szuflita, a Brooklyn-based admissions consultant who runs NYC School Help.

Instead, it’s one part of a complex matching process with many variables, she said. And a worse lottery number doesn’t necessarily equate to not getting into a school an applicant might prefer.

“Somebody’s number eight choice is somebody else’s number one choice,” she added.

Some high schools may also require applicants to complete an additional assessment, like an essay. At such schools, the impact of the random number on admissions is further reduced.

Screened schools also set aside a number of seats for students with disabilities. Those seats are filled separately from the general education pool but follow the same priority groups among applicants with disabilities.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

To boost public school enrollment, NYC proposes $21 million ad campaign

2023-09-27T22:32:13+00:00

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New York City’s Education Department is seeking approval to spend $21 million over the next two years on an ad campaign to give families information about enrolling in public schools amid a steep decline in student headcount, according to city records.

The proposed contracts, which the city’s Panel for Educational Policy is expected to vote on Thursday, would pay an estimated $10.6 million a year over the next two years to four separate companies to create ads posted in buses and subways, bus shelters, phone kiosks, and small businesses.

The contract proposal cites systemwide enrollment losses due to the COVID pandemic and says “the advertising campaign aims to ensure that families are fully aware of the available enrollment options from 3K through High School.”

Paid ads also provide critical information to families about free meals programs, Summer Rising, and how to access information in languages other than English, said Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull.

The city’s K-12 public school enrollment fell by more than 120,000 over the past five years, according to city figures. Enrollment in pre-kindergarten classes is also down significantly, and the city’s program for 3-year-olds has thousands of empty seats.

Schools Chancellor David Banks has repeatedly said that “winning back” families is a priority of his administration, and an Education Department spokesperson said “our communities called on us to do more marketing to get more families back into New York City Public Schools.” But some members of the Panel for Educational Policy are raising concerns about the effectiveness of ad campaigns as an enrollment strategy — and whether they’re the best use of city funds.

“I think it’s outrageously wasteful in terms of the money,” said panel member Effi Zakary at a Sept. 18 meeting of the contracts committee. “We need to at the very least see what was the effectiveness of previous advertisement efforts.”

Ad campaigns have been a staple of the city Education Department’s outreach efforts for years. Many private schools and charter schools, which have also struggled with enrollment during the pandemic, also aggressively advertise.

The department previously inked upwards of $13 million in contracts with the same four companies between 2019 and 2021, according to a review of city contracts. An Education Department spokesperson didn’t say exactly how much the city spent on the previous round of ad campaigns.

When the Education Department began rolling out its universal pre-K program in 2014, ads for the new program were ubiquitous, recalled Gregory Brender, the chief policy and innovation officer at the Day Care Council.

Education Department officials say ad campaigns are “both cost-effective in their outreach” and “quantifiable” in their impact, according to the contract proposal.

But they didn’t share such data publicly, and panel members said they’ve received few concrete details to indicate how effective those campaigns were.

“I have a hard time with the fact we’ve never really reviewed what our marketing, communication, advertising, has actually impacted in results,” said Sherée Gibson, a Queens panel member with a background in marketing, at the contract committee hearing.

Education Department officials told the panel members they would offer a special briefing on the contract before Thursday’s meeting, panel members said.

Jasmine Lake, a representative from the Education Department’s Family and Community Engagement office, or FACE, said the agency receives some high-level data from vendors on metrics like how many people walk by a given bus shelter where an ad is placed. The department is working on getting more granular data, including how many people used a QR code from a specific ad, as a way to target the ads more effectively, she said.

The goal of the upcoming ad campaign is to “increase in-person and digital traffic at enrollment centers and continue to provide greater admissions transparency,” according to the proposal.

FACE, the office that will largely coordinate the ad campaigns, has been roiled by internal tensions following its administration of the recent elections for Community Education Councils, which yielded a voter turnout of roughly 2%.

The enrollment challenges facing the city’s public schools are stark: in addition to the K-12 roster declines, enrollment in the widely lauded free pre-K program has shrunk by roughly 11,000 students over the course of the pandemic, and the recently expanded 3-K program had roughly 16,000 unfilled seats as of last year, according to Education Department estimates.

Many of the forces driving the enrollment declines are likely outside of the Education Department’s control.

The city’s birth rate began dropping long before the pandemic. Nearly 60,000 public school students left New York City altogether during the 2021-22 school year, a far greater number than in previous years. Many of those families departed for areas with far lower cost-of-living, according to Education Department data.

The agency’s official account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, sent out a message Tuesday warning that “if people can’t afford to live in New York City, they can’t send their kids to New York City Public Schools.”

Still, spreading the word about how to enroll in city schools can be a helpful first step, especially at the early childhood level where some families may still not know about the city’s free options. The city is also receiving an influx of asylum-seeking families, some of whom may not know they have the option to enroll their kids in school or how to do it.

“Generally, I think you need to approach it in multiple ways and advertising is one of them,” said Brender of efforts to boost enrollment in early childhood programs.

But he cautioned that the city will need to expand its efforts far beyond advertising in order to improve the enrollment process. Brender’s organization has recommended empowering community-based organizations that have existing relationships with families to enroll children in pre-K, rather than managing the process centrally.

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

Chicago Public Schools shows off training program for students with disabilities — and considers opening more

2023-09-25T22:20:04+00:00

Mary Fahey Hughes, a member of Chicago’s Board of Education, went into mom mode Monday during a tour of her son’s former South Side school, which provides work and life skills training to older students with disabilities.

Standing to the side of a horticulture classroom at Southside Occupational Academy High School, Hughes smiled as she snapped photos of Aidan next to Mayor Brandon Johnson, who was also on the tour. Aidan has come far from when he was diagnosed with autism as a child — and Hughes was unsure what his future would look like, she said.

She credits the Englewood school — from which Aidan graduated in June — with giving him the confidence to chat up the mayor and show off his alma mater.

“He just gained so much independence,” Hughes said in a hallway at Southside. “The thing I love about this place is there is so much respect for students where they’re at.”

Chicago Public Schools officials are considering expanding the model at Southside and a handful of other so-called specialty schools, which are meant to help students with more challenging disabilities transition into the real world, Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez said Monday.

Monday’s tour was the district’s opportunity to show off the model to Johnson and a slew of other city and district officials. If the district decides to grow the program, it would need to lobby the state for more funding, Martinez said.

“We’re having the conversation internally about, how do we look at these programs, build on their strengths and potentially expand them,” Martinez said.

The district has seven specialty schools that together enroll about 1,800 students with mild to moderate cognitive disabilities, said Sylvia Barragan, a spokesperson for Chicago Public Schools. Three schools are early childhood programs that serve younger students with disabilities. The remaining four — including Southside — are for older students and have a focus on vocational and life skills.

Unlike traditional high schools, the district assigns students to these schools, Barragan said.

Some students with disabilities who look for work after graduation may benefit more from going through a specialty program first, Martinez said. He believes the need is enough to warrant doubling the number of specialty schools.

Other districts, such as New York City, have similar programs where students with disabilities learn vocational skills.

These programs, however, have drawn some criticism for segregating students with disabilities, instead of allowing students to build skills next to peers who don’t have a diagnosed disability.

Southside Principal Joshua Long has said his school model allows students to have the specialized attention they need.

At Southside, nearly 88% of students came from low-income families last year. Asked if schools like Southside limit students to low-paying jobs, Hughes said the programs hone skills that these young adults may otherwise miss out on, potentially leaving them stuck at home without work. Hughes noted that the schools serve students with a variety of strengths, and some graduates go on to community college.

“The problem is that a lot of jobs are low-paying, despite the amount of work that needs to get done,” Hughes said.

High school students can attend Vaughn Occupational High School and Northside Learning Center High School, both on the Northwest Side. Southside, in Englewood, and Ray Graham Training Center, in the South Loop, serve students who have met graduation requirements but still need “transition supports and services,” as determined by the team that creates their Individualized Education Program, according to the district. At these two schools, students are typically ages 18-22.

At Southside, where 360 students enrolled last year, students learn about various potential jobs and responsibilities they will need in the real world. Most students are exposed to every class, and some do internships, such as with the Museum of Science and Industry, said Kristen Dimas, a teacher at the school.

Long led the mayor and other officials through several different rooms that simulate a different career or life responsibility. Among the classrooms they saw were a horticulture class, a mock grocery store, a broadcast studio with a green screen, a garage where students learn to wash cars, and a café — complete with a bakery display case.

A group of students stopped by the horticulture room to ask if they had laundry. They would eventually go to the laundry room, where they learn how to wash clothes but also learn a mental checklist on basic hygiene.

“Smell your armpits. Do they smell fresh?” said a laminated list in the laundry room. “If not, put on deodorant.”

In a supply room, where a laminated document listed rules for folding a T-shirt, a student carefully practiced folding. Long gently asked her to get the mayor’s T-shirt size, but the student was shy. The mayor, who used to be a teacher, ultimately revealed he’s an extra large.

Mayor Brandon Johnson watches a student practice folding a T-shirt at Southside Occupational Academy High School in Englewood.

“But here’s the thing — you don’t have to tell everybody that,” he said to the student, who laughed and handed him a T-shirt.

The café and laundry classes are favorites of 18-year-old Josiah Hall, who enrolled at Southside in August. He especially enjoys spending time with the teachers, he said. He hopes to attend a four-year university, such as the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The school works to help students understand the career options that are right for them and to reach those goals, Long said.

For Aidan, Hughes’ son, that path has led to a new transition program for adults age 18 and older at Daley College. He’s also taking EMT classes and dreams one day of being a firefighter like his father.

Correction: Sept. 26, 2023: A previous version of this story said the program at Daley College is for people age 22 and older. It is for people age 18 and older.

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

Detroit schools are struggling with enrollment. Here’s what they’re doing about it.

2023-09-21T17:05:41+00:00

As students returned to the classroom this fall, early data from Detroit’s public schools showed another enrollment decline — a consistent trend for the last three years.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said this month that about 51,600 K-12 students were enrolled in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, a decline from about 52,300 enrolled at the same time last year, and roughly 53,000 at the start of 2021-22.

The exodus of students during and since the pandemic underscores the need for the district’s continued focus on strategies to boost enrollment such as marketing campaigns, back-to-school fairs, and neighborhood canvassing.

Detroit’s charter schools are also working to recruit new students after seeing their enrollment decline. Grand Valley State University, which authorizes over 25 charter schools in Detroit, including networks such as University Prep and Covenant Schools, has reported a drop of roughly 800 students in its city charters since the pandemic began, according to a university spokesperson. That’s nearly a quarter of their enrollment: In the 2018-19 school year, the university’s charters had about 31,000 students.

District’s enrollment strategies are a mix of old and new

During a summer school board meeting, Vitti laid out district efforts to increase enrollment. During the height of COVID-19, DPSCD lost 3,000 students. But with federal relief aid, the district expanded outreach, home visits, and door-to-door canvassing strategies using staff and parent volunteers. Those efforts resulted in a gain of 1,000 students.

Vitti said the primary strategy DPSCD is implementing is its new pre-kindergarten expansion, which will add 17 pre-K classrooms at 12 schools across the city this school year, including Barton Elementary, Garvey Academy, and Nolan Elementary-Middle School. While the district does not offer transportation for pre-K, families can arrange to have their children ride the bus with an older sibling who is eligible for transportation, Vitti said.

During a June board meeting, the superintendent said the district will annually monitor its preschool expansion “over the next three to four years” to determine whether actual enrollment numbers match projections, and whether it sees high reenrollment rates from pre-K to kindergarten. DPSCD’s K-12 enrollment is projected to remain constant next year, according to Vitti, with a potential bump of 335 pre-kindergarten students.

Vitti told BridgeDetroit this month that the district is already seeing growing demand for pre-K classrooms.

“As they move into kindergarten, most DPSCD pre-K families choose to continue their education in the district,” he said. “We’ve also seen that students who participate in our pre-K programs perform better academically. This year, students who were enrolled in our pre-K classes scored higher on math and reading tests in kindergarten than those who did not participate in our pre-K programs. By expanding our pre-K programs, we can engage more families early, find them a home in the district, and help them to build foundational academic and social-emotional skills that support them through their K-12 journey.”

Other methods include continuing with radio, TV, and billboard marketing campaigns as well as canvassing schools with low enrollment, Vitti said.

DPSCD also hosted Back-to-School Expos at dozens of schools, with most offering enrollment opportunities, school tours, food, and games.

Wanda Walker was among the caregivers who attended an expo at Marion Law Academy last month, a K-8 school on Detroit’s east side.

Walker’s 4-year-old great-grandson Noah Walker is a kindergartner at the school, while her 12-year-old granddaughter Autumn Walker recently started seventh grade.

While her grandchildren could have gone to a charter school or a school outside the city, Walker said having Marion Law located across the street from her house makes it convenient.

Detroit’s roughly 100,000 public-school students are widely dispersed across a mix of charters, traditional neighborhood schools, and application schools, with nearly 50% of children attending charter schools. Students from the city are also attending neighboring school districts through Schools of Choice of programs.

Walker said she’s active in the school community as a member of the parent-teacher association and has gotten to know the teachers and families at the school.

“Being a part of the community, I feel like I’m giving back,” said Walker, who is the primary caregiver for her grandchildren.

Major cities nationwide see decline in school enrollment

As of the end of 2022-23, DPSCD had a little more than 48,000 students — down from 51,000 before the pandemic.

Cities across the country, including New York, Chicago, and Denver, have lost enrollment in their public schools, too. This decline may well continue and even accelerate in coming years because of demographic trends, Chalkbeat has reported.

Between the middle of 2020 and 2021, large urban areas experienced a 3.7% decline in the number of children under age 5 and a 1.1% dip in the number of children 5 to 17 years old, according to a 2022 report from the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan public policy organization.

Each year, DPSCD officials share enrollment and attendance data from the first couple weeks of the new school year. These numbers provide an early gauge of enrollment patterns ahead of Michigan’s two official Count Days, in October and February, when the number of students attending school is tallied for the purposes of allocating state funding.

Enrollment numbers can fluctuate over the course of the year as families move into and out of the city, or send their children to different schools, even after initially enrolling in DPSCD. The district’s K-12 enrollment of about 48,000 at the end of last year was about 4,000 below the figure of the start of the year.

Recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau found Detroit lost roughly 8,000 residents from 2021 to 2022 — a figure Mayor Mike Duggan has publicly contested, suggesting the city’s population has been undercounted.

The city’s population decline and decrease in school enrollment affected DPSCD’s budget for this school year, which saw more than 300 job cuts for central office positions and support staff including deans, assistant principals, college transition advisers, school culture facilitators, and kindergarten paraeducators. However, most people in those support staff jobs were able to transfer to a different position in the district.

Vitti said budget cuts were necessary due to many challenges the district is facing in addition to enrollment, such as the end of federal COVID relief funding, increases in employee salaries, health care costs, and inflation.

Canvassers worked through the summer

DPSCD is also targeting schools with low enrollment, such as Carstens Academy of Aquatic Science, Nolan Elementary-Middle School, Mark Twain School for Scholars, and Detroit International Academy for Young Women. The district’s Office of Family and Community Engagement has been leading the canvassing efforts. FACE Assistant Superintendent Sharlonda Buckman said canvassing was a key strategy during the pandemic and one that the department continues to use.

“For us, it’s about maintaining relationships with our families over the summer, giving new families an opportunity to court us, and take a look at all the programs and services that we have to offer and know about the schools in their neighborhoods,” she said.

FACE mainly does canvassing through its annual Summer on the Block series, which has been happening for the last six years, Buckman said. Trained canvassers — DPSCD parents, alumni, partners and neighborhood leaders — host community events at schools to connect students and their families to information throughout the summer and school year. The canvassers go door to door within a 5-mile radius of the host school and are paid $25 an hour over the summer, Buckman said.

FACE also invites agencies to its events to assist families with non-school-related topics such as job opportunities, household resources, and tax information.

This summer, FACE hosted 10 Summer on the Block events and had around 20 canvassers. The department also organized the district’s Kindergarten Boot Camp from June to August. The four-week camps prepare children and parents for kindergarten.

By the end of summer, the district enrolled 5,000 new students, which was 500 more new students than DPSCD had enrolled at the same time last year, Vitti said.

But FACE isn’t all about recruiting new students, Buckman said.

“It’s also about retention,” she said. “It’s about helping our families that we have over the summer with resources. There are a number of families already in that school that we also want to engage with over that summer period.”

Incentivizing staff members to recruit potential families could be a strategy to increase DPSCD enrollment, Vitti said during a July board meeting. Incentives could include bonuses for principals, assistant principals, and teachers if select schools meet a certain percentage of new students, or individual staff members could receive a bonus for recruiting a parent or a student to the district.

“In years past, we have considered different incentives for staff to reach out to families and try to increase enrollment, so that’s something that would have to be bargained,” he said during the meeting, referring to agreements with labor groups. “The best way to increase enrollment is at the school level and so, I think incentivizing at the school level would help in that area.”

However, the incentive plans won’t happen anytime soon, Vitti told BridgeDetroit in an email. He said he doesn’t see it being implemented this school year — at least not for the fall.

Detroit charters find barbecues, word of mouth effective

BridgeDetroit and Chalkbeat Detroit contacted several charter schools in the city, but only one, Detroit Innovation Academy, responded to questions about enrollment.

Principal Marina Hanna said 356 students are enrolled for this school year. That’s a little lower than the 375 students the K-8 school had before the pandemic, but Hanna said the school is enrolling new students daily.

“After COVID, we’ve maintained steady at around 350, and that’s typically because a lot of families now are choosing virtual options,” she said.

The small, West Side school is recruiting new students by hosting events, such as a recent back-to-school barbecue. Hanna said the event gave her a chance to invite academy partners and community members out to tour the school and meet the staff.

Detroit Innovation also attends community events such as the family fun day hosted by the Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance. The school also is working on expanding its social media presence.

But the most effective strategy Hanna has seen has been simple word of mouth.

“Word of mouth is honestly huge for us,” she said. “We’ve built a strong reputation in our community and with our families, so they often refer their friends and their neighbors to join our DIA family.”

Chalkbeat reporter Ethan Bakuli contributed to this story.

Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit, where she covers arts, culture, and education. Contact Micah at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

Correction: September 25, 2023: This story has been updated to correct the number of student enrollees city charters authorized by Grand Valley State University lost since the pandemic began.

IPS superintendent highlights ‘excellent choices for everyone’ in State of the District speech

2023-09-21T01:20:55+00:00

Aleesia Johnson, superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools, said she’s never been as excited for the State of the District speech as she was on Wednesday, when she invited all Indianapolis families to see the options IPS offers.

Her speech touted options available to students, largely through Rebuilding Stronger, the district’s overhaul plan, as the district aims to attract students and families.

The plan was unveiled at the State of the District last year, and this year’s speech is about keeping those promises, she said.

Johnson expressed her gratitude to the Indianapolis community for answering requests from the district including passing a capital referendum, sharing ideas, and giving the district grace and patience as changes were implemented, which included closing and merging some schools.

Johnson called the offerings now available to students “historic.”

“For as long as I can remember, our most exciting and comprehensive offerings were concentrated in neighborhoods that were whiter and wealthier,” she said. “Now, for the first time, every family in our city can access our best stuff. What was once a privilege is now a right.”

Here’s what to know from Johnson’s speech:

IPS is ‘making up ground’

Johnson highlighted the district’s recent academic gains. In 2023, a greater share of the district’s students scored proficient on both the reading and math sections of the state ILEARN test than before the pandemic in 2019. (Passing rates on IREAD declined from 62.8% last year to 60.6% this year.)

“While much of the country is still experiencing major academic setbacks, we at IPS are already making up ground. We now have a greater share of students at or above pre-pandemic performance in both reading and math, and we’re the only district in Marion County that can make that claim,” she said. “This is a nationally significant achievement.”

Additionally, Johnson said the graduation rate has grown to 80%, which cut in half the gap between IPS and the state graduation rate, which was 86.61% in 2022.

That is “a direct reflection of the work our team began in 2018 to reinvent our high schools and transition to college and career pathways,” she said.

District extends an invite to ‘every family in Indianapolis’

Every family with school-age children will receive an invitation in the mail, Johnson said. That invitation, expected in two weeks, asks families to “choose your IPS” that is “tailored to your child’s needs, interests, and hopes.”

In addition to the mailer, Johnson said IPS will have a “showcase of schools” in early November where all schools will be open for families to visit. Plus, school staff will reach out to current families to answer questions; there will also be open houses and information sessions.

This “whole new chapter” is the payoff for doing hard things as part of the district’s reorganization, she said. And it’s ending ways that “reinforced old patterns of haves and have-nots, of segregation, of intentional disinvestment.”

“Every family in Indianapolis is invited,” she said. “Every family.”

Offerings reflect that students’ ‘talent is everywhere’

Johnson said options available to students previously varied from neighborhood to neighborhood, meaning some students and families were left out.

“The way we did it before would have made perfect sense — if all the future violinists were born in one neighborhood, and all the computer coders in another,” she said. “But I’m pretty sure talent is everywhere so we need to make sure opportunity is as well.”

The new approach includes more pre-K options and more high-demand instructional models for elementary school such as Montessori, dual language immersion, and others. For older kids, all middle school students now have access to band and orchestra, world language, algebra I, computer science, and music, she said. This is a change from the past, when not all schools offered these programs.

At the high school level, options continue, Johnson said, listing choices from “Law and Public Safety to Media Arts and Design to Computer Science and Advanced Manufacturing.”

Plus, she said programs in health care, IT and cybersecurity set students up for internships, industry certifications, and dual credit programs.

Beyond academics, Johnson said athletic offerings are expanding, including girls flag football at all four district-managed high schools as well as more elementary and middle school sports camps and clinics next year.

Investments also include updated buildings – by the end of September, 30 schools will have updated HVAC systems and design work is underway for other buildings, she said.

Nearly $100 million of capital referendum projects will be facilitated by a minority-, women-, or veteran-owned business, she added.

Johnson looks to the future needs

While Wednesday’s speech largely centered on touting exciting parts of the future, Johnson said she knows she’ll likely have speeches where she’ll have to make tough asks.

She also acknowledged that she’d likely have to make more tough requests of the community. And she called for the community to come together more for students.

She noted that resources are needed for students who are non-native English-speaking learners, students with disabilities, and 3- and 4-year-old early learners.

“We can invest in solutions that make it possible for working parents to support their families while their children learn,” she said, adding that investing in students is also investing in a strong economy of the future.

“It’ll take all of us, fighting for what our students need. But there are solutions and, together, we have them,” Johnson said. “Indianapolis has shown me that time and time again.”

Chalkbeat reporter Aleksandra Appleton contributed to this article.

MJ Slaby oversees Chalkbeat Indiana’s coverage as bureau chief and covers higher education. Contact MJ at mslaby@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago Public Schools enrollment is stable for first time in more than a decade

2023-09-20T02:26:40+00:00

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Enrollment in Chicago Public Schools is flat for the first time in more than a decade, according to preliminary data obtained by Chalkbeat.

New preliminary numbers for this school year show just over 322,500 students are registered at CPS schools. The data represents enrollment as of the end of the day Monday, the 20th day of the school year, when the district traditionally takes its official count. On the 20th day of last school year, 322,106 students were enrolled according to official data.

CPS enrollment has been in decline for 12 years, so this year’s shift is significant.

In the past decade, the district’s student body shrunk by 20%, with the district seeing multiple year-over-year declines of roughly 10,000 students. The dramatic contraction began after the 2011-12 school year, which was the last year CPS saw a bump in enrollment, from 402,681 to 404,151 students. Last year, Chicago lost its standing as the nation’s third largest district.

Enrollment now appears to be leveling off in Chicago. In the past year, the city has welcomed thousands of migrant families from the southern border and in July, a top mayoral aide suggested that newcomers were boosting enrollment in schools.

A district spokesperson, however, said enrollment changes are due to multiple reasons and cautioned against attributing the shifts to “any one group of students.”

“We will offer more analysis and context to our enrollment figures later this month,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said in a statement. “We are honored and privileged to serve each and every student.”

It’s too early to tell if this is the start of a new trend, said Elaine Allensworth, who studies education policy and is Lewis-Sebring Director of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.

“If it’s just a one-time pause in the trends of declining enrollment, it might not have a big overall long-term effect, but it’s really just hard to say right now since we don’t know what will happen in the future,” Allensworth said.

Thinning enrollment was driven by factors such as dipping birth rates and other population changes. With the onset of the pandemic, districts across the country enrolled fewer students, with more than 33,000 students falling off Chicago’s rolls since the fall of 2020.

Shrinking schools have left CPS officials and mayors to contend with how to best fund classrooms, especially as student needs grew during the pandemic. Enrollment has long been a determining factor for how much state and federal money a district gets. Mayor Brandon Johnson has been an outspoken critic of tying enrollment to funding, but past mayors have funded schools within CPS based on how many kids they serve.

Even with fewer students, the district’s budget has grown to $9.4 billion. That’s roughly flat compared to last year’s budget, but up from a decade ago when it hovered around $6 billion. A new state funding formula and a wave of pandemic recovery money have helped offset enrollment declines. Though state money is increasing, the district has recently seen fewer dollars than expected due to lower enrollment and increased property wealth.

According to preliminary enrollment data analyzed by Chalkbeat, there are 5,767 more students learning English as a new language this school year than last year. That’s a sizable jump: CPS has historically enrolled an average of 3,000 new English learners annually, a district spokesperson said.

CPS officials said they do not track immigration status of students. They have pointed to the growth in English language learners as one sign of newcomers, but emphasized that not all English language learners are newcomers.

The district enrolls migrant students in three ways. First, like any student, migrant children can enroll directly at schools. They can also make an appointment at the city’s new welcome center housed inside Roberto Clemente Community Academy High School on the West Side.

Finally, enrollment teams are going to families’ homes, after receiving information from the city’s Department of Family and Support Services about those in need of help who can’t make it to the welcome center, said Karime Asaf, chief of the district’s Office of Language and Cultural Education.

Schools across the district have historically struggled to meet state regulations for providing proper support for English learners. When finding a school with the right program for English learners, officials try to stay within a two-mile radius of the child’s home, Asaf said.

Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, which provides extra support for kids and families at a handful of Southwest Side schools as part of the district’s sustainable community schools initiative, said they’ve noticed an increase in migrant families among the parents they serve who don’t have stable housing.

Last year, the organization placed a case manager part-time at a high school in Back of the Yards that needed extra help with parents as they enrolled more migrant students, said Sara Reschly, deputy director of the group’s community services division.

At Brighton Park Elementary School, case manager Lupe Fernandez said newcomer families currently have very basic needs, such as undergarments and help navigating the CTA. The school is planning to create a free “closet” where families can pick up things they need for free.

“If there are schools that have those strong community partnerships, you know, like that would be a place to start because then you can wrap services around the whole family,” Reschly said.

Asaf, with the district, said they are processing more school transfers among newcomers as those families find new homes or more permanent housing.

Preliminary data analyzed by Chalkbeat show this school year, nearly a quarter of Chicago Public Schools students are learning English as a new language — a figure that trumps other large districts. For example, 14% of students in New York City public schools, the nation’s largest district, were English learners last school year.

The preliminary data signals the continuation of another trend over the past decade: a decline in the share of students from low-income households. Preliminary data indicate that number is 67%, down from 73% last school year.

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

Applying to Chicago Public Schools? Here’s a guide to the 2024-25 application process.

2023-09-13T15:22:45+00:00

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It’s that time of year again: Chicago Public Schools opened its application Wednesday for elementary and high school seats for the 2024-25 school year with a deadline of Nov. 9 — about a month earlier than usual.

Families use the application for entry to a variety of schools, including selective test-in schools and neighborhood schools outside of their attendance boundaries. Sixth graders can also use the application for seven advanced middle school programs.

For high schools, there are several changes to this year’s admissions process:

The High School Admissions Test, or HSAT, will last an hour instead of the previous 2 ½ hours. This shorter test “allows CPS to get the information needed on student performance for the admissions process while helping reduce anxiety for students and increasing accessibility,” a district spokesperson said.
In addition to English, the HSAT this year will also be offered in Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, Urdu, and Polish.
The district has created a single admissions scoring rubric for all programs. Previously, there were multiple rubrics.
High schools will no longer have additional admissions requirements, such as interviews, essays, or letters of recommendation. Such a requirement “added to the complexity of the process and was burdensome for families,” according to a district spokesperson.

Students will find out their HSAT score in mid-November. After that, students can re-rank the programs they chose in GoCPS until 5 p.m. November 22, district officials said.

About half of elementary school students attend a school outside of their neighborhood, and roughly 70% of high schoolers do the same.

For the second year, families of preschoolers won’t have to apply until the spring. The city is working toward providing universal preschool for 4-year-olds. Last year, officials said there were enough seats for all children who wanted one.

For elementary school and the middle school programs, families can apply online or over the phone. For high school, they can also submit a paper application. Most charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed, can also be applied to through GoCPS and students are offered spots via lottery.

The application process for all students, which can involve ranking school choices and taking entrance exams, can be cumbersome for many families to navigate. The later application deadline “may catch people off guard,” said Grace Lee Sawin, co-founder of Chicago School GPS, an organization that helps families navigate admissions.

“I think that will throw off a lot of people who think they had the month of November” to explore their options, Sawin said.

In recent years, CPS has extended the application deadline. Results are expected to be released next spring. The district will hold weekly online informational sessions about GoCPS in English and Spanish starting Sept. 19 at 9 a.m. The sessions will continue until early November. Families should register online here.

Here’s what you need to know.

Families can apply to several types of Chicago elementary schools

Families can use the application for entry into several types of elementary schools.

They can select up to 20 magnets and neighborhood schools outside of their own attendance boundaries. Families can also choose from more competitive, selective enrollment schools, which require a test to get in. Those include the city’s gifted programs and classical schools, both of which offer more accelerated curriculum.

The tests can be scheduled once you submit your application. For these schools, families can choose up to six programs. Families can choose up to three gifted centers that are specifically for English learners.

For neighborhood schools, families don’t have to rank their choices, since they will be entered into the lottery for each program on their list and may get multiple offers.

For the test-in schools, applicants must rank their choices. They are eligible if they score high enough on the entrance exams, but the district does not publish what the cutoff scores are. Thirty percent of seats are reserved for the highest scorers. The remaining offers go to the highest scorers across four socioeconomic tiers that are based on where students live, as an effort by the district to more equitably admit children to selective schools.

Each city neighborhood is assigned to one of four tiers, with the first tier representing the lowest-income areas, along with other factors, such as less education attainment. (You can look up your tier using this map.)

Students who choose magnet programs are entered into a lottery. Schools set aside remaining seats for students from each tier. There are also preferences given to siblings and in some cases, students who live within a certain proximity to the magnet school.

CPS offers admission to 7 accelerated middle school programs

Sixth graders can use the elementary application to apply to the city’s seven Academic Centers, which offer accelerated middle school programs. They are located inside of high schools — some of which are the city’s selective programs, such as Whitney Young — allowing these middle schoolers to take high school level courses.

Students must have at least a 2.5 GPA to apply and must take an entrance exam that can be scheduled through GoCPS. They can choose up to six school options, and must rank their selections. Students are admitted based on their score, with the highest scorers offered seats first. Last year’s cutoff scores can be found here.

All 8th graders encouraged to apply for a variety of Chicago high schools

The first step for eighth graders seeking a high school seat is taking the high school admissions test, or HSAT.

Due to a change last year, the exam is now given in school to all eighth graders at the same time. This year it’s scheduled for Oct. 11. Private school students can take the test on Oct. 14, 15, or 21, according to the district’s website.

Students can enroll in their neighborhood high school or they can use the application to rank up to 20 other high school programs. Schools may have multiple programs, such as one in fine arts and another in world language.

While many of these schools admit students via lottery, they may also have various preferences, such as for kids who live within the attendance boundary or those who earned higher math scores.

Students can also choose from the city’s 11 selective enrollment programs and can rank up to six of them. These schools are more competitive and admit students based on a rubric that includes their HSAT results and their GPA. Last school year, the first 30% of seats went to students with the highest scores on the rubric. The rest of the seats are split up among the highest scoring students across the four socioeconomic tiers. Last year’s cut scores for selective enrollment schools can be found here and for other high schools, they can be found here.

Selective enrollment schools have been criticized for enrolling larger shares of affluent, white, and Asian American students versus Black and Latino students who make up more than 82% of the district. Officials promised to overhaul the system last year in order to make it more equitable, but none of the promised changes have been made.

Students can receive up to two offers — one each for selective enrollment and CHOICE. If they get just one offer, CPS will automatically add them to waitlists at schools they ranked higher than where they got in. If the student doesn’t receive any offers, they can join waitlists for schools they want to attend or they enroll in their neighborhood school.

What is the application process for children with disabilities?

Students with disabilities can apply to any program. No matter which school they end up in, the district is legally required to provide any services that a student may need, according to their Individualized Education Program, or IEP.

For admissions exams, students should be afforded any testing accommodations listed on their 504 plans or IEPs, according to the FAQ page.

However, students with disabilities may face a more complicated school assignment process. For example, if a child is physically impaired and is offered a seat at a magnet elementary program that is not accessible, the district will offer transportation to a “comparable” magnet program that has the proper accommodations, according to a district FAQ about the admissions process.

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

Denver school board wants public feedback on proposed school closure, declining enrollment policies

2023-09-11T23:13:08+00:00

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Rather than closing schools with enrollment below a set number of students, the Denver school board is considering a new approach. A pair of policy proposals would cap enrollment at some schools, adjust attendance boundaries, and set other rules and a timeline for school closures.

The goal is to be more transparent and equitable in deciding which schools to close in the face of declining enrollment in Denver Public Schools. But the policies wouldn’t stop the closures. A district analysis found that achieving the enrollment levels envisioned in one of the proposals would require the district to have 15 fewer elementary schools than it has now.

Earlier this year, the board balked at closing more than three.

The Denver school board is inviting feedback on the two proposals during the public comment portion of its meeting Sept. 18, but it has not yet set a date to vote.

Some board members said they’re eager to get a policy in writing after a flawed school closure process this past spring. Others want to take it slow.

“We need to be very, very cautious moving forward here and not move too quickly, and take into consideration what the potential unintended consequences are,” board member Scott Esserman said at a school board work session last week.

One of the proposed policies, known officially as Executive Limitation 18, says school closure decisions should not be based on a school’s low test scores or low enrollment.

Instead, it says the superintendent should “propose schools for consolidation and unification that equitably distributes the burden of declining enrollment across all of Denver.”

A proposed timeline would have the superintendent announce any schools recommended for closure in September. The board would invite public feedback from families at those schools in November and then vote in January, a much longer timeline than happened this year. Students impacted by school closures would have priority enrollment into all other district-run and charter schools in DPS, the proposed Executive Limitation 18 says.

In the past, nearly all of the public feedback has been against closing schools. But the proposed policy makes clear that closures are coming.

“Due to the declining enrollment expected for at least five more years, the Board of Education believes it is necessary to consolidate and unify schools to maintain the financial viability of the district,” the proposed Executive Limitation 18 says.

The other proposed policy, known as Executive Limitation 19, would require the superintendent to maintain “financially stable enrollment” at each elementary school. The proposal defines that as enrollment of “300 students (two classes of 25 students per grade), 450 students (three classes of 25 students per grade), or 600 students (four classes of 25 students per grade).”

Enrollment at any elementary school should not exceed 600 students, the proposed policy says. Board members have said that capping enrollment at popular elementary schools could bolster enrollment at smaller schools that are losing students. Executive Limitation 19 also proposes the superintendent analyze and adjust school boundaries every four years or less.

Four DPS elementary schools had more than 600 students last school year, according to state data. Thirty-six elementary or K-8 schools had fewer than 300 students, the data shows.

In order for each DPS elementary school to have at least 300 students by the year 2027, DPS would need “15 fewer elementary schools across the system,” according to a memo from DPS officials in charge of finance and enrollment to Superintendent Alex Marrero.

Having 15 fewer elementary schools could save DPS $14 million, the memo says, which could be “reinvested in other programming, compensation for educators, and other expenses to improve the student experience within DPS.”

But to achieve that, the proposed Executive Limitation 18 says DPS should “not use enrollment minimums (e.g., 215 students) as bright line criteria for consolidation.

“Schools of any enrollment size are eligible for consolidation,” it says.

The two proposed policies were first floated in April, a month after the board voted to close three DPS schools with very low enrollment. The process was full of fits and starts, with the board rejecting the superintendent’s initial school closure recommendations and then reversing itself four months later with only a day’s notice to the public.

Proposed Executive Limitation 18 acknowledges that most under-enrolled DPS schools serve a disproportionate number of students of color, students from low-income families, students learning English as a second language, and students with disabilities.

It says DPS should hold regional meetings “to help inform and co-create future recommendations for addressing declining enrollment.” The meetings should convey information about demographic trends in the region, as well as “the positive implications of proceeding and the negative implications of not proceeding” with school closures, it says.

DPS schools are funded per pupil, and schools with low enrollment often have to cut art or music programs or combine different grades into a single classroom.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit school district enrollment figures dip as year begins

2023-09-11T22:28:57+00:00

Early attendance and enrollment data show a steady decline in the number of students in the Detroit school district, adding to pandemic-related enrollment losses.

About 51,600 K-12 students were enrolled in the Detroit Public Schools Community District as of Friday, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said at a school board academic committee meeting Monday. That’s down from about 52,300 at this time last year, and roughly 53,000 students at the start of the 2021-22 school year, according to district reports.

Of the 51,600 enrollees, roughly 88%, or just over 45,000 students, had attended school for at least one day; a year earlier, that figure was 47,000, or about 90%.

“As of right now, I’m not concerned by these numbers,” Vitti told committee members Monday, noting that two early dismissals last week for extreme heat affected the 2023-24 attendance numbers.

“I think this week will give a better indicator of where we are,” he said.

The school year began Aug. 28.

Enrollment numbers can fluctuate over the course of the year as families move into and out of the city, or send their children to different schools, even after initially enrolling in DPSCD. At the end of last school year, K-12 enrollment was 48,000, well below the figure of the start of the year, and down about 2,000 students from before the pandemic.

Improving student attendance and enrollment has been a major priority for officials in DPSCD and districts across Michigan, especially in recent years given the pandemic’s impact. The district used part of its federal COVID relief aid to expand its family outreach and door-to-door canvassing initiatives.

But as that aid dries up, DPSCD plans to spend less money this year on enrollment strategies. Instead, it will use a smaller budget to market specific schools with available seats and promote the district through school employees and families.

DPSCD’s average daily attendance and chronic absenteeism figures improved last year, inching toward pre-pandemic figures.

In 2022-23, the district’s average daily attendance rate was 81.6%, up from 76% the year before, compared with 83.1% before the pandemic. The chronic absenteeism rate was 68% at the end of the last school year, down from 77% the year before.

But that still means more than two-thirds of DPSCD students missed 10% or more of the school year.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

5 things we’re watching this school year in NYC

2023-09-07T10:00:00+00:00

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More than 900,000 New York City public school students are slated to resume classes on Thursday with the customary mix of excitement, jitters, and joy.

In recent years, one acute crisis after another has overshadowed the start of classes, from chaotic efforts to restart in-person classes during the height of the pandemic to a bruising battle over budget cuts and an influx of asylum seekers that began last summer.

This year is proving to be no exception in the nation’s largest district: Families and educators are bracing for a school bus driver strike that could affect some 80,000 students, including many of the city’s most vulnerable. Union officials promised that the first week of service would not be interrupted, but the threat of a strike still looms.

Climate-related issues also affected this year’s start, just as they impacted the end of last school year. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for Thursday, forcing schools to limit outdoor activities between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m, school officials said.

But it’s not just acute challenges facing the city as the school year resumes.

Thorny long-term enrollment and budget issues that have been simmering for years could also come to a head this year with a fiscal cliff looming.

It will also be a pivotal school year for schools Chancellor David Banks, as his signature initiative to overhaul literacy instruction starts rolling out.

Here are five big issues we’ll be watching closely as this critical school year begins:

Asylum seekers continue arriving

The influx of asylum seekers to New York City that began last summer has shown no signs of abating. The Education Department has enrolled an estimated 21,000 newly arrived students since last summer, including 2,500 since this July.

There’s plenty of room in city schools: K-12 enrollment has fallen by more than 120,000 over the past five years.

And educators and families across the city have mobilized over the last year to welcome the newcomers with everything from basic needs to language support.

But lingering challenges continue to undercut the city’s efforts to support the newcomers, starting with gaps in the process for quickly enrolling them in school.

And once they arrive, many won’t attend schools with bilingual teachers. A report last year from the Independent Budget Office found that under half of the schools that enrolled asylum seekers last year had a certified bilingual teacher on staff, reflecting a long-running shortage.

Banks has said new efforts are in the works to step up recruitment of bilingual teachers.

A fiscal cliff looms

New York City schools have been profoundly reshaped by an infusion of $7 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds meant to help school districts climb out from under the shadow of the pandemic. Among the big ticket items entirely or largely funded by that money are:

Summer Rising, the city’s free summer school program combining recreation and academics for roughly 100,000 kids each of the last three summers. The program has proven so popular that 45,000 families were turned away this year.
500 new social workers spread across the city to help address mounting mental health challenges.
A program to shore up school budgets after enrollment losses. Prior to the pandemic, when schools lost students, their budgets were slashed accordingly. But the city has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid to blunt the impact of those budget cuts.

All of those programs and more will be on the chopping block next school year, since the federal relief money must be spent by October 2024. That will likely spur some fierce and thorny battles over prioritizing existing money, or finding new sources of funding.

Banks’ signature initiative takes off

Banks has largely defined his tenure around a single goal: improving the teaching of literacy.

At the center of that goal is a sweeping initiative to overhaul the curriculum that schools use to teach reading in an effort to standardize practices across schools and abandon approaches that have been increasingly discredited. Fifteen of the city’s 32 community school districts will start this year using one of the three new pre-approved curriculum options, with the rest following next year.

But mandating new curriculums is just the first step. Changing something as deeply ingrained as how schools teach reading will require buy-in from staff and ongoing supervision and training. Officials have promised a robust training plan, but recently scrapped the department’s large in-house literacy coaching program and have so far largely outsourced professional development to curriculum publishers and other outside groups.

It’s not just elementary literacy in Banks’ crosshairs: the Education Department is also mandating a ninth-grade algebra curriculum at some high schools, as well as an early childhood curriculum, and First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said Wednesday that the agency plans to look “very, very closely” at the curriculums used in all core classes across all grades in the coming years.

Teachers: We want to hear from you about what kind of training you are receiving — and need — to effectively use the new curriculum.

Enrollment and attendance challenges linger

The influx of asylum seekers over the past year helped slow the enrollment bleeding, but the long-term trends are unmistakable: New York City’s public schools are losing students.

The reasons are complex, including a drop in young students entering school during the pandemic, and a surge in families leaving New York City for more affordable destinations.

But the impact for the school system is profound. As of last year, the Education Department had 201 schools with fewer than 200 students. That’s more than twice the number of tiny schools 15 years earlier.

Since school budgets are largely tied to enrollment, ultra-small schools often struggle to offer enough courses and extracurricular variety to function. In the long run, there will likely be increasing pressure on the city to consider closures or mergers.

It’s not just enrollment patterns reducing the number of children in city schools on any given day: Chronic absenteeism has also spiked, jumping from an average of around 25% before the pandemic to 36% last school year (down slightly from 41% the year before), officials said. Chronic absenteeism is closely linked to adverse academic outcomes, and the city’s efforts to improve attendance could be a core part of efforts to recover from pandemic losses.

NYC students, staff face ongoing academic, emotional challenges

The ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and disrupted years of schooling continue to reverberate, touching everything from standardized test scores, to elevated levels of absenteeism, to teachers’ and students’ mental health, to spikes in youth violence.

The city has launched a grab bag of both big ticket and smaller scale programs to address those sweeping challenges, some of which will be at risk when federal stimulus money expires next year.

But others are still getting off the ground, including a telehealth initiative to expand therapy access to teenagers. Banks said Wednesday that the program will roll out by the end of 2023 and will be free and open to all city teenagers ages 13 to 17.

In many ways, all of the city’s big educational initiatives, from the literacy curriculum overhaul to efforts to preempt and prevent youth violence can be seen through the lens of addressing the lingering scars of the pandemic — and recovery remains a core challenge for the school system.

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

Chicago Public Schools is becoming less low-income. Here’s why that matters.

2023-09-06T22:09:52+00:00

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About six years ago, Lori Zaimi’s daughter told her mom that another longtime friend was leaving their elementary school in Edgewater on the North Side. The friend’s apartment building, she explained, had been sold to someone who was going to renovate it.

Zaimi recognized the familiar story of gentrification, when higher-income families move into a working class neighborhood and drive up property values. She’d seen property demolitions and pricey single family housing go up across Edgewater, the formerly working class neighborhood where she grew up.

She has also seen the impact in her daughter’s school, where Zaimi became principal in 2015. These days, she said, rent is “unaffordable for many of our families.”

A decade ago, nearly 73% of students at the school, Helen C. Peirce School of International Studies, came from low-income households, according to district data. Last school year, that figure was just over 34%.

Zaimi’s school is not alone. Ten years ago, 85% of Chicago Public Schools students came from low-income households. Now, that figure is 73% — a 12 percentage point drop — according to district data from the 2022-23 school year. Chicago Public Schools considers a student “economically disadvantaged” if their family’s income is within 185% of the federal poverty line. This year, that threshold is $55,500 or less for a family of four.

The drop, experts say, is driven by several factors, including gentrification, population and enrollment shifts, as well as a potential dissatisfaction with district schools.

Even though the number of students from low-income families has dropped, nearly three-quarters of the district’s student body is still considered “economically disadvantaged.” But if the downward trend continues, Chicago schools could continue to see fewer dollars than expected from the state, which funds districts in part by considering how many students from low-income families are enrolled.

For individual schools, such as Peirce, the decline has led to the loss of Title I money, federal dollars sent to schools with high shares of low-income students. But as the school has become more mixed-income, it has also become more racially diverse: Last school year, Peirce was 47% white and 32% Hispanic, compared to 17% white and 62% Hispanic 10 years ago.

As the district enrolls a smaller share of students from low-income households, Chicago’s schools continue to look different from how they did a decade ago, especially in rapidly changing neighborhoods. That shift raises questions about who schools are serving, how they should be resourced, and what the district — and the city — can do as it continues to lose students.

Low-income drops happening across Chicago, but steeper in some neighborhoods

Peirce is one of more than 200 schools that have seen their share of students from low-income families drop by more than the districtwide decline of 12 percentage points, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of the district’s public school enrollment data from the 2022-23 school year.

The analysis of the past decade also found:

While overall enrollment has also fallen, it’s still outpaced by the loss of students from low-income families. The district enrolled 31% fewer students from low-income families than in 2013, as the district’s overall enrollment dipped by 20%.
When looking at neighborhoods, schools in Lincoln Square and Irving Park, on the North Side, and West Elsdon, on the Southwest Side, saw a median 20 percentage point drop or more in students from low-income households since 2013. That’s more than any other community area.
Nine of the top 10 schools that lost the largest shares of students from low-income households were located on the North Side, across gentrifying neighborhoods.
Half of them enrolled more children last school year than they did 10 years ago, bucking citywide trends.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, 73 schools saw increases in their share of students from low-income families. One-third are on the South and West sides — regions that have also lost the most residents between 1999 and 2020, according to a 2022 report from UIC.

CPS officials use two methods to find out which students are from low-income households. They automatically count students who receive certain government aid meant for low-income families, such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. And they collect forms handed out at the start of the school year that ask families to report their income, which in the past helped the district determine students who qualified for free or reduced price lunch.

In 2014, CPS became eligible for the federal universal free meals program for districts that serve at least 40% students from low-income families. With less pressure on schools to collect the forms, which are not mandatory, some have suggested that the district may be collecting fewer of them, potentially skewing the data about low-income families.

A CPS spokesperson said it could be “one of several reasons” behind the drop in the district’s share of low-income students. However, district officials declined to share the rate at which forms have been returned over the past decade, instead asking Chalkbeat to file an open records request for that information.

There’s some evidence that those forms do not get filled out, particularly among new students, said Elaine Allensworth, who studies education policy and is Lewis-Sebring Director of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research.

In the 2014-15 school year, 86% of preschoolers and 81% of kindergartners were listed as coming from low-income families, on par with children in other grades, district data show. The next school year, after the district became federally eligible for universal free lunch, around 62% of preschool and kindergarten students came from low-income families, while figures in older grades shifted just a couple percentage points from the previous year.

“That says to me new families that are coming into CPS are not signing up for free lunch,” Allensworth said, who added that population shifts are also a likely contributing factor.

The current data for early grades could also signal that CPS is likely to see its low-income population decline further. Last school year, nearly one-quarter of preschoolers and close to half of kindergarteners were from low-income families, compared to more than three-quarters of students in nearly all of the older grades.

Multiple principals told Chalkbeat they don’t believe missing paperwork is a big contributor — or that it is a factor at all — since their funding heavily relies on collecting those forms.

Another factor in the drop of low-income students could be a slight uptick in families seeking out private schools. Of Chicago’s low-income families, 10% were enrolled in private school in 2021 — an increase of 3 percentage points from 2019, according to an analysis of Census data by Jose Pacas, chief of data science and research at Kids First Chicago. That’s after little change since 2012, the last time there was a similar increase.

That coincides with the COVID pandemic when CPS switched to virtual learning, as well as the launch of Illinois’ tax credit scholarship program, which began in the 2018-19 school year. The program grants tax credits to people who fund scholarships for low-income students who want to attend private schools. That program is expected to sunset this year.

Some low-income parents, like Blaire Flowers, say they’re frustrated with the lack of good school options available in the neighborhoods they can afford to live in. Her daughter takes two buses to a charter high school miles away from their home in Austin on the West Side because Flowers wasn’t able to find a school she liked in their own neighborhood.

West Side parent Blaire Flowers, pictured in the center, is surrounded by four of her five children.

The mother of five also fears that CPS won’t provide her 4-year-old son who has autism with an adequate education. She’s already struggled to secure bus transportation for him this year, and she’s heard frustrations from parents of older students with disabilities who have had trouble securing services they’re entitled to.

If Flowers left Chicago, she’d follow in the footsteps of many friends and family members, some who found the city too expensive, she said.

“Everyone I know, that I was close to, has left the city,” Flowers said.

As neighborhoods gentrify, schools face stark choices

The demographic changes in Chicago Public Schools are largely a reflection of a changing city, experts said.

From 2010 to 2020, Chicago’s population grew by 2%. The median household income also grew by more than $20,000, according to U.S. Census estimates. But during that time, the school district saw enrollment decline by 60,000 students. In recent years, the city’s population has dipped by 3%, driven in part by an exodus of working class families.

“The share of working class families in Chicago is decreasing with time, as its industry and economy shifts toward white collar jobs that skew upper class, college educated,” said William Scarborough, the lead author of the UIC report, who is now an associate professor of sociology at the University of North Texas.

School closings, including the mass closures under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, may have also pushed some working-class families to leave the city if they lost a beloved neighborhood school, Scarborough added. More people left the majority Black census tracts that experienced those 2013 school closures versus similar areas that did not, according to a WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times investigation.

As schools lost students, some principals doubled down on enrolling the kids who lived in their neighborhood.

That’s what happened at Alexander Hamilton Elementary School in Lake View on the North Side, which saw one of the biggest drops in the share of students from low-income families. In 2013, Hamilton enrolled nearly 40% of children from low-income households, according to district data. That dropped to roughly 9% last school year.

James Gray, who was the principal from 2009-17, inherited an enrollment crisis when he took over Hamilton, which had narrowly escaped closure. The school enrolled 243 students when he arrived – roughly half of the almost 500 it served in 1999. He set out on what he called a “guerrilla effort” to sign up more neighborhood children, offering tours of the school, hosting weekend events and open houses, and even venturing to the park to chat up parents of toddlers — or potential future students.

Gray was successful. By the time he left, enrollment had jumped back up to about 480 students. He noticed that his students were increasingly coming from wealthier families. They were also more white. But that’s who lived in the neighborhood.

In 2013, the school was 47% white, 12% Black, 30% Hispanic and 4% Asian. Last school year, 73% of students were white — on par with the racial makeup of Lake View — while just 3% were Black, just under 13% were Hispanic, and nearly 4% were Asian American. (Hamilton’s current principal did not respond to a request for an interview.)

Though the shifts at individual schools can be stark, the racial breakdown districtwide has only changed slightly. As of last school year, the district’s students were 4% Asian American, 11% white, 36% Black, and 46.5% Hispanic. Ten years ago, 3% were Asian American, 9% were white, 40.5% were Black, and close to 45% were Hispanic.

Research has shown that students in diverse schools, both socioeconomically and racially, perform better academically than schools that are not integrated.

At the same time, families who become the minority may not feel as included or even shut out from their schools. As more neighborhood white families enrolled at Hamilton, Gray said, he received an anonymous note that said he had “driven Black and brown families away.”

It also stung when former students would visit and notice improvements at the school — bankrolled, in part, by parent fundraising efforts — such as new hoops and backboards in the gym and a new science lab.

They would say some version of, “Oh Mr. Gray, I wish you could have done this while I was here,” he recalled.

“They realized their experience was different from the kindergarteners or first graders’ experience over time,” Gray said.

While the demographic shifts have led to more income and racial diversity at some schools, that diversity could be fleeting as gentrification continues to push longtime neighborhood families out.

John-Jairo Betancur, professor of urban planning and policy at UIC, said as property values “dramatically” increase, families — and their children — leave for other neighborhoods or the suburbs, causing enrollment in the local schools to drop. At the same time, birth rates are declining in Chicago and more households do not include children, Betancur noted.

That has happened in Logan Square, home to Lorenz Brentano Math & Science Academy elementary school.

Similar to Hamilton, Brentano was at risk of closure due to low enrollment in 2013. Principal Seth Lavin’s priority when he became principal in 2015 was to bring in more students. He, too, was successful through various efforts, giving more than 100 school tours his first year, he said.

Today, the school enrolls almost 700 children, a 62% increase from a decade ago. But the school looks different. Roughly 39% of students come from low-income households, a nearly 50 percentage point drop from 2013 when 88% did. The school has also become more diverse: Half of Brentano’s students are Hispanic, just over a third are white, and about 5% are Black. A decade ago, 85% of students were Hispanic, while 5% were white, and 4% were Black.

Lavin said he is worried that gentrification has already “pushed out a lot of families” and will continue to do so, leading to a “great sense of loss” for families who have long called Logan Square home, and believe Brentano is at the heart of their community.

“It’s heartbreaking that even as we grow, and there’s expansion and the programming and things we didn’t have before that we’re able to get because of enrollment growth, that we’re losing families that should have those things, too,” Lavin said.

‘We have to keep kids in neighborhoods’

Lavin can spot six buildings outside of Brentano that have been renovated and hiked up rent prices in the last several years. He said the city “desperately” needs affordable housing and a pathway to home ownership.

“If we want to keep kids in neighborhood schools, we have to keep kids in neighborhoods,” he said.

Mayor Brandon Johnson has said that building more affordable housing and boosting neighborhood schools are priorities for his administration. Specifically, the mayor wants to grow the district’s Sustainable Community Schools model, which provides extra money for wraparound support and programming.

Separately, Johnson’s vision for school funding would alleviate pressure on principals to enroll more children in order to have a well-resourced school, or even to avoid closure. Though in the past more students meant more funding, CPS officials have been shifting toward funding schools based on need, not just enrollment. But that comes as the district stares down financial challenges, including a fiscal cliff as COVID relief dollars are set to run out.

If the city does nothing to address issues such as affordable housing, Chicago will shift toward “a city that primarily serves elites,” said Scarborough, the author of the UIC report.

District officials have not yet researched the trend around losing students from low-income families, a spokesperson said.

But many principals have noticed these shifts for years.

Even with how her community has changed, Zaimi’s school has two counselors and more staff focused on academic intervention. Still, she wishes she had more funding to hire a parent resource coordinator who could work with families, as well as instructional coaches who could help new teachers or those using new strategies in the classroom.

After all, she emphasized, her students have a lot of needs, regardless of their income. And, last year, more than one-third — about 370 — came from low-income families. That’s larger than the enrollment of entire schools in Chicago.

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

Thomas Wilburn is the senior data editor for Chalkbeat. Reach Thomas at twilburn@chalkbeat.org.

As asylum seekers continue arriving in NYC, some face school enrollment delays

2023-08-29T23:06:57+00:00

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As scores of asylum-seeking families continue arriving in New York City, the city’s efforts to quickly enroll their children in public schools are often failing to keep pace, according to families, advocates, and education department staffers.

The mammoth task of managing the new arrivals’ school enrollment has been hampered by insufficient staffing, inexperienced shelter operators, and gaps in language access, people familiar with the process said.

That’s left some families waiting weeks for school placements or without seats at all yet, sparking concerns that some kids won’t have their school plans finalized by the start of classes on Sept. 7, and that schools won’t have adequate time to prepare for new students before the year begins.

“Even prior to all this there was a tremendous need” for education department staffers working directly in homeless shelters to help families with school-related issues, said Jennifer Pringle, a project director at Advocates for Children, an organization that advocates for children in shelters, among other groups.

Advocates for Children had pushed the education department to hire 150 full-time shelter-based staffers before the influx of asylum seekers began, and last year, the city committed to hiring 100. But advocates say that number is insufficient to address the current needs.

“You’ve opened dozens and dozens of new shelters with no additional staff,” Pringle said. “To me, it’s utterly not surprising that there are enrollment delays, and in fact, I would be shocked if there weren’t.”

New shelters spark staffing concerns

More than 100,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City since last summer, with many taking residence in a rapidly expanding network of homeless shelters. An estimated 19,000 children so far have enrolled in the city’s public schools, with around 500 registering since July, according to an Education Department spokesperson.

The volume of the influx has sparked dire warnings from Mayor Eric Adams, who has said that city services are strained to capacity and that the city needs additional help from the state and federal governments.

Job one for the Education Department is identifying the new arrivals and getting them appropriate school placements – meaning, among other things, that the family has a way to get there and the school offers the necessary language support.

Staffers from the department’s division of students in temporary housing, including the 100 community coordinators hired last year, are tasked with fanning out to shelters, talking to the new arrivals about school enrollment, and helping them fill out registration forms, which are then delivered to the Education Department’s family welcome centers.

But a staffer involved with the process said employees are struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing number of shelters and new arrivals.

“They don’t have enough staff, they’re working like dogs, and it’s a bit of a disaster,” the staffer said.

In some cases, single employees are covering multiple shelters at once, handling case loads of between 250 and 500 kids, the employee said.

“The number of people is outrageous,” the staffer said. “There are so many children. If you go into a shelter … and the family is out that day, you don’t get registered. … Those kids are getting missed.”

Another roadblock is that many of the new emergency shelters the city has opened to accommodate the influx are operated by relatively new providers without experience helping families with school sign-ups.

“I just think everyone is stretched really thin, there’s a lot of new kids on the block … and in the meantime, children and families are not going to have the experience we believe they should,” said Catherine Trapani, the executive director of Homeless Services United, a coalition of 50 of the city’s long-running homeless shelter operators.

Dan Weisberg, the first deputy chancellor of the Education Department, said enrollment for the new arrivals has generally “gone smoothly.”

But he acknowledged the speed at which the city has had to open new family shelters has been “challenging. It means that we then have to scramble to assign somebody to go talk to the families about enrollment. So as long as that dynamic is happening … it will take a little longer for us to get help there.”

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said “Project Open Arms,” a blueprint released last year for educating migrant children that emphasized interagency communication, remains in effect.

Families face waits for school placements

Norberto Priceño arrived from Venezuela in June with his wife and three children, and the family has been living in a shelter in Far Rockaway, Queens. Priceño said he’s received virtually no information from the shelter staff about how to access city services, and only found out how to enroll his kids in school from other families in the shelter.

He took his kids to a family welcome center last month and was told he’d hear back about school placements in 15 days, but so far has only gotten confirmation that one of his kids is registered.

“School starts next week, and we only have one confirmed to start school, we haven’t gotten an answer for the other two,” he said. “I’m worried for their education,” he added, noting that he doesn’t want any of his kids to miss class time.

One staffer at a family welcome center, who declined to give her name, said that enrollment with the new arrivals is proceeding as normal and that families generally only have to wait 24-48 hours.

But another agency staffer involved with enrollment said the wait times for the newly arrived families have been significantly longer this summer than in past years, sometimes taking several weeks.

An Education Department spokesperson said that the average turnaround time is about a week, and that the agency makes sure enrollment letters are sent directly to families at shelters, so they don’t have to return to the family welcome centers.

Deputy Chancellor Carolyne Quintana said staffers from the Education Department’s multilingual division and other central offices have been posted at family welcome centers throughout the summer to lend additional support.

Even after enrollment assignments are confirmed, some newly arrived families are still struggling to figure out how to make the school placements work.

Jenny Lozano and Andres Yara are Colombian immigrants who arrived earlier this summer and have been living at a shelter in midtown Manhattan — where the family of four is currently sharing one queen-sized bed. They said they had to wait about a month after first handing in their form to get a school placement for their 12-year-old daughter.

When they finally got their daughter’s school assignment, it was a school in Harlem roughly 80 blocks away from their shelter. Lozano said she was told that because of all the new arrivals, schools closer to her shelter were all full.

Younger students living in shelters are eligible for yellow buses if their schools are far enough away, but that access ends after sixth grade, just shy of covering Lozano’s daughter. Lozano is fretting about sending her daughter on the subway in a new city and country.

“She’s too small to send her alone on the train,” Lozano said.

Language gaps persist

Some advocates say the city is especially ill-equipped to work with the increasing number of families whose languages aren’t as commonly spoken in the city as Spanish.

Arash Azizzada, the founder of Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, which supports Afghan immigrants and refugees, said many of the Farsi- and Pashto-speaking families he works with have lots of questions about how to enroll kids in school, and are often going weeks without support at shelters.

“They aren’t pivoting fast enough to accommodate this population,” he said.

Trapani said staffers in her coalition of shelter operators use a city-contracted translation phone service, but often experience long waits and don’t have printed materials they can distribute to families who speak languages not included in the city’s list of the 10 most-spoken dialects.

It’s not just families affected by enrollment delays. Schools need as much lead time as possible to plan for students, especially if they want to take advantage of the precious few days with staff in school before students arrive. Any lags in the enrollment process could undermine schools’ planning efforts, advocates warned.

“We need clear data about where the asylum seekers are going to be concentrated so that those schools can get ready now,” said Dia Bryant, the executive director of Ed Trust-New York. “It’s not going to be enough in two weeks to say, ‘Oh no, this school has 60 asylum seekers.’ We need support with actually assessing their strengths and thinking about how to support their families.”

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

Homeless students needed help. Schools showed them the door.

2023-08-29T09:00:00+00:00

This story was published in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity, a newsroom that investigates inequality.

The two boys should have been in elementary school. But for 71 days, the Bristol Borough School District in suburban Philadelphia would not enroll them.

Attorneys for the students later explained they were newcomers. They first lived with a relative in New Jersey but couldn’t stay without risking her Section 8 housing voucher. They next moved into Bristol Borough’s district boundaries, the attorneys said, where the boys shared a single room with their mom in a family friend’s home, without a lease or a legal right to remain.

Twice, their mother visited Bristol Borough offices to enroll. Twice, district staff turned her away: Without proof of age, immunizations and address, they said, the boys could not attend.

On the third try, she named the federal law that guarantees equal educational opportunities to children without stable housing, including those without normally required paperwork. “My boys should be protected under the McKinney-vento act,” she emailed.

The district advised her to enroll elsewhere.

The Bristol Borough case is one of dozens reviewed as part of a Center for Public Integrity investigation that shows the federal law promising to provide homeless children with equal access to education, while ironclad in theory, can prove paper thin in practice.

Public Integrity obtained nearly 1,000 pages of documents, exchanged between 2019 and 2023, that provide a revealing window into a rarely discussed component of the law: the homeless enrollment dispute process. They show families wrestling with Pennsylvania school district personnel over where children have a right to enroll and which services they ought to receive.

Nationwide, there’s little information about how schools settle disagreements over which students qualify for aid. That can include transportation from outside of district boundaries to ensure students have stable schooling even when they lack stable housing.

The Pennsylvania records reveal the tension between the generosity of the education provisions in the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and the constraints on local officials ultimately in charge of implementing a law that comes with minimal funding — and no teeth.

The law urges public schools to embrace homeless students, regardless of whether they reside within a school district’s boundaries. But when families say they don’t have a permanent home, some school district officials suspect residency fraud.

When those arguments escalated, certain districts doubled down, deploying a private investigator or school police to rebut the families’ version of events.

Suburban school districts in particular can be quick to interpret the law narrowly and to expend resources investigating whether families who seek help are opportunists or fakers, a review of dispute records and internal emails from the Pennsylvania Department of Education suggests. Many conflicts unfolded in Philadelphia-area schools, which are among the country’s most segregated. On average, the spending gap between wealthy and poor districts in Pennsylvania is among the widest in the nation.

Families caught in several disputes alleged their children were locked out of school for weeks, even months.

“I am appalled!!” one woman wrote to state authorities after she learned her grandson would be disenrolled from Abington School District in suburban Philadelphia. “How does sleeping on someone’s sofa and your children sleeping on air mattresses or paying your last dollar at a hotel, considered stable living conditions. I believe having a permanent address would be stable living conditions.”

A letter from the district argued her grandson experienced “no causal event that caused homelessness” but simply moved out of the district when a lease ended.

In a statement, district spokesperson Allie Artur wrote that Abington is “confident that its professionals comply with applicable laws with respect to homeless students” but declined to comment on specific cases due to privacy laws.

In the Bristol Borough case, the district argued that the information they received about the family’s living situation led them to believe that the students had stable housing.

Michael Santos, who serves on the board of the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, said Public Integrity’s reporting surfaces rarely-discussed problems in how school districts implement McKinney-Vento, signed into law in 1987.

“You have to basically pull teeth to get these cases,” he said. “It’s not easily available, precisely because it does shine a light on some of the noncompliance issues that may be in violation of federal law.”

Hidden hardships

What Public Integrity found in Pennsylvania is likely the tip of the iceberg there.

Federal figures suggest more than 27,000 students experienced homelessness in Pennsylvania during the 2020-2021 school year. The state education department estimates that thousands of them encounter a barrier to their enrollment, attendance, or educational success” each school year, but the agency refused to answer questions about how it defines barriers or calculated that figure.

Disputes over homeless education services are not unique to Pennsylvania.

Public Integrity obtained summaries of roughly 20 concerns about homeless education that families brought to the attention of Maryland education officials in the 2022-2023 school year. Those records show Maryland students also missed school days, experienced difficulty arranging transportation and faced suspicions of residency fraud.

Across the nation, families filing paperwork to dispute district decisions likely represent the minority of those experiencing barriers at school.

Advocates said they suspect homeless families prioritize urgent needs like earning money over complex administrative appeals. Others may feel ashamed to admit they struggle with housing or fear that self-reporting as homeless could invite unwelcome scrutiny.

Nonetheless, Pennsylvania families can escalate concerns unresolved at the district level to state officials or homeless education specialists known as regional coordinators, who can play a pivotal role in the lives of students seeking McKinney-Vento protections.

Records show coordinators sometimes urged school districts to enroll students they initially rejected. Other times, they sided with district administrators who deemed kids ineligible.

Documents obtained by Public Integrity describe fewer than 60 disputed cases that reached state officials from 2019 to 2023.

Eric Hagarty, who served as acting secretary of education in Pennsylvania from April 2022 to January 2023, thinks lack of power is the reason relatively few families appeal McKinney-Vento disputes.

“Students experiencing homelessness don’t have lobbyists and high-paid attorneys who can spend their time trying to work the system,” he said. “And it’s those vulnerable populations that are not best served, even though everyone has the best intentions of serving them.”

Legal aid groups have long argued that the need for their services far outstrips their capacity to provide them. And families who advocate for themselves may not receive consistent treatment from schools.

Federal homeless education guidance recommends general processes rather than mandating specific steps. Who decides disputes, which evidence to consider and how to compensate families whose rights are violated — all of that is left up to states and schools.

When the process fails, children pay the cost.

“Students experiencing homelessness don’t have lobbyists and high-paid attorneys who can spend their time trying to work the system.”

Though federal policy requires schools to keep children enrolled while disputes are considered on appeal, in at least six instances Public Integrity reviewed in Pennsylvania, parents and other concerned adults said children missed days, weeks or even months of classes because districts did not enroll them or arrange transportation to school during periods of housing instability.

In one dispute, a teenager was alleged to have missed about three months of school when the Sharon City School District, where he resided temporarily with an aunt, did not enroll him.

A school principal wrote that he would be “more than willing” to enroll the student once his relatives completed enrollment paperwork — a requirement that McKinney-Vento specifically says cannot be used to keep homeless students out.

A regional coordinator questioned why the district in western Pennsylvania thought a teenager forced to move between relatives’ homes in search of a safe place to live was not covered by the law.

“If this 14 year old who was unstable in his living situation and fleeing an abusive and unsafe home was not an ‘unaccompanied homeless youth’ last spring — who would be?” the regional coordinator, Wendy Kinnear, wrote to the principal.

The Sharon City School District did not answer Public Integrity’s questions about the dispute.

A delayed enrollment is exactly the scenario federal law is seeking to prevent, said Santos, who used to work as a legal aid attorney representing homeless families.

“The law is very clear: While the dispute resolution is pending, you’re supposed to keep the child enrolled. The whole idea is to provide school stability, so that the student doesn’t lose school days,” Santos said. “So if they’re actually refusing, from the get go, and not telling the families that they have the right to appeal, that’s a problem.”

The district was not alone in doubting if students experienced homelessness. Local educators regularly marshaled district resources to argue students were stably housed.

Public Integrity identified 11 cases in which districts subjected students who claimed they were homeless to residency investigations. District officials tasked school safety officers to make phone calls or pay visits to shared residences, hired a private investigator, filmed daily routines, interviewed temporary hosts or tracked a family using a license plate reader.

The Cheltenham School District north of Philadelphia hired a private investigator and conducted “comprehensive surveillance (multiple locations, multiple days of the week over the course of different weeks, before school, after school, etc.)” to investigate where one family resided, according to the dispute record. State officials reviewing the case agreed the family lived out of district and was not homeless.

Surveillance often targets students who say they are “doubled up” — that is, sharing a friend’s or relative’s housing for lack of better options.

Those children are deemed homeless under McKinney-Vento, which covers students “sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason.” The law places no time limit on how long a student may be eligible for federal protections.

Still, disagreements over this definition are the root of many conflicts. Advocates for homeless youth say the law is inclusive, shielding students regardless of their specific situation. But some school districts see room for argument. Is a family still homeless if they are not seeking permanent housing? What if there’s no record of an eviction? Districts peel off families around the edges of the federal definition — and a few squarely covered by the law.

Public Integrity’s reporting relies primarily on public records. We were unable to contact many of the families who disputed homeless education services. We withheld the names of families we could not reach or who did not consent to be interviewed.

Documents show school district personnel also sometimes struggled to contact students’ guardians and then faulted families for the lapsed communications. School staff may not have full understanding of their students’ housing and, even when well-informed, may find that a given situation is not easy to categorize.

Most dispute records either provided some evidence to suggest a student might be experiencing homelessness or revealed too little information to judge the student’s eligibility.

A handful of disputes reviewed by Public Integrity described disruptions to housing that seemed to fall outside the scope of McKinney-Vento, such as a family who said they sold their home voluntarily rather than due to hardship.

Most districts declined to discuss specific disputes. Regional coordinators, who investigate disputes on appeal, referred questions to state officials when reached for comment. The Pennsylvania Department of Education also would not discuss specific incidents or make Storm Camara, the state’s homeless education coordinator, available for an interview.

Taj Magruder, a spokesperson for the state Department of Education, said in a statement that the agency is “committed to providing equitable and inclusive educational opportunities for students experiencing homelessness” and has “a robust and groundbreaking set of standards and practices that ensure the highest level of quality.” The statement also touted an independent monitoring system and said districts out of compliance with federal law must implement a correction plan by the next school year.

But Hagarty, the agency’s former acting secretary, said the department has limited levers to compel compliance. School systems, he and others interviewed for this story said, exercise local control of education.

Doubled up, shut out

A 2022 Public Integrity investigation added to long-standing evidence that many students who qualify for federal homeless education programs at school likely aren’t receiving those services, in part due to misunderstandings about the definition of homelessness itself.

The analysis estimated that 300,000 students annually may have met the U.S. Department of Education’s definition of homelessness but went uncounted in pre-pandemic school years. Identification is critical because it’s a first step that might have allowed those students to remain in school systems where they no longer had a permanent residence, get tutoring or receive referrals to agencies that provide housing and medical care.

Advocates for homeless youth said confusion about McKinney-Vento eligibility — such as when a student is considered doubled up and when they should be categorized as an unaccompanied homeless youth — are major reasons children slip through the cracks. Available data in Pennsylvania shows that school administrators categorize about two-thirds of homeless students as doubled up.

In western Pennsylvania, the family of a middle school student protested when the district he attended balked at keeping him enrolled after he was forced to relocate following his mother and stepfather’s divorce.

The boy, who has autism, oppositional defiant disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, temporarily moved in with his grandmother in a neighboring school district.

An aunt, Jenny Minchoff, wanted him to remain enrolled in the Greenville Area School District, where he received full-time special education services and had long-standing relationships with staff members.

“Moving into another school district and all of the accompanying changes would be incredibly disruptive to [his] well-being,” Minchoff wrote to the district homeless student liaison in August 2021.

Under the McKinney-Vento Act, the family made the case for him to stay as a doubled-up student. But Greenville staff did not see it that way.

District staff determined he had stable housing and contacted the neighboring school system to begin the enrollment process there. The family didn’t know until the new district called the child’s grandmother, asking her to pick up an enrollment packet, Minchoff said.

With help from an outside education consultant and intervention from a regional coordinator, Minchoff was able to re-enroll her nephew. But, frustrated by the experience, she switched him to an online charter school months later.

In a statement provided to Public Integrity, the Greenville district wrote that staff adhere to McKinney-Vento guidelines, and that “on occasion, this involves consulting our Regional Coordinator for additional guidance and clarification regarding homeless situations.”

“I feel as though they withheld a lot of information,” Minchoff said of the district. “It makes me wonder how many other kids are not getting the treatment that they legally deserve.”

Surveilling students

When families try to explain they are sharing housing temporarily, some district officials react by screening for fraud.

Records show school districts regularly interview guardians about where they are living and require families to submit documentation to prove it.

Administrators at Southeast Delco, a suburban Philadelphia district in a county crisscrossed by about 20 local school systems, said their concerns about residency fraud are the product of geography. A single multi-building apartment complex may span more than one school system. Brenda Wynder, the district’s superintendent, said families sometimes list a relative’s address on enrollment forms to move a child into their preferred district.

District staff were adamant that they do not investigate a student’s residency once they say they are experiencing homelessness. But the district requires families to prove where they live and why because it is a “resources issue,” said Jeffrey Ryan, the district’s McKinney-Vento liaison.

“We obviously have district taxpayers who want the district’s funds expended for district students,” Ryan said, “not, in this example, the Philly kid who’s just using the address.”

In addition to hiring private investigators and interviewing parents directly, the Cheltenham School District outside of Philadelphia also contacts parents’ landlords or employers and maintains “a residency information line for members of the community to leave tips regarding possible non-resident students,” Cheltenham spokesperson Kevin Kauffman said in response to an emailed list of questions.

Cheltenham opened 26 residency investigations in the 2019-2020 school year at a cost of about $2,500, he said. The same year, the district spent $5,000 on homeless education services.

Kauffman said residency investigations are not used to screen students for homelessness. But Public Integrity reviewed records on one case where the district used surveillance techniques on a father who thought he and his children could be eligible for homeless status.

The family had been living with his mother, whose home was in the school district. He said it was a burden for her, and so the family relocated to a girlfriend’s apartment in Philadelphia, where he worried they could not stay indefinitely because of her Section 8 voucher.

The district didn’t want to let the children remain at their schools. Camara, the state coordinator, reviewed the case and agreed with the officials.

“He wants a better school district for his kids; so do many folk,” Camara wrote in early 2020. The family’s living arrangement, “from what you’ve stated here, is by choice!”

A 2018 WHYY investigation of residency enforcement by suburban Philadelphia districts found evidence that poor children and students of color were most affected. Attorneys with the Pennsylvania-based Education Law Center said that also plays out for families experiencing housing instability: School systems, they contend, selectively target families for residency investigations based on their class and race, especially Black students in mostly white schools, and demand families submit multiple documents to prove where they live.

School districts “are not putting families who own single family dwellings through the same hoops,” said Paige Joki, an attorney with the Education Law Center, which advocates for equal public education. “It’s anti-poor. It’s that you live in a shared dwelling.”

Magruder, the state Department of Education spokesperson, did not answer a question regarding whether Black students in Pennsylvania are more likely to be the subject of residency investigations or challenges to their McKinney-Vento status. Public Integrity was unable to determine whether the state requires school districts to report any demographic data about the residency investigations they conduct.

When McKinney-Vento ends

Families who initially receive McKinney-Vento services may later find themselves at odds with a school system that previously welcomed them, even if their housing remains tenuous.

Public Integrity reviewed at least seven cases in which districts contended that families who previously received McKinney-Vento now had stable housing, even as the families argued they should be eligible for services.

Meghan O’Connor, a mother of four in suburban Philadelphia, experienced this challenge firsthand. In 2018, she and her family were displaced from their rental in the Colonial School District by an oil accident that ruined virtually all their possessions, she said.

The O’Connors struggled to find a new place amid rising home prices and a lack of rentals for larger families. They moved in with one relative, then another in an adjacent district.

O’Connor’s two older boys, Colonial students since they were kindergarteners, were deemed eligible for McKinney-Vento and continued attending their schools. Her oldest thrived. Once a shy child, he gained confidence, O’Connor said. She credited his success to devoted teachers and an individualized education program that accommodated his stutter.

But in May 2022, a notice on district letterhead told the family their residence was now considered permanent. It didn’t feel that way to O’Connor: Her husband sleeps on a couch most nights, she said, while she shares a bed with her three youngest children. Only her oldest has his own bedroom, a holdover from before the accident.

“It’s not a permanent solution at all,” she said.

A statement the district sent to Public Integrity said the decision “had nothing to do with the amount of time they had not lived in the District, but rather that the circumstances no longer met the standard of homelessness under state law.” The statement argued the O’Connor family chose to live with family in order to save money although their previous home was repaired and available to rent.

O’Connor said the landlord did not offer her family the rental after repairs made it livable and there was nowhere else her family could afford to go.

The family appealed the decision, but in August the state sent word that officials agreed that the children were not eligible for McKinney-Vento. O’Connor enrolled her younger son in Catholic school, funding tuition with financial aid from the school and support from relatives. Her oldest now attends school online.

The boys have not transitioned easily. Her oldest son’s teachers tell her he speaks constantly of missing friends in the Colonial school system. She is less familiar with his new individualized education program and worries it might not be as thorough. Her younger son has struggled to catch up to the Catholic school curriculum; he’s switching to the online charter her oldest attends.

A Colonial School District statement said the school system “strictly adhered to the law.”

“The district understands and is empathetic to the educational challenges homelessness creates,” according to the statement. “While we favor removing as many barriers to education as possible, we must balance this approach with our responsibility to the taxpayers who fund that education.”

‘Being punished for poverty’

The Pennsylvania Department of Education’s 2023 report on the matter estimates that 4,544 students — 17% of all homeless students for whom data was available — experienced “barriers to enrollment, attendance, and/or academic success” in the 2021-2022 school year.

State officials declined to answer questions about how to interpret the data.

According to a brief methodology, the estimate relies on reports from local, regional or state staff who “worked to resolve a barrier situation,” such as missing immunization records. The document does not cite specific barrier incidents or explain when they are deemed to be resolved.

But the report does explain that some barriers are “actually rights regarding school enrollment for students experiencing homelessness,” a shortcoming the report said would be addressed “via ongoing professional development, on-call [Local Educational Agency] technical assistance, and annual monitoring visits.”

Other documents reveal the limitations of those methods to reform schools.

The Montour School District in the suburbs of Pittsburgh disenrolled or denied enrollment to an average of 20 students per year because of residency issues, district staff told an independent state monitor evaluating McKinney-Vento compliance in 2023. While turning those families away, the monitor said the district “failed to follow through with nearly every recommendation” from a previous audit.

The Montour district also did not conduct staff training about the law’s requirements and provided scant evidence that it properly notified families of their right to dispute the rulings, the audit found.

The monitor wrote that they were “very concerned that there will be little or no follow through to demonstrate program compliance.”

In November 2019, according to a dispute record Public Integrity obtained, a mother wrote a letter pleading with the Montour district to continue enrolling her children. The family shared housing with friends or stayed in hotels when money allowed, she said.

District staff used a license plate reader to identify a property the mother leased in a neighboring school district. The mother said she used the address for mail but didn’t live there.

“My children have had a very rough year, and right now their only sense of security is in Montour,” she wrote.

“Being punished for poverty just does not seem right,” she added.

It’s unclear how the case was resolved. In an email exchange, a regional coordinator said she believed the family was not homeless, but state coordinator Camara suggested an eviction from 2019 made the family McKinney-Vento eligible.

Neither the Montour School District nor the state Department of Education responded to multiple requests for comment about the monitoring report and the dispute incident.

“If the process is so convoluted, most families just give up,” said Santos, now associate director of U.S. policy at RESULTS Educational Fund, a nonpartisan anti-poverty group. “They’re like, ‘We honestly do not have time for this. I’m barely getting by. I have to go to work. I cannot take time off work to actually talk to the school and deal with this.’”

Despite this, records show that students’ guardians seeking McKinney-Vento assistance tried to parse the plain language of the law for themselves, without attorneys or advocates.

A mother explained to the state Department of Education that she withdrew her children from their current school because the family planned to enter a shelter east of Pittsburgh. But when the shelter gave those rooms to someone else, she said, her family was instead left sleeping in the parking lot of a Burlington Coat Factory. The mother enrolled her children in the Gateway School District, but received a form arguing they had “no right to enrollment” due to “lack of any evidence” of residing within its boundaries.

“We are basically being denied enrollment due to not having a physical address and can’t get an address until we get into a shelter or into a section 8 house,” she wrote to the state. “I thought homeless laws and disability laws protected children and made it to where they could continue going to school no matter my situation however I guess that’s not the case.”

Aaron Smith, a social worker in the Gateway School District, said he sent the family the state’s “Procedural Safeguards Notice of Denial of Enrollment” form because staff wished to clarify whether the children should remain in a previous district. The form said the children could attend Gateway pending a final decision, not that they were disenrolled immediately.

“I don’t like the form either, but it’s just the standard form we’re supposed to use,” said Smith, who recalled that area shelters were at capacity when he started working with the family. “If I got that [form], I’d be upset because it looks kind of legal. It’s kind of threatening and intimidating.”

Smith said the incident had a positive resolution: The children continued attending Gateway, and the family later transferred to a charter school in another district when they found permanent housing.

‘The kids are not the only priority’

In Bristol Borough, where the two boys missed more than 70 days of school, their mother asked a district administrator to reconsider enrolling them. “If the school district does not agree with me you must give me something in writing that says that I have a right to appeal the school’s decision,” she wrote in an email.

Bristol Borough did not enroll the children. Instead, the small school system overlooking the Delaware River border that divides Pennsylvania from New Jersey sent a uniformed school officer to the address where the parent said her family was living — a move that could threaten a temporary living situation.

What happened next is disputed. An attorney for Bristol Borough wrote that the apartment’s resident at first denied that the newcomers lived with him, then confirmed that they paid him rent. Attorneys with the Education Law Center, which represented the family in a complaint to the state against the district, said the friend in fact confirmed their clients lived with him temporarily due to economic circumstances. They maintained their clients did not have a lease.

What is certain is the outcome. It was not until January 2020, after the boys’ mother enlisted the help of Education Law Center attorneys, that the two children enrolled in Bristol Borough.

The attorneys argued Bristol Borough should provide $21,300 in educational services to each child to compensate for missed school days.

An attorney for the district replied his client was “led … to believe that the children were not homeless” but were leasing a property. Plus, he argued, Bristol Borough did not violate federal law by choosing not to enroll the children because it “cannot be considered to be omniscient about a family’s living situation” and “can only be aware of the information presented to it.”

It is not clear from records shared with Public Integrity whether Bristol Borough ever awarded the children compensatory education services. Asked for comment, the district’s superintendent said he was not a district employee during the dispute and had no knowledge of it.

Camara, the state’s homeless education coordinator, reviewed the case and concluded that Bristol Borough had already met its obligations under McKinney-Vento.

In a case summary, Michelle Connor, a regional coordinator, wrote that the district official who initially did not enroll the family “looks out for fraud as much as the well-being of the students.”

“This is not to say she does not care; but she cares equally for both,” she continued. “The kids are not the only priority.”

Jeffco is recommending closing two K-8 schools this year in second round of closures

2023-08-24T23:00:26+00:00

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Jeffco, Colorado’s second largest school district, is recommending the closure of two K-8 schools as the district continues to address the decline in student enrollment.

Sixteen elementary schools were closed last year in the first round of the district’s closure plan.

The two schools, Coal Creek Canyon K-8 and Arvada K-8, are the smallest of five K-8s in Jeffco Public Schools. Coal Creek, which is located near the Boulder County border and has fewer than 100 students, is also smaller than any of the district’s 17 middle schools.

The proposed closure of Coal Creek K-8, however, will include a search for a charter school provider that may reopen in the community.

The Jeffco school board received the recommendation Thursday, but will vote on the proposed closures at its Oct. 12 meeting. There will be four school-based community meetings and two formal one-hour public hearings with the school board before the vote.

If approved, the latest closures would bring the number of schools closed in Jeffco to 21 since 2021.

Before last year’s elementary school closures, the district said their buildings had the capacity to serve 96,000 students, but were only filled with about 69,000. With the closures to date, the district now has the capacity for about 88,000 students, and is currently serving about 66,500.

Due to declining birth rates and fewer children living in the area, the number of students entering elementary schools is not replacing the larger group of students graduating and exiting the district.

As the district considers secondary school enrollment, the board has already decided to close Moore Middle School at the end of this school year. The school will merge with Pomona High School, which will serve students in grades six through 12.

The two K-8 closures would impact about 524 students and 97 staff members. The district estimates 26 of the students impacted have also been displaced by a previous school closure.

District leaders say they’ll need to closely continue to monitor enrollment trends, but so far, aren’t planning for a third round of closures next year. A moratorium on high school closures is still in effect until June 2024.

A more complicated proposal for Coal Creek

Lisa Relou, chief of strategy and communications for Jeffco, said this round of recommendations was more complicated, in part because these secondary schools are not located as close to each other as elementary schools.

District leaders said they visited the Coal Creek Canyon community in the spring and heard that families are interested in small schools within their close-knit community. Currently, the closest Jeffco school, Three Creeks K-8, is more than 10 times larger with more than 1,000 students, and approximately 10 miles, or a 15-minute drive away. The school does have room for the Coal Creek students.

But, “it’ll be a significant change for these families,” Relou said.

The district plans to search for charter providers willing to open a school in the area. Regardless, the middle school grades will close at the end of the school year, if the closure is approved. But if the district receives interest, then the closure of the elementary grades will be delayed for another year while the charter application is considered.

Coal Creek Canyon K-8 has fewer than 100 students.

If no viable providers show interest in the next month, then the full school will close at the end of this school year.

Coal Creek’s building can accommodate 200 students, but in that canyon community, Relou said, a school likely will never have that many students. The highest enrollment the district has on record for the school was in 2013-14 with 159 students.

“There are charter schools out there designed to serve a small number of students,” Relou said. “It’s just not sustainable as a Jeffco traditional school.”

As a traditional school, Jeffco not only gives Coal Creek the highest funding per student of any school in the district, but has also subsidized the school with an additional $469,468 in the last year.

In the meantime, district leaders are also researching how other districts subsidize small schools, and say they’re open to considering a transportation arrangement with neighboring districts that may have a more attractive school option for Coal Creek families.

Last school year, more than a third of Coal Creek’s students came from outside Jeffco boundaries.

The proposed Arvada K-8 closure

Arvada K-8 was told last school year that it was being considered for closure because it is on the state’s watchlist for years of low performance, but ultimately it was selected because of its low and declining enrollment, and complicated boundary placement, district officials said.

Currently, Arvada K-8 has approximately 557 students. Of those, 86% qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a measure of poverty.

Last year, the school had 550 students including 351 who lived in the neighborhood. But another 581 K-8 students who lived in the school boundary chose to go to a different school. Of those, 135 went to charter schools, while the majority went to other Jeffco schools.

Arvada K-8 is the only K-8 in the district that has separate boundaries for elementary and middle school students.

However, the school isn’t even within its own elementary boundary.

And, because it has separate boundaries, the school also serves as a separate middle school, instead of a K-8, meaning that it takes a significant number of new students at sixth grade who have been through traditional elementary schools.

If the school is approved to close, the district would redraw the area boundaries allowing North Arvada Middle School to take in all of the sixth through eighth grade students, and elementary students would be redrawn into a boundary to attend Lawrence Elementary. The district also notes that nearby Swanson and Secrest elementaries have space to accommodate students who instead want to use the choice enrollment process to attend those schools.

Students in the special needs program, called the Significant Support Needs Center Program, would be relocated to the Pomona 6-12 in the 2024-25 school year.

The district is estimating there will be renovation costs of up to $500,000 at North Arvada Middle School, and about $675,000 at Lawrence Elementary if the latest proposed closures are approved.

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

First day of school: Chicago Public Schools reopens under a new era of leadership

2023-08-21T21:28:02+00:00

Chicago Public Schools is officially back in session.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, the first Chicago mayor in recent history to send his children to public schools, kicked off the first day of classes by joining educators, Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, and Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates outside Beidler Elementary School on the West Side.

Under a sweltering sun at 8:30 a.m., Johnson greeted parents and children in front of a chorus of reporters and cameras, before ringing the ceremonial bell to start the school year.

The joint appearance with Davis Gates, Martinez, and other district and union officials was unsurprising for the union-friendly mayor who came up through the CTU’s ranks, but still a break from the past when the union and City Hall officials would visit schools separately.

Despite the district facing a number of challenges ahead, including unreliable bus transportation, ongoing enrollment shifts, and an influx of immigrant students, Johnson focused on a new era of collaboration at the city’s public schools.

Later in the morning, after touring two other campuses, Johnson visited Kenwood Academy, where his son is now a sophomore.

Speaking to a history class, he likened the first-day icebreakers the teacher was doing to what he’s doing as the city’s new mayor.

“I hope that you will lean into the collaborative approach that your teacher is taking, because that is what we’re doing as a city,” Johnson told the students. “We’re building relationships, we’re collaborating so that we can make collective decisions together that ultimately can help transform people’s lives.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates, and other city hall, school district, and union officials pose for a photo inside a classroom at Kenwood Academy on the South Side.

CPS claws back from enrollment losses

Visiting Beidler was a symbolic choice for the mayor. The school narrowly escaped closure about a decade ago and is now part of a program Johnson wishes to expand: the Sustainable Community Schools initiative, which aims to provide wraparound services and more programming for students and families.

But Beidler is among several other schools in the program that have lost at least a quarter of their enrollment since the initiative started.

The official enrollment count will not be known until after the 20th day of school in September. But last year, 80,000 fewer students were enrolled in Chicago Public Schools than there were a decade ago and it is now the nation’s fourth largest school district. Chicago’s declining enrollment predated the emergence of COVID-19, but continued during the pandemic.

And for many parents and kids arriving at Beidler Monday morning, more pressing thoughts — like wishing for a great year — were at the forefront. Dondneja Wilson hoped that her daughter, who started preschool, would “grow, and learn, and have fun.”

“She likes kids a lot, so I feel like that’s going to be her favorite part,” Wilson said.

Dondneja Wilson and her daughter pose for a picture outside of Beidler Elementary School.

Last year, data from the last day of school in June obtained by Chalkbeat showed little change in overall enrollment. However, the number of English learners grew by more than 5,000 students. District officials have pointed to the increase as an approximation of how many migrant students have arrived on buses in the past year.

Chicago is seeing an influx of newcomers, many of whom are seeking asylum, arriving by bus from the southern border in Texas.

The number of bilingual teachers in CPS has dipped since 2015, even as the English learner population has grown, according to a recent Chalkbeat analysis. While 6,900 teachers have earned bilingual education endorsements — more than ever before, according to the district — it’s unclear how many are actually assigned to teach bilingual education.

Educators and immigrant advocates have expressed concerns about whether schools can properly support these new students. Jianan Shi, president of the Board of Education, said the city’s new welcome center for migrant students on the West Side has enrolled “hundreds” of newcomer students. He’s requested more information on the system’s overall strategy for supporting newcomers.

A classroom door welcomes students in Spanish at Kenwood Academy in Hyde Park.

Outside Beidler, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez told reporters that “the biggest challenge” is ensuring that all newcomers are registered in school, but he said the district is well-positioned to serve them, noting that Chicago has one of the largest bilingual and dual language programs in the nation. About one-fifth of the city’s students are English language learners.

“The challenge we have right now is, again, keeping up with all the new asylum-seekers that are coming in, going to them, making sure that we’re able to register them, assess them,” Martinez said. “But we’re doing that as we speak now.”

Transportation woes continue on first day

Transportation woes that have plagued the district for the last few years also cropped up on the first day, as parents reported problems with bus routes and trips that took more than an hour.

Laurie Viets, a CPS parent of three children – two of whom have transportation written into an Individualized Education Program – said the district promised to have all transportation issues resolved by last Friday.

However, Viets found out on Friday that one of her children, a seventh grader, was not going to have transportation and another child, a first-year high school student, would have a long bus route. Today, it took 70 minutes to get to school; it’s normally a 12-minute car ride, Viets said.

Viets said she wished Chicago Public Schools would have given her more time to prepare for changes in the transportation plans. Now, she won’t have transportation for one of her children for up to two weeks and she is concerned that her other child will be on the bus without air conditioning in extreme heat until they shorten his route.

The district’s bus problems stem back to 2021, the first year back to full-time, in-person school after COVID forced CPS to close buildings in March 2020. Students were left waiting on the first day and beyond for buses that never showed. In emergency mode at that time, the district began offering $1,000 stipends for rideshare services such as Lyft and Uber. But the transportation troubles continued well into the school year.

Last year, some 365 students were waiting for bus routes the first week of school and in September, district officials said they were still working to reduce 90-minute rides for some students.

The district has blamed and continues to point to a nationwide bus driver shortage as causing the transportation troubles. It signed a $4 million contract with a longtime vendor and bus-routing software company to try to fix the issues.

But last month, on July 31, district officials announced that it would not be able to transport roughly 8,000 students on the first day of school. They offered $500 monthly stipends to families of CPS students with disabilities or those in temporary living situations. Both groups are legally entitled to transportation. The district said at the time that 3,000 students had chosen the stipend option.

Davis Gates called the transportation troubles “a disaster” and a “failure of privatization.” CPS contracts with private bus companies to provide students with transportation. Davis Gates said she would like to see the district bring busing “in-house” and experiment with having its own fleet of buses that could start small by covering field trips and sporting events and then grow.

“These are Band-Aid approaches. I have not seen anything transformative or revolutionary in this space. And again, three strikes you’re out,” she said. “This isn’t a good way to start the school year with respect to transportation.”

The district has previously increased pay rates for bus driver companies, and is hoping to do so again this year. Martinez said he hopes that will help fill the driver shortage.

Viets, the parent worrying about her children’s transportation, said more needs to be done.

“Next year, if CPS is going to start by Aug. 21, by Aug. 1 they should know what the routes are,” said Viets.

If Chicago finalizes plans the Friday before the start of school, she said, the district is “not giving parents any kind of respect at all. They’re not giving us an opportunity to make other plans when they mess up.”

As Viets noted, the extreme heat also adds to worries about long bus rides. The weather also raises concerns about conditions inside buildings once students arrive.

Air-conditioning, aging buildings prompt push for green schools

With temperatures expected to reach 100 degrees this week, Martinez said his team worked “around the clock” to ensure classrooms are equipped with air conditioning this week.

Martinez said every classroom has at least a window unit, a key union demand during the CTU’s 2012 strike that was implemented a couple of years later by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Still, in some cases, hallways are not air-conditioned, Martinez said.

Johnson has touted “climate justice” as a key focus of his administration and reiterated Monday that includes schools.

“Having buildings that are retrofitted, as well as an economy that’s built around green technology, some of that is top of mind,” he said.

Davis Gates used this week’s weather forecast to illustrate climate change’s impact on the city and why it underscores the urgent need for a new CPS facilities master plan, which hasn’t been updated since 2018. She added that building greener schools will be one issue the union will bargain over ahead of its contract expiration in 2024.

The school calendar’s pre-Labor Day start is an issue Davis Gates would immediately bargain over, she said. The late August start date began in 2021, matching up with many suburban districts.

The union was not able to bargain over the school calendar in 2019, Davis Gates said. But the passage of a 2021 state law reinstating some of the CTU’s bargaining rights could allow the calendar to be back on the table. The union’s contract expires next June and it’s likely the district and new mayor will begin negotiations with the teachers this winter.

The larger issues that officials highlighted were likely not top of mind for many students, such as 5-year-old Pierre, who started kindergarten at Beidler.

Asked what he was most excited about this school year, Pierre replied, “Playing.”

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

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.

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.

After her old Denver school was closed, one 7-year-old was excited and nervous to start anew

2023-08-21T18:48:08+00:00

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Just before 7 a.m. Monday, the first day of school in Denver Public Schools, 7-year-old Sara sat on her family’s couch, velcroing brand-new sneakers so glittery that when she ran her hand over the outside, sparkles clung to her fingertips.

The sneakers were the same powder blue color as her favorite cartoon character, Stitch from the Disney movie “Lilo & Stitch,” who also adorned her T-shirt and backpack.

Sara woke up early, with minimal prodding from her mother. She is one of more than 87,000 students heading back at approximately 200 schools in DPS.

Sara was excited despite a big change. Her old school, Fairview Elementary, was one of three schools closed by DPS this past spring because of low enrollment — a persistent problem caused by lower birth rates and high housing prices that have pushed families out of the city.

DPS’ decision to close small schools sparked pushback from families, accusations of a rushed process, and clashes between district and city officials. After the decision was made, the district reassigned Fairview students to Cheltenham Elementary less than 1 ½ miles away.

“Mama, do you know where Cheltenham is?” Sara asked when they got in the car.

Her mother, Najah Abu Serryeh, put the school’s address into her phone’s GPS. It said they would arrive in 10 minutes. From the back seat, Sara was a mix of nerves and enthusiasm.

“I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited to go to school,” she said.

Then, the second-grader added: “I was scared that people will be mean to me.” Two of her friends had moved away over the summer, one to the city of Aurora and the other to California.

“But you have a good principal,” her mother said. “She will not let anybody be mean to you.”

Abu Serryeh had opposed the closure of Fairview, a big brick building in Denver’s Sun Valley neighborhood. She testified before the school board last November when Fairview was on a list of underenrolled schools facing closure. She told the board members that when her kids — Sara and her sister, who is now in middle school — heard about the possible closure, they cried.

Sara stands outside Cheltenham Elementary, waiting for the school doors to open.

“Fairview for them, it’s not just a school,” she told the board. “It’s like their second home.”

The Denver Housing Authority also opposed the closure of Fairview, arguing that its redevelopment of the subsidized housing in Sun Valley would bring hundreds more elementary-age students to the neighborhood and boost Fairview’s enrollment.

Despite those projections, the school board voted in March to close Fairview and two other schools: Math and Science Leadership Academy and Denver Discovery School. The vote took place with almost no warning — and Abu Serryeh was the only parent in the audience.

“It’s so unfair,” she told reporters afterward.

But after touring Cheltenham and meeting the principal in the spring, Abu Serryeh said she now feels differently. Combining students from the two schools means Cheltenham will have much higher enrollment — and the per-pupil dollars that come with it.

DPS had projected Fairview would have just 118 students this year if it had stayed open, while Cheltenham alone had 286 last year. Although Fairview students could choose to attend a school other than Cheltenham, it’s likely Cheltenham will have more than 300 students this year.

With more funding, Cheltenham will be able to offer programming that small Fairview could not.

“My daughter will have more opportunity and learning in Cheltenham, more than she was being offered in Fairview,” Abu Serryeh said in an interview. “She will have more classes like music, science, and dance. More than what she had at Fairview.”

And the sense that Fairview was like a second home? That may still exist at Cheltenham. Fairview teachers were guaranteed a job at Cheltenham if they wanted it.

When Sara and her mom pulled up Monday, the 7-year-old immediately recognized several staff members who were standing outside with walkie talkies, greeting families.

“Hiiiii!” one said, enveloping Sara in a big hug. “Happy first day of school!”

Even Sara’s second-grade teacher is a former Fairview educator. After walking to her new classroom, Sara let go of her mom’s hand, eager to start the school day. Her mom had to stop her to remind her to take a carton of cereal from the breakfast tray before Sara bounded to her seat.

“Byeeee,” her mother called after her.

Najah Abu Serryeh walks hand-in-hand with her 7-year-old daughter Sara to Sara’s second-grade classroom.

Outside, a yellow school bus full of kids pulled to the curb. The district had promised Fairview families transportation to Cheltenham, but Sara wasn’t able to ride the bus Monday because her family moved out of Sun Valley when their home was demolished as part of the redevelopment. Abu Serryeh watched the students stream off the bus. One little girl caught her eye.

“This is the friend she asked about,” Abu Serryeh said — the one Sara thought had moved to California. “She will be so happy when she sees her friends.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s first day of school is almost here. Here are five things we’re watching this year.

2023-08-18T20:42:43+00:00

Chicago Public Schools’ estimated 320,000 students will head back to class Monday for a school year that will be marked by old issues — and some new concerns.

The district’s enrollment has been dwindling for at least a decade, raising questions about how to best fund schools still recovering from the effects of the pandemic.

Funding overall has become more complicated as the city’s federal COVID relief dollars dry up. Much of that money has been used for supporting existing and additional staff, many of them providing extra academic support for students.

As the district decides on how, if at all, to continue funding some of those programs, it must also contend with the continued enrollment of incoming immigrant students.

Here are five issues Chalkbeat Chicago will be watching this school year:

A fiscal cliff is approaching

This is the last full school year before Chicago must earmark how to spend what’s left of nearly $3 billion it received in COVID relief aid from the federal government. The deadline is September 2024.

That means the district will soon be staring down a financial hole that has been filled by that influx of federal funds since the pandemic.

The district spent a large share of pandemic relief money on staff salaries and benefits. The district also spent hundreds of millions of dollars on academic recovery efforts, including after-school programs, an in-house tutor corps, and more counselors, social workers, and other support staff.

District officials have projected a budget shortfall of $628 million by the 2025-26 school year, raising questions about how Chicago will sustain any programs and services supported by the federal dollars.

A financial analysis released under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot noted that CPS “will not have a funding source” to keep up these academic recovery and social-emotional learning efforts.

As the district’s financial picture is becoming more precarious, Mayor Brandon Johnson has shared lofty plans for schools, including expanding the Community Schools model — leaving complicated financial decisions ahead.

The district’s state funding could also be in jeopardy if it fails to comply with a state law requiring that at least two staffers at each school are trained on the use of student restraint and timeout. The deadline for that, coincidentally, is the first day of school.

Student academic needs persist

Three years since the onset of the COVID pandemic, there are still signs Chicago students need extra help in the classroom. Students appear to be improving in reading achievement, but they’re gaining less ground in math, according to recent state test scores obtained by Chalkbeat.

As the district’s COVID dollars fade out, questions remain about how district officials will approach academic recovery, and whether there will be efforts to keep any of the extra support CPS has funded with the federal dollars.

Some of those COVID dollars went toward the creation of a $135 million universal curriculum called Skyline, which has received mixed reviews. The district has pressed schools not yet using the curriculum to prove they’re using another high-quality option, so it’s possible more campuses will use Skyline this year.

Additionally, Illinois’ General Assembly passed a new law requiring the State Board of Education to create a literacy plan for schools, which is due by the end of January 2024.

District grapples with continued dipping enrollment

Chicago’s public school enrollment has dipped by 9% since the pandemic began — a trend also seen among other big-city school districts — and is almost one-fifth smaller than it was a decade ago. Last year’s enrollment dip of 9,000 students was enough to push the district’s ranking from the country’s third largest public school system to the number 4 spot.

This year’s enrollment figures won’t be publicly released until later this fall.

As the district’s student body has thinned out, funding has grown — to $9.4 billion for the upcoming school year. Still, as the district has logged fewer students — including those from low-income families — CPS has in recent years received less state funding than it has projected. And with COVID aid running out, officials must grapple with how to fund schools serving a fraction of the kids they used to. (There is a citywide moratorium on school closures until 2025.)

Some advocacy and interest groups, including the teachers union, believe funding should be divorced from enrollment, in part because investing fewer dollars will only encourage more families to leave or to never enroll in public schools. Just over 40% of new budgets for schools this year was determined by student enrollment, with the rest accounting for other factors, such as student demographics.

Still, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has emphasized that the district can’t factor out enrollment.

“In a large school district where schools serve 40 students, 400 students, and even 4,000 students, enrollment simply has to play a role in our funding formula,” Martinez previously told reporters.

Increase in migrant students poses new challenges

Last year, Texas officials began busing newly arrived migrants to Democratic-led cities, including Chicago. Since then, an estimated 12,000 migrants, many of whom are fleeing economic and political turmoil from South and Central American countries, have arrived in Chicago, While the district won’t say how many such students have enrolled, CPS saw roughly 5,400 new English learners last school year, Chalkbeat found.

Most Chicago schools have previously struggled with providing adequate language instruction for English learners. And with the city expecting more newcomers, educators and immigrant advocates recently told Chalkbeat that schools are not adequately resourced to serve these new students.

Some of these children may arrive without years of formal education and, if they’re learning English as a new language, are legally required to receive extra support.

The district’s number of bilingual teachers has dropped since 2015 even as the English learner population has grown, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. More teachers have earned bilingual education endorsements, which allows them to teach, but it’s unclear whether any of those educators are using those endorsements in the classroom.

District officials will be tasked with how to properly support these students. Officials had previously promised to release a formal plan by the first day of school but have not done so yet.

No district maps yet for the elected school board

As Chicago prepares to begin electing school board members next fall over the next two years, lawmakers have yet to approve maps that would designate which districts each board member would be elected from in the first round of elections. Ten members will be elected in November 2024, while the rest will be elected in November 2026, for a total of 21 members.

Illinois state lawmakers are in charge of approving those maps. In May, they extended their deadline to April 1, 2024, after concerns over whether the maps would match the makeup of the district’s student body or the city’s overall demographics.

Some observers cheered the extension. However, the delay presents new complications. If maps are not approved until April, the campaign season for the first set of districts would last just seven months, making it potentially challenging for candidates to prepare and for voters to have enough information ahead of Election Day.

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

Get free school supplies, food, and more at these 42 back-to-school events in Chicago

2023-08-14T17:55:28+00:00

Chicago Public Schools students head back to class Aug. 21 — parents, hold your applause — and many community groups, churches, businesses, and schools are pitching in to prepare students for the school year.

School supplies can be expensive, so many families rely on events where organizers give away notebooks, pens, pencils, crayons, and other essentials.

Our partners at Block Club Chicago rounded up more than 40 giveaways or fundraisers you can check out in your area before the first day of school.

Is there an event missing? Email newsroom@BlockClubChi.org with the info!

The Emamifard family picks out new backpacks for the school year during a back-to-school backpack giveaway and fair event at Eugene Field Elementary School in Rogers Park on Aug. 5, 2022.

South/Southwest Side

Gary Comer Youth Center Greater Together Community Block Party

4-6 p.m., Aug. 11

7200 S. Ingleside Ave.

The Gary Comer Youth Center will have live music, dancing, games, art, resources, barbecue food, and giveaways of school supplies.

Break Bread Back-To-School BBQ

4-7 p.m., Aug. 12

1615 W. 79th St.

A free back-to-school barbecue.

Back-To-School Bash at Stoney Island Plaza

Noon-3 p.m., Aug. 12

Stony Island Plaza and 95th Ave., parking lot near DD’s Discounts and Oak Street Health

South Siders can check out this event with face painting, music, balloon artists, bubbles, games, crafts for kids, and free hair styling.

Kids Off The Block Back-To-School Event

1-5 p.m., Aug. 12

11618 S. Michigan Ave.

Neighbors are invited to join Kids Off The Block for free food, music, raffles with prizes, a backpack and school supply giveaway, and more.

Back-To-School Health Fair

Noon-4 p.m., Aug. 12

Allen Metropolitan C.M.E. Church, 10946 S. Lowe Ave.

Vision screenings, and eyeglass cleaning and repairs from The Eyebar Optics, plus dental supplies, scholarship resources, community resources, free school supplies, music, raffles, food, local vendors, and more will all be part of this event.

The Nurmukhamedou family receives free backpacks.

Brightpoint and One Summer Chicago Mural and Back-To-School Block Party

1-4 p.m., Aug. 12

5958 S. Marshfield Ave.

Brightpoint, formerly known as Children’s Home and Aid, is unveiling a mural painted by One Summer Chicago youth at its South Side office. The event will also have games, music, free lunch and snacks, prizes and giveaways, a petting zoo, community resources, dental, health and wellness information, and free backpacks with school supplies and hygiene kits.

Community Resource and Back-2-School Fair

3-6 p.m., Aug. 12

Parking lot of Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church, 7851 S. Jeffery Blvd.

The Central South Shore Area Council is hosting a free fair with food, music, games, and giveaways.

Crandon Community Garden Back-To-School Backpack Bash

12:30-3:30 p.m. Aug. 13

71st Street and Crandon Avenue

The Crandon Community Garden will have food, games, activities, and a backpack giveaway. Children must be present to receive a backpack.

3rd Annual 114th and Forrestville Almost End of Summer Block Party

11 a.m.-4 p.m., Aug. 13

114th Street and Forrestville Avenue

There will be face painting, a bounce house, jewelry making, music, games, and a school supply giveaway.

Kids rock free backpacks they received during a back-to-school backpack giveaway in 2022.

CROC Center Back-To-School Health Fair

1-5 p.m., Aug. 16

The Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center Chicago, 1250 W. 119th St.

This event will include food, games, school vaccinations and physicals, dental exams, a farmers market, and more.

Englewood Back-To-School Bash

2-6 p.m. Aug. 17

Former Englewood High School Campus, 6201 S. Stewart Ave.

This event from Chicago Public Schools and Englewood Community Action Council will have food trucks, ice cream, pony rides, a petting zoo, aviation bus, creativity bus, inflatables, NASCAR RC racing, and more. There will also be school supply and laptop giveaways, music and entertainment, free school physicals, and driver’s licenses and state ID services. Children must be present to receive school supplies.

This is Life Back-To-School Event

4-7 p.m., Aug. 18

Salvation Army Adele Red Shield Center, 945 W. 69th St.

This event will have games, music, free haircuts, giveaways of backpacks and school supplies, and more.

Back-To-School Event at McKay Elementary School

10 a.m.-Noon., Aug. 18

6938 S. Washtenaw Ave.

This event will have food, music, and backpack giveaways.

Back-To-School Party from Free Street

11 a.m.-3 p.m., Aug. 18

Davis Square Park, 4430 S. Marshfield Ave.

Davis Square Park will have live music and poetry, local vendors, and a school supply giveaway of free backpacks, notebooks, and more.

Juana picks out a new backpack.

62nd Annual Englewood Back 2 School Parade

10 a.m.-2 p.m. Aug. 19

Ogden Park, 6500 S. Racine St.

At this free event, community members can enjoy a parade with bands, organizations and dancing teams, inflatables, water slides, food, giveaways of book bags and school supplies, entertainment, and a yoga demonstration.

L.Y.D. Back-To-School Bash

11 a.m.-2 p.m., Aug. 19

6033 S. Cottage Grove Ave.

At this event from the Live Your Dreams Foundation, there will be food and a first-come, first-served backpack with school supplies giveaway. The giveaway will start at noon and continue until supplies are exhausted.

Back-To-School Skate Party

4-6 p.m., Aug. 19

The Rink, 1122 E. 87th St.

The Rink is hosting a skate party to celebrate back-to-school season. Tickets are $15 and include a complimentary skate rental.

Back-To-School Celebration

10 a.m.-2 p.m., Aug. 19

Mahalia Jackson Court, 1 E. 79th St.

Food trucks, music, games, and a school supply giveaway will be part of this South Side celebration.

Back-To-School Party

2:30-5 p.m., Aug. 19

Archer Dental, 5200 S. Archer Ave. #3

Enjoy popcorn and slushies, games. raffles for electric toothbrushes, a Waterpik, and free exams and X-rays; meet the Archer Dental team and more.

5th Ward Office Back-To-School Bash

1-4 p.m., Aug. 20

63rd Street Beach, 6300 S. Lake Shore Drive

Ald. Desmon Yancy (5th) is hosting this South Side event with food, inflatables, activities, and a backpack giveaway. Children must be with an adult to participate.

Ald. Michelle A. Harris 2023 Back-To-School Jamboree

10 a.m., Aug. 26

Jesse Owens Park, 8800 S. Clyde Ave.

Eighth Ward residents can attend the alderwoman’s jamboree with food, music, haircuts and hair styling, games, and giveaways of backpacks and school supplies.

Veteran’s Back-To-School Picnic

11 a.m.-3 p.m., Aug. 26

11901 S. Ashland Ave.

Multi-Faith Veterans Initiative at Christ Universal Temple is hosting an event with food trucks, games, activities, a backpack giveaway (children must be present), as well as physical and dental exams.

Back-To-School Block Party

11 a.m. Aug. 26

5349 S. Wabash Ave.

Families can learn about fire safety at this back-to-school event from the Black Fire Brigade.

School buses and an American flag at the front of North-Grand High School in Chicago. Photo by Stacey Rupolo / Chalkbeat —May, 2019 photo—

North/Northwest Side

Helendora Samuels Picture Framing Back-To-School Drive

Ongoing through end of August

1736 W. North Ave.

This Wicker Park framing shop is collecting school supplies for the community throughout August. Backpacks filled with lined paper and notebooks, two-pocket folders, pencils, pens, crayons, and colored pencils can be dropped from 1-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday at the shop.

Annual Back-To-School Fundraiser

The Honeycomb Network, 2659 W. Division St.

4-7 p.m., Aug. 12

The Human Values Collective is hosting a fundraiser to support its operations.

Four Point Play’s 3rd Annual Back-To-School Basketball Clinic

1-4 p.m., Aug. 12

Moody Bible Institute (Solheim Center), 900 N. Wells St.

Four Point Play is hosting a basketball clinic for youth to practice their playing skills, with activities, drills, and more. There will also be special guests with presentations, a school supply giveaway, raffles of gift cards, and Chromebooks.

Back-To-School Fair + Mercado at Kelvyn Park

10 a.m.-1 p.m., Aug. 12

Kelvyn Park, 4438 W. Wrightwood Ave.

Free school supplies and backpacks, a vendor fair, food, raffles, face painting, kids’ activities, COVID-19 and flu vaccinations, and more will all be part of this event from the Kelvyn Park Advisory Council.

Hameedah picks out a new backpack for the school year.

The Near Northside 4TH Annual Back-To-School Drive

Noon-4 p.m. Aug. 13

Near North (18th) District police station, 1160 N. Larrabee St.

Jalisa Ford is hosting a back-to-school drive in honor of her son, 9-year-old Janari Andre Ricks, who was fatally shot in 2020. School supplies, book bags, snacks and beverages, and gift cards are being collected through Aug. 12. There’s an online Amazon registry and GoFundMe campaign for monetary donations. Donors can receive the drop-off location by emailing 1jarfoundation@gmail.com.

Second Annual Back-To-School Block Party

3-6 p.m. Aug. 13

4444 N. Milwaukee Ave.

This event from The Made Shop, Chicago Music and Acting Academy, Downstage Arts, and local officials will have free food, ice cream, school supplies, and backpacks, plus activities and a karaoke competition. RSVP online.

Back-To-School Carnival

10 a.m.-3 p.m. Aug. 13

Building Blocks Toy Store, 3306 N. Lincoln Ave.

The event at Building Blocks Toy Store will have face painting, games, prizes, and more. Those who reserve a spot online can get five complimentary tickets for games and activities.

Back-To-School Bash (Rogers Park)

10 a.m.-2 p.m., Aug. 15

Field Elementary School, 7019 N. Ashland Blvd.

CPS parents can meet teachers, staff and other families, learn about resources, get questions answered, and receive free school supplies.

The Howard family wears their new backpacks and enjoy snacks at a back-to-school event in 2022.

26th Ward Back-To-School Fair

3-5 p.m., Aug. 16

North Grand High School, 4338 W. Wabansia Ave.

This free event hosted by Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th) and Rep. Lilian Jiménez will have a backpack and school supply giveaway, free haircuts, food and beverages, games, resources, and more.

CTU Back-2-School Summer Jam

3:30-7 p.m., Aug. 18

1901 W. Carroll Ave.

The Chicago Teachers Union will have free school supply and backpack giveaway, haircuts, medical and dental checkups, and more. Parents can RSVP online.

Youth For A Better Future Back-To-School Event

10 a.m.-Noon, Aug. 19; 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Aug 20

Wild Mile Chicago, 1550 N. Kingsbury St.

Families can get active through this Zumba- and yoga-based event on Saturday. On Sunday, families can participate in kayaking.

Free backpacks passed out during a giveaway.

West/Near West Side

John Walt Foundation “Feed the Westside” 4th Annual Back To School Event

Noon-5 p.m., Aug. 12

La Follette Park, 1333 N. Laramie Ave.

This event will have giveaways of backpacks with school supplies and free groceries, a DJ, free haircuts and hairstyling (including braids and loc retwisting), games, and more. Children must be present to receive a backpack and children must come with their hair shampooed and dried to receive a haircut or styling.

Bricktown Square Back-To-School Bash

10 a.m.-2 p.m., Aug. 12

Bricktown Square, 6560 W. Fullerton Ave. (parking lot near Ald. Gil Villegas’ 36th Ward office).

Families can enjoy face painting, balloon artists, music, costumed characters, and more.

ITAV Back-To-School Block Party

10 a.m.-2 p.m. Aug. 19

4000 W. Division St.

The It Takes A Village family of schools will have a back-to-school block party with live entertainment, food, bounce house, DJs, and local vendors. There will also be dental and physical examinations available.

I Got Da Juice Chi Back-To-School Event

2422 W. Roosevelt Road

1-6 p.m., Aug. 20

There will be food, music, activities for kids and a giveaway for all registered attendees. Giveaway prizes will include sneakers, book bags, gift cards, and more. Raffle tickets for the giveaway are $1.

Chicago students walk through the halls at Lake View High School.

Back-To-School Bash (Little Village)

10 a.m.-2 p.m., Aug. 15

Finkl Elementary School, 2332 S. Western Ave.

A CPS event for La Villita neighbors.

Back-To-School Bash (Near West Side)

10 a.m.-2 p.m., Aug. 16

Crane High School, 2245 W. Jackson Blvd.

Parents can meet teachers, staff and other families, learn about resources, get questions answered, and receive free school supplies.

H&K’s Back-To-School Fest

Noon-3 p.m., Aug. 18

5655 W. Fillmore St.

This event will have food, giveaways, and more.

Downtown

Back-To-School with the American Writers Museum

4-6 p.m., Aug. 16

American Writers Museum, 180 N. Michigan Avenue, 2nd Floor

Attendees can explore the museum’s offerings, including exhibits for students grade 6th-12th. There will also be a presentation by museum staff and curricula designer, Critical Learning Collaborative. Complimentary snacks plus non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages will be served.

This story was originally published in Block Club Chicago.

Chicago will get smaller share of state’s increased K-12 education budget for second year in a row

2023-08-09T19:28:21+00:00

Chicago Public Schools will once again get less state education money than officials anticipated, according to new data released by the state on Tuesday.

Although Chicago will still see an increase in state education funding, a drop in the percentage of students considered low-income and a bump in property wealth in the city means the district is not getting the largest share of the new money.

In May, state lawmakers passed a $50.6 billion state budget that allocated $10.3 billion to education. That included a $350 million increase to be distributed to K-12 school districts through an evidence-based formula.

Chicago was expecting to get $27 million of that increase. But new calculations posted on the Illinois State Board of Education website show that the state is allocating $23.3 million of the increase to CPS.

The largest share of the state’s new K-12 funding – $35 million – will go to Elgin U-46, Illinois’ second largest district. Plainfield School District 202, the state’s fifth largest district, will receive $13.1 million of the increase.

In all, Chicago will get $1.77 billion in K-12 funding, up from $1.75 billion last year. The amount doesn’t include millions it gets for things such as pre-K and transportation. The new state data indicates CPS is now getting more than $17,000 per student from the state and is considered 80% of the way to “adequately funded.”

A district spokesperson did not say how the change might impact the already-approved $9.4 billion budget. In a statement, they said the district is “eager to work with the General Assembly toward increased and targeted State funding that more equitably supports the students most in need in Chicago and across Illinois.”

Last year, Chicago Public Schools planned on getting $50 million in new state money, but instead received a little more than $27 million after losing 10,000 students and seeing an increase in property wealth.

Funding for public education has been steadily increasing in Illinois since 2017, when state lawmakers overhauled the formula used to distribute tax dollars to school districts. The goal was to add more money over time to bring all districts to a level of “adequacy” and shed Illinois’ reputation as a state that ranked near the bottom when it came to support for public education.

“When you consider how much progress Illinois has made in the last five years, it’s nothing short of remarkable,” said Robin Steans, president of Advance Illinois, a nonprofit advocacy and policy organization based in Chicago that focuses on public school education. “But that does not mean our work is done.”

Steans said the latest calculations make her hopeful that the state can fully fund schools in the next five years, but there is still a need to increase state funding for schools by at least $550 million a year to reach that goal.

Lawmakers have increased education funding every year since 2018, with the exception of 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

State education officials calculate how much each school district gets based on a number of factors, including the needs of the students enrolled and a local district’s ability to fund schools using local resources such as property taxes. For example, districts that serve more students from low-income families or English language learners get more state money.

Chicago Public Schools is facing a looming deficit when federal COVID recovery money runs out next fall. District officials and school board members have said they hope for more state funding to fill the gap.

Becky Vevea is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Chicago. Contact Becky at bvevea@chalkbeat.org.