According to Assistant Superintendent Tony Daddona, all parents from these schools received letters in August to inform them of their option to switch schools. The district received 43 requests to transfer schools by the late August deadline. After Labor Day, the district will assign these students to another school based on enrollment numbers.
What happens if you missed the letter informing you of your child's ability to transfer schools?
According to Mr. Daddona the school district will try and accommodate requests that are made but cannot guarantee another placement.
The option to transfer schools is available to all students at Title I schools designated "In Need of Improvement". However, free supplementary services like tutoring are only available to students who receive free and reduced lunch and who individually are not performing up to standards required by NCLB.
According to Carol Marinaccio, Norwalk's Title One Grants Administrator, there will be a supplementary services information session for parents at Jefferson School on September 30th at which state approved tutors will be present.
Last year 90 out of 150 families with students eligible for assistance participated in the program set up by the Norwalk school district, and of those students 55% showed progress.
Title I distributes federal funding to schools with a high percentage of students from low-income families. To qualify as a Title I school, a school typically has to have around 40% or more of its students that come from "low income" families.
NCLB's menu of sanctions, including possible restructuring, are only for Title 1 schools. As a result students at a school that is not designated as a Title I school do not have the option of switching schools or receiving supplementary services.
Separately, the Norwalk school district is one of 15 districts in the state to be classified "In Need of Improvement" State officials came to Norwalk in June to see how the district is progressing in its District Improvement Plan. An evaluation report from the State is expected any day, according to Mr. Daddona.
Despite Norwalk's compliance with NCLB, school officials say that the legislation has flaws. Diane Filardo, Norwalk Public School's testing coordinator said that NCLB does not give the whole picture of the quality of education offered in Norwalk.
"NCLB is all or nothing," she said, "but things are complicated in Norwalk". Ms. Filardo explained that all the subgroups in a school could be proficient except one, but the whole school gets penalized and labeled "in need of improvement".
Ms. Filardo would prefer that students and the district be evaluated differently,
"What we should really be looking at is vertical scale scores--how students are performing from one year to the next, how they are progressing."
Posts
Ms. Noor, I want you to know that you are doing such a wonderful public service with this blog. You are doing what the newspapers in this town should be doing and aren't. If there were half a dozen people like you peppering the BOE and school administrators with questions our schools would be a lot better. The BOE and school officials are essentially unaccountable. I hope that by shining light on their actions they begin to think about how they are running our school system. Once again thank you for your insights and articles.
ReplyDelete