Comments on: For PTAs, another duty: neighborhood surveys

By: Katy Murphy

Katy Murphy — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:08:12 +0000

I agree, Karin. I plan to do a story about the committee’s work, and about the big picture.

By: Karin

Karin — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:04:13 +0000

The adjustment to the priorities was approved as a tool for the district to work with for the upcoming enrollment cycle only. It proposed and approved at the December board meeting. This solution is not perfect, but does stick to the neighborhood priority. It gives kids that cannot go to their neighborhood school a chance to at least be close to home rather than end up in the full district wide lottery. Technically, the wording does allow the redistricted child to displace a neighborhood kid, but when questioned about that before the district responded that they would honor the intent of the resolution. I don’t believe they would actually do that, but I agree it is unclear. I was at the meeting where this resolution was proposed and thought it was a reasonable solution to the urgent concerns of parents in overcrowded school districts. More time to more fully document the details may have been better, but it was not available with the application process pending.

The district and the board are now working on a special committee to review the district wide enrollment policies and boundries. The meetings for this discussion are open to the public and input is welcome. I think the work of this committee is very important in addressing the new overcrowded environment we not face.

You can see the minutes of the last meeting on Feb 22nd at:
http://boe-webextender.ousd.k12.ca.us/meetings/2008/2/2181_A_Special_Committee_on_School_Admissions,_Attendance_and_Boundaries_08-02-22_Meeting_Agenda_(Long).pdf

The next meeting is March 7th at 7:30am.

Katy, I’d like to see you do an article on the work of this committee. A positive forward looking article that shows what the district is doing to try to build a solution and a longer term admission policy we can all live with.

By: Katy Murphy

Katy Murphy — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:02:45 +0000

Here’s a response from Juwen Lam, OUSD’s demographer, about school meetings, surveys and the work that she has done to get a handle on school-age populations:

First of all, the purpose of the the Redwood Heights meeting was never to propose a survey of future incoming Kindergarteners. We have been working closely with the Redwood Heights community and were well aware of the survey completed by the Future Redwood Heights parents.

Secondly, the purpose of asking the Montclair parents to do a survey of future incoming Kindergarteners was never to place the sole responsibility of demographic research on the parents. The purpose for asking for this survey was as a result of Board meetings on both December 12th and 19th as well as the Montclair community meetings in which we heard repeated feedback from the Montclair community that they wanted the same opportunity as Hillcrest to complete their own internal Kindergarten survey. In asking for the survey, we were providing an opportunity for the community to do what was asked for.

Finally, the district has completed resident forecasts for all overcrowded neighborhoods and we are not relying on neighborhood survey data for enrollment forecasts. The purpose of doing a neighborhood survey would be more to gain insight into any additional information not available through birth data as well as to see how well the forecasts match up.

By: Concerned Alameda Parent

Concerned Alameda Parent — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:02:46 +0000

Dear Surveying Oakland Parents:
You are not alone!!! In Alameda, many of our elementary schools face overcrowding. This is something our school board and school district chose to ignore despite overnight lines outside schools at enrollment and despite demographer reports warning of overcapacity issues.
A group of parents chose to take a school-zone survey upon themselves, to show the board and district the pending problem. Sad to say they did nothing in response, other than continue business as usual. Even sadder to say, the pending cuts due to the budget issues from the state are likely to make the capacity issues disappear and change our schools for a long time to come.

By: Kim Cole

Kim Cole — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:04:35 +0000

At this point we have no plans to do the survey next year. We went 5 years out. Although the information will become less useful over time, it gave us a lot of information that we were looking for. I believe that OUSD is using the survey. They say it supports their stats that show there is not going to be an overcrowding problem at Redwood Heights in the years to come.

By: hills parent

hills parent — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:48:33 +0000

Katie:

This whole enrollment farce would be a wonderful story for the Tribune to pursue. OUSD has become a district out of control. Rather than own up to its mistakes, they just choose to make mistake after mistake. Can they set a vision for the district and work towards that vision…or is this another impossibility?

Is this the “Peter Principle” at it highest?

By: Katy Murphy

Katy Murphy — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:41:04 +0000

Thanks for bringing that up, Kim. Is the Future RHS Parents Group planning a similar census this year? Is the data you gathered being used by the district?

By: Kim Cole

Kim Cole — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:01:40 +0000

Hi Katy,
Just wanted to clarify one thing. Redwood Heights neighbors already did a survey this past fall and gave the results to the district. The survey was done by the Future RHS Parents Group. It was much more comprehensive then the Hilcrest survey. We sent volunteers door to door and counted all children under age 5.

By: Future (Perhaps) Redwood Heights Parent

Future (Perhaps) Redwood Heights Parent — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:50:08 +0000

I was one of those parents who helped survey Redwood Heights in the hopes that it would help OUSD to PLAN FOR OUR NEIGHBORHOOD KIDS. How does having two different populations (neighborhood children and redirects) as the same priority make either of them a priority? Sounds a bit like “if everyone is special, then no one is special”. Why don’t they just call it what it is: a lottery so they can have no accountability when a neighborhood child doesn’t get in. Very disappointing.

By: hills parent

hills parent — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:41:14 +0000

Chris:

I am glad that Oakland finally decided to hire a demographer. For a district the size of Oakland this should have been done many years ago. I attended the Redwood Heights meeting last night and was disappointed that the district has once again implemented a new set of priorities for 08-09 enrollment, much to the surprise of everyone in the audience.

Priority #1: Neighborhood siblings
Priority #2: Neighborhood children and re-directs from overcrowded neighborhoods
Priority #3: Non-neighborhood siblings
Priority #4: PI status of neighborhood school
Priority #5: Lottery

#2 came as a surprise. To think that re-directs from overcrowded neighborhoods could bump neighborhood children once again goes against neighborhood children as a priority. We were informed by district officials that if a school is crowded and cannot accommodate all of #2, then a lottery would be held for those families.

Once again – where is the priority for neighborhood children? Also, where was the public input for this?