RE: Approved Reorg Plan

[Jeff Hammond]

The boundary issues around Cleveland, Franklin and Marshall have yet to be decided and the district will be soliciting input from those communities over the next month.
There are several options on the table.
Board members stressed the importance of trying to create some sort of balance among socioeconomics with the distribution of the Marshall students as to not concentrate all lower socioeconomic and academic priority students in any one campus. This is easier said than done and unfortunately the boundary recommendations that came out early last spring did not reflect this as a priority.

At Franklin we welcome all students and have historically had a large presence of Marshall families attending our school.
Currently about 25% (250 students) of our enrollment is from the Marshall cluster.
We all must demand that wherever the students go, they are provided adequate supports to meet their needs and provide as smooth a transition as possible.
Implementation is the key to success of any plan.

-Jeff


-----Original Message-----
From: gran...@googlegroups.com [mailto:gran...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Neisha Saxena
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:49 AM
To: gran...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Approved Reorg Plan

Thanks! This is very helpful. Any thoughts about how this affects Cleveland?

--- On Wed, 10/13/10, jahman <j2ha...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: jahman <j2ha...@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Approved Reorg Plan
> To: "Grant Cluster Parents for a Thoughtful High School Redesign" <gran...@googlegroups.com>
> Date: Wednesday, October 13, 2010, 11:24 AM
> I have not envied the school board
> members or Carole Smith.  With the
> decline in the state budget, limits on the ability to raise
> money
> locally, and with high school enrollments likely to decline
> for a few
> more years before trending back upward, they had some very
> tough
> choices to make.  Add to this the cries for greater
> equity along with
> worries about middle class flight further sapping
> resources, and the
> decisions are particularly tough.
>
> I am personally very pleased with the choices they did
> make.  For the
> vast majority of high school families, I believe the plan
> the board
> approved is a good one.
>
> The following is a summary of how I believe the various
> schools fared
> under this plan.
>
> GRANT
>
> A number of the ideas kicked around during this
> reorganization process
> would have meant drastic cuts for Grant.  This is not
> one of them.
> For Grant, I believe that it is at least as good as the
> status quo.
> As the number of students within Grant’s current
> boundaries bottoms
> out, Grant’s boundaries will expand to include King and
> Humboldt.
> This will still leave Grant with the most compact
> boundaries of any
> Neighborhood comprehensive, but will generally keep it as
> the largest
> school (though Franklin may be larger for a few
> years).  There will be
> some reduction in offerings at Grant, especially during the
> years
> enrollment bottoms out, but I believe it will not be
> drastic.  Grant
> will be adding remedial and AVID courses.  Some of
> these additional
> offerings will come with additional staffing that Grant
> would not
> otherwise have.
>
> FRANKLIN
>
> Franklin is one of the big winners in all of this.  In
> recent years
> Franklin had been successful in stemming the tide of flight
> by putting
> together a program that was attractive enough for middle
> class
> families.  Much of this was accomplished through
> temporary funding
> sources that were about to run out.  This plan truly
> puts Franklin on
> an equal footing with Cleveland, Grant, Lincoln and Wilson
> as far as
> the breadth of offerings they will be able to
> provide.  Franklin may
> even briefly find itself as the largest high school in the
> city with
> the highest staffing levels.
>
> ROOSEVELT
>
> Things are looking great for Roosevelt!  I was at a
> meeting at
> Roosevelt when the favored plan (7a) would have increased
> Roosevelt’s
> enrollment to 940 by 2014.  Overall the community was
> thrilled by the
> extra resources this would bring.  The current
> plan’s projection is
> 1098 students in 2014.  This would bring substantially
> more staffing
> and resources than 7a.  In addition the school will be
> receiving a
> boat load of Federal Turn Around money over a 3 year period
> of time.
> With all these additional resources, the school should be
> able to put
> together an extremely attractive program for those in its
> community.
>
> MADISON
>
> Whereas Franklin had managed to secure enough resources
> over the last
> few years to stem the tide of flight, Madison has appeared
> to fall
> just short of this, with a troubling but not crippling
> outflow.   This
> plan should abruptly put an end to that problem. 
> Under this plan,
> Madison will be similarly sized to
> Wilson.   This will allow them the
> breadth of offerings to provide a very attractive program.
>
> LINCOLN & WILSON
>
> Other than some curriculum changes, this plan is pretty
> much status
> quo for the Westside schools.
>
> JEFFERSON
>
> Once one accounts for those attending various alternatives,
> Benson,
> and those that have a right to transfer under the rules of
> no child
> left behind, there simply are not enough students in North
> Portland to
> support 2 decent sized comprehensives in North
> Portland.  For
> Jefferson advocates, this is not as good as making
> Jefferson and
> neighborhood comprehensive, and doing something else with
> Roosevelt.
> However it is much better for the Jefferson community than
> most of the
> other ideas that have been
> considered.   Those from the Jefferson
> community who want to go there will be able to do so. 
>   Those who do
> not would most likely have been allowed to transfer due to
> provisions
> of No Child Left Behind.  Now these students will be
> assigned to
> Grant, Madison or Roosevelt, with the option of attending
> Jeff.
> Jefferson will gain the highly desirable middle college
> program, and
> get to keep it amazing sports program.  To me, this
> plan seems more
> sustainable than the status quo.
>
> BENSON
>
> Though Benson will be giving up a lot as compared to the
> status quo,
> this is much better than the previous proposal for
> Benson.   I will
> allow a continuation of 4 year CTE at Benson, as well as
> their sports
> teams.   Though these changes are not good
> for the Benson community,
> it is not the doomsday scenario like the previous plan.
>
> MARSHALL
>
> For Marshall advocates, this plan is a doomsday
> scenario.  Currently
> only about 40% of Marshall area students attend Marshall,
> with nearly
> as many attending other Neighborhood schools or Benson, and
> the rest
> attending Alternatives.  I believe a significant
> minority of those who
> would have otherwise attended Marshall will learn to
> appreciate their
> new assignments.  But that still leaves several
> hundred who would have
> fared better at Marshall.  Marshall has had a lot of
> experience
> adjusting to many of the special needs of their student
> population.
> It will undoubtedly take many years for the other schools
> to similarly
> adapt. In addition, the burden of greater commute times and
> distances
> is being placed on a community with relatively few
> resources.
>