Board Recommendation on admissions policy....Dec 17th vote

[Lawrence Busansky]

The Board Voted tonight to approve the recommendation (really 4 items voted on as one) of the Special Committee on Admissions, Attendance and Boundaries. Two board members (Hamill and Gayot) were against, the rest carried the recommendation. For reference again, that recommendation was to: 1. Improve Claremont Middle School as a top choice for families 2. Expand capacity at Montclair to address overcrowding 3. Examine feasibility of increasing facility capacity at Hillcrest 4. Amend AR 5116.1 for redirection of Hillcrest students to Kaiser until facilities become available at Hillcrest

The room was packed, with a very large group of Chabot and Montclair parents and a fair amount of Hillcrest ones taking the opportunity to address the board.  

Item1: 

The idea of improving Claremont is popular and unobjectionable - board and audience all seem to agree Chabot should be improved. Several Chabot parents spoke in praise of the school and about the benefit the school would gain if more Hills parents sent their kids there.

Item2:

Lots of dissatisfaction from Claremont parents - many simply do not want Claremont to be a bigger school. A few seemed OK with the idea but had particular criticisms of how it would be done or said that a new building by 2012 was not fast enough. Others seem to view the idea as positive. Board Member Gayot asks why we are building capacity in the hills, for kids who live across town to go to (this is true if/when PI or general lottery kids are attending these schools, so in general true for Chabot, not true for Hillcrest) when the schools in their neighborhood are in need of closing because they're empty....He would like a more comprehensive plan that looks to build good neighborhood schools with actual neighborhood kids attending them.

Item 3:

This wasn't directly addressed by many, but certainly Chabot parents would like to see this done, as in some sense, a demonstration that Hillcrest is doing its 'fair share' to solve the overcrowding problem. Some criticized the item as written, because it needs more teeth in it than 'examine feasibility of....' In general Hillcrest parents, and everyone else, express support for this idea. Several Board members stated that they did not feel they could justify spending significant sums to increase capacity at two schools in the Hills, suggesting they would support a building program at only one of Montclair and Hillcrest. If that turns out to be the case, 'examining feasibility' of increasing Hillcrest capacity may indeed become quite a toothless directive. No idea where this will go.....

Item 4

The first 3 items are really just rather vague goals with no concrete consequences for anyone quite yet but item 4 really socks it to Hillcrest parents, and Pre-K's specifically. Unfortunately Rhonda and I were apparently the only two people at OUSD tonight who specifically objected to this policy. The idea that this was a bad policy because it takes from Hillcrest parents the options that every other parent in the mega-boundary enjoys did not find much support. Not even from other Hillcrest parents - they generally supported the recommendation.

So, now what?

[Rhonda Woo]

Much thanks to Lawrence for attending the meeting beginning at 4 p.m. I think that the result of his diligence is that he was exhausted yet did his best to summarize the results of the meeting at 11:28 p.m.  The following is a correction:

 

“Gayot” is Noel Gallo.

 

Item 1 should read:  The idea of improving Claremont Middle School is popular and unobjectionable - board and audience all seem to agree Claremont Middle School should be improved.  The rest remains unchanged.

 

Item 2 should read:  Lots of dissatisfaction from Montclair parents - many simply do not want Montclair to be a bigger school.  The rest remains unchanged.

 

Item 3: No changes but just an observation about what was said and what I know.  What was discussed at the meeting was that the recommendations had to be accepted as a whole versus in part because in Yee’s opinion, they were all interdependent.  Yet while saying this, he and/or other members observed that most likely will not happen because there is no place to put the portable, no money to put a portable, available money needs to be used for other schools, etc.  What I know is that Tim White had met with the subcommittee of the LRPC assigned to help identify areas where capacity can be increased at Hillcrest and Tim, after meeting with us, said that he wanted to meet again on December 22 at Hillcrest to continue our discussion.  All inquiries to him regarding the time of the meeting have gone unanswered.  With the understanding that Hillcrest most likely will not expand, that means that the overflow Hillcrest kids will stay at Kaiser until they graduate. 

 

Item 4:  As a clarification, the redirection to Kaiser being supported by Hillcrest parents seemed to come from Hillcrest parents with children currently at Hillcrest.   As a result, support for mandatory redirection is not surprising: it doesn’t affect their children in that their children are already in the school and will not be subject to redirection, their siblings have first priority, and it actually helps them in that the Hillcrest principal most likely will not try to take on as many kids as in the past (i.e., the bubble) and therefore will not crowd the school that their children currently are attending.

 

In hindsight, I am not sure whether we had any impact at all.  However, when I complain about the process, I know that I can do so with the understanding that I did my best versus I did nothing but be a Monday morning quarterback.  Going forward, it seems that our role in the LRPC is winding down if it didn’t simply end last night.  I will continue to serve on the LRPC subcommittee on expansion at Hillcrest until that subcommittee winds down, which it might on or before December 22, if Tim White does not respond to our inquiries. 

 

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[Mike Ambrose]

 
Rhonda,
 
Is it legal for OUSD to discriminate against one group (Hillcrest area pre-K's without siblings) by taking them out of the Options process?
 
Mike

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Subject: RE: Board Recommendation on admissions policy....Dec 17th vote
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:48:26 -0800
From: Rho...@BerryAndBerry.com
To: hillcres...@googlegroups.com

[Garner K. Weng]

Mike,

I think we'd need someone with an education-law specialty to answer that question -- but I'd be surprised if it were illegal. It doesn't really fall into the rubric of any discrimination law with which I'm familiar, and my general understanding just from seeing what school districts do generally (here and elsewhere) is that they have pretty broad latitude to manage enrollment, neighborhood boundaries/lines, and population/overcrowding issues.

 

Garner

 

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From: hillcres...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hillcres...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike Ambrose
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 8:13 AM
To: Hillcrest Pre-K

[Karin Foust]

Honestly I don't think the item 4 is going to have that big of an impact in the end of the day.  From what I'm hearing the district isn't even sure how to interpret it.  Michael Bonino is reviewing it with legal right now.  The thing is, if redirection happends, Hillcrest kids will redirect to Kaiser - this just makes it a bit more suspect how many may get the Chabot card along the way.  I get the choice question, but is it worth the heart and effort?   There is also some level of protection that we go to Kaiser and not one of the other schools in the megaboundry that are not as high performing as Emerson.  

 

Just curious, does anyone care that you might be going to Kaiser together rather than in different schools?  I always did think that would be nicer. I miss my other fellow redirects that got into Hillcrest from time to time.  I just like having a carpool option to Thornhill so I don't have to drive down there everyday.   : )

 

Now what - honestly I would focus on a petition to use some of the expansion space at Montclair.  What was the board's support for that possibility like?   I watched the very late part of the meeting on TV - can't beleive I hadn't found it on tv before - and there was a review of the sustainability of the district.  They were really highlighting spending concerns.  Did the board embrace this one as they passed it or did they feel like it was OK to pass it as just a "review" not a full action?

 

Also, why did Kerry Hammill oppose?

 

Thanks for going and for your efforts.  Despite the turnout last night, they are not lost on this crowd.

 

Karin

[Hervey, Andy (US)]

Let’s all organize and support a petition to 1) Expand Montclair, and 2) use Montclair expansion space for redirection of Hillcrest families.  It cannot be argued that Kaiser makes more sense than Montclair, if Montclair expands.

 

 

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[Garner K. Weng]

Karin,

Given the choice (and the luck to get in on redirection), I would have likely selected Chabot over Kaiser. I am not all that familiar with Kaiser and how it compares academically or on other such fronts to Chabot. But Chabot is just a few-minutes drive from my house and doesn't really take me out of my way on my commute. Kaiser means getting on 24 or 13 in rush hour and going in the opposite direction of where I would otherwise be going. I had to go that way just the other day, roughly around the time of the start of school, and it was bumper-to-bumper traffic. Completely unscientifically, I figure I'd lose at least an hour a day.

 

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From: hillcres...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hillcres...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Karin Foust
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 10:38 AM
To: hillcres...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Board Recommendation on admissions policy....Dec 17th vote

[Karin Foust]

Hi Garner,

I totally see it as not the first choice and I don't want to make light of it.  I just want to make sure if there is energy spent, it will be proactive and effective.  This has gone on so long you guys and arguing over boundries and which direction, etc... its exhausting and not getting anyone anywhere.  I'm trying to think how to work with what they are doing rather than making arguements against it.  They are definately going to turn a deaf ear on this soon. 

 

I don't like the outcome of it, but from their perspecitve, over the past couple years they have spent hours on it.  They had a whole special committee meeting at 7:30am to deal with it.  They did community meetings on it - outcome - siblings first and mega-boundries.  Now this. 

 

Andy - go for it!  It certainly can't hurt! 

 

Karin

 

(Note - you can get there by going through Golden Gate, to Tunnel Rd and over the freeway.)

[Rhonda Woo]

 

On January 12, 2009, the LRPC sub-committee on expansion at Hillcrest met with Tim White and Tadashi (I forgot his last name).  The bottomline is that there is no acceptable place to put up a portable at Hillcrest therefore there will be no temporary option to increase the number of incoming kindergarten students for Fall 2009.  Specifically, the locations identified for a possible portable were the patio area and the playground.  Beverley did not want a portable in either of those locations. 

 

For the long term, it appears that there is a possibility of building in the nature area.  The idea at this time would be to move the library and computer lab to a structure to be built/installed in the nature area that would take at least 3 years to complete.  Once moved, at least 2 classrooms will be opened up and possibly 4 classrooms total could be added if the current building is reconfigured once the computer lab and library are moved to the new structure.  To help ensure community support for such a new construction/installation, the idea is to make the new structure available to the general public after school hours.

 

The consensus was that the Hillcrest site could not accomodate a 3rd full kindergarten class and the accompanying expansion required as a 3rd full kindergarten class continued through 5th or even 8th grade.  At this time, the sub-committee will report these findings back to the LRPC and suggest that the LRPC run new numbers regarding capacity at Hillcrest.  Specifically, the sub-committee thinks that the LRPC will want to consider recommending that incoming kindergarten admissions be increased from 40 to something around 50.  The LRPC has not met yet to discuss these recent developments.

 

Also, an OUSD subcommittee regarding facility expansion is in the process of being created. The directors on the sub-committee are expected to be: Directors Jody London, Noel Gallo and Alice Spearman.  The upshot is: any expansion to occur in the OUSD must get past this committee first before it can get on the OUSD agenda.  Director Gallo did not seem to support expansion in the hills school when other schools within the district need to be closed.  Also, Director Gallo cited some number like 80 kids being out of the Hillcrest neighborhood yet attending Hillcrest.  (Beverley did not dispute this number but did not state that it was correct either.)  We will need to review the minutes of the prior OUSD meeting to determine the exact number cited by Director Gallo.  My understanding regarding Director London is that she is not a fan of Hillcrest overflow attending Chabot and pushing out PI students as a result.  I believe that she is a suppoter of making Claremont Middle School a school of choice. 

 

In short, what the above means to me is that if there is no expansion at Hillcrest, losing the Hillcrest Middle School might begin to be discussed more seriously within the OUSD in the future if the overflow problem continues, which I suspect will continue.  Additionally, if Director Gallo is correct regarding the number of non-Hillcrest students attending Hillcrest is correct, then I think that there will be at least one ear who will entertain any complaints/concerns of pre-K Hillcrest parents of heightened investigation in this regard.  Specifically, siblings who live out of the Hillcrest area validly have first priority under the current OUSD admission policy.  However, I don't think that the policy was ever meant to endorse families who move into the Hillcrest neighborhood simply to enroll in Hillcrest and then immediately move out upon admission.  (Plus, I don't know if that is occurring.  I just think the number cited by Director Gallo seemed quite high.)  Also, I don't know if falsifying a Hillcrest address is happening or not.  My initial thought is only that if approximately 25% of Hillcrest is attended by out of neighborhood students and such attendance is not in accordance with the spirit of the OUSD admission policy that perhaps we need to bring this issue up to the OUSD, beginning with Director Gallo. 

 

Finally, I will know by March 2009 regarding whether my son will or will not be attending a school within the OUSD.  The LRPC will most likely continue to exist and pre-K representation is very important for various reasons.  For those you out there who would be interested in becoming a pre-K representative, please continue to entertain that thought because I will be stepping down from my position sometime in March 2009.