Some in a big Madison neighborhood are outraged over the latest plan to change West Side school boundaries to make way for a new school opening near Hawk’s Landing next fall.
Residents in the Valley Ridge neighborhood are pledging to start a petition drive and to do whatever it takes to stop the proposal.
The new, yet-to-be-named school on the far West Side has prompted officials to try to rearrange boundary lines on the West Side. But, the boundary lines are different than initially proposed and some in Valley Ridge said they are in shock.
“I feel very deceived,” said parent and homeowner Beth Todd, vice president of the Glenn Stephens PTO.
Todd, her husband and other parents said they were always told their children would not be affected by the new boundary changes in meetings with school officials before the referendum for the new school passed.
Currently, Valley Ridge children go to Stephens school as well as Jefferson Middle School. But under a new proposal, that would all drastically change, and, some contend, for no good reason.
e = get, head
Dive into said
Even with all the new members of the board and all the talk about better communications, the board and administration still run the district to minimize citizen involvement, as well as any other outside influences.
God forbid that plans should progress that aren’t exactly what the parents were expecting…and the horror of having their children sent to Falk! This is a pure knee jerk reaction news piece. Anyone who’s ever been through the re-boundary process knows there will be 3 or 4 iterations of the design plan prior to the final plan being implemented- and by then some less-affluent neighborhood will be screwed in favor of their louder counterparts.
David is so right. The comments by these parents make me very angry. The lower test scores at another school don’t reflect anything about the school except the level of poverty of children attending it. So really they are saying that they decline to have their children attend school with children who are less fortunate.
I am continually amazed that people who have only ever had an association with a single school are convinced it is the only wonderful school in the world and the only one that can serve their children.
That being said, greater openness and transparency in the process would probably result in a better decision and better buy-in by parents.
How would you know what those parents “really” mean by their comments on the test scores at Falk? What would you suggest they use to evaluate the school? You’re criticizing them for their prejudices but what about your comment does not prejudge? Do you know them or what? I don’t blame those parents at all. They’re just the latest casualty of the board’s ineptitude.
Oh, yes, I know dozens of them.
I’m learning their views from their own public statements in the Cap Times, fair game if ever there was. And I would certainly suggest they not use test scores to evaluate schools. Better measures would be a visit to the school, talking with a variety of people whose children attend the school, and learning about what the school has to offer their child. It’s remarkable how many people in Madison “know” their school is best, when they’ve never had experience with any other school. There are many fine schools and many fine children here.
Test scores just tell you the poverty level of children at the school. Oh, I already said that. Test scores are only really of interest when they are out of sync with demographics–e.g., a school where poverty level and test performance don’t match–or you can compare populations with similar demographics.
For instance, the parent in the article allegedly compared test scores and discovered that her preferred school, Stephens, was a “better” school than Falk. Stephens posted higher 4th grade reading scores. But if you look at the numbers on the DPI website, both poor and non-poor kids at Falk actually scored higher in reading than kids at Stephens: 47% of poor kids at Stephens were advanced or proficient readers vs. 53% at Falk. 91% of non-poor kids at Stephens were advanced or proficient readers vs. 93% at Falk. But since more than half the kids tested at Falk were poor, a much larger proportion than at Stephens, Falk’s average score was lower. But maybe Falk is doing a better job of teaching its students reading. Maybe it could do a great job with my kid.
On the other hand, both poor and non-poor kids at Stephens scored higher in language arts (which is different from “reading,” but I’ve always wondered how). One could explore that as well as other questions that could be posed about the needs of a particular child, but one can only begin to tease out answers by knowing something about the schools’ populations. Aggregate scores are a blunt instrument.
I’ve seen nothing in the scores to convince me that any school in Madison stands out as uniquely equipped to teach middle-class white kids better than any other. As a parent, I’m interested in differences in school culture–what is the school community like? is the atmosphere child-centered? is kindness a school value? Most of what children experience in the school day will not be measurable by test scores.
Kay, you seem to kick the parents, but what about the administrators? The administrators, after all, are the ones making the racial and class assumptions that putting the kids from wealthier families into Falk is some sort of answer to some problems, which they don’t want to define or disclose, that they see at that school. Can you really blame the parents for wondering why their children are being used to solve a problem that was not identified in an up-front and honest way?
Oh. I get it. Your unmatched analytical skills and superior intellect qualifies only you to determine the best educational choices for these parents. At least those parents are looking after their children’s best interests, yours are just self-serving. Since you know dozens of those parents have you had this discussion with them? I think they have the right to defend themselves.
I don’t think this is about test scores and income levels. This is about unexpected changes in children’s lives. I feel for the parents involved. I sincerely doubt they have anything against the Falk community. This might be about going to a new school, increasing transportation time, new kids, lost connections to neighbors, new teachers, and new surroundings. I would be mad (and I’m guessing the other posters would be too) if this was dumped on me.
I sincerely hope that there is positive solution for these families. I would like to do something for these families and hope they will let others know what they need.
At least some of the affected families clearly do not believe this decision is being made with the best interest of their children in mind. Finding out about boundary changes only because someone was paying attention to the MMSD website suggests administration indifference to these families. A harsher interpretation is that the administration was disdainful of their feelings, springing this as a fait accomplit.
It goes to respect in other words, whether this administration trusts people will understand if given a chance to be included in the process. Of course this assumes a decision is defensible in the first instance. And whether or not these families would ever support the decision, the rest of the community would feel at least they’d had a chance to make their case. This administration skips over any presumed dissent, benevolent dictators that they are.
This is the way the Rainwater administration has long done business. Let us hope the new superintendent does not continue to treat families in this adversarial, hostile manner. The school board has a chance to hire someone who will lead positively, constructively, respectfully. It would be a welcome and fruitful change.
In a perfect world……but in reality, negotiations start somewhere. This is where they start. In a smaller community, you could feasibly get every potentially affected neighborhood/school community together and decide how to partition for a new school catchment area. However, it has been our experience on the NE side that it’s better to allow the MMSD to make proposals and then tweak/negotiate from there. The alternative is too destructive to the already existing (and sometimes fragile) community coalitions. When you allow the MMSD to make the first move, at least you can foist your complaints on the MMSD- as opposed to the folks you see at the grocery or on the soccer pitch. This isn’t adversarial or hostile, unless folks choose to make it that way. Anyone who’s ever been down this road knows there will be many iterations of a reboundary plan prior to agreement and implementation. Plus you have this HUGE West Boundary Task Force that has already addressed several issues which, if I’m not mistaken, led to the new school construction in the first place. Use it, don’t abuse it!
Some information from DPI WINSS, 2006 data
Compare Falk (F) with Mendota(M)/Glen Stephens (S) for Blacks and Whites (B and W)
4th Reading: Prof and Adv:
76.5% (M/B), 50% (F/B), n/a (S/B)
n/a (M/W), 100% (F/W), 90.9 (S/W)
4th Math: Prof and Adv:
82.4 (M/B), 42.9 (F/B), n/a (S/B)
n/a (M/W), 85.9 (F/W), 90.9 (S/B)
4th Science: Prof & Adv:
41.2 (M/B), 28.6 (F/B), n/a (S/B)
n/a (M/W), 92.9 (F/W), 90.9 (S/B)
4th Reading: Basic: 23.5 (M/B), 50% (F/B), n/a (S/B)
4th Math: Basic: 17.6 (M/B), 57.1 (F/B), n/a (S/B)
4th Science: Basic: 58.8 (M/B), 71.4 (F/B), n/a (S/B)
However, there seems to be a reversal in 5th grade for Blacks in Mendota v Falk (none for Stephens because a statistically small group is Blacks go to Stephens).
5th Reading: Prof & Adv:
23.1 (M/B), 90.9 (F/B), n/a (S/B)
n/a (M/W), 94.7 (F/W), 97.3 (S/W)
5th Math: Prof & Adv:
30.8 (M/B), 36.4 (F/B), n/a (S/B)
n/a (M/W), 89.5 (F/W), 91.9 (S/W)
Just looking at these DPI scores does not alone seem to indicate that Falk is an inferior school for white or black populations (in comparison or absolutely). Of course, I do not believe test scores can and do tell the whole story, and these scores do not show any longitudinal improvements (this data is 2006 scores — a snapshot only).
So, I’m not seeing the “really bad test scores” at Falk that one parent in the article is citing to justify their positions.
“This isn’t adversarial or hostile, unless folks choose to make it that way.”
You seemed to have missed the critical fact the first notice these families got was someone picking it up on the MMSD website, and not a direct announcement either, buried in a general description of school boundaries.
Nothing critical about that fact. Posting plans on the district website has been standard procedure for at least 3 years. Just ask anyone who’s actually been through this before. These folks just don’t like the plan. I can’t blame them- no one who’s school will be changed to make way for the new school is going to like the plan. I guess I’m not surprised some people will spin this as hostile. Those same folks spin everything related to the MMSD as hostile.
I understand that folks on the north and east sides of town have gone through many boundary changes. Some families have had these changes occur 3 -4 times within a childs education. It may mean going to a different high school than older siblings in some cases. It must be hard – you just get to know the teachers and bam you’re sent somewhere else. Different math curriculum, different reading curriculum, different special needs teachers. How would you make it less tramatic? Some things that come to my mind (and I don’t know district policy) are:
1) Boundaries can only be changed every 4 years (a random number)
2) If your child (family) starts at a school, they have the option of remaining.
3) They have the option of remaining for a set number of years
4) Parents must be part of the solution (so need to know the problem).
These are only my poorly informed ideas. Boundary changes do happen all the time and there is a procedure for informing parents. I wonder if it can improved.
Actually, the Board (via the Long Range Planning Committee) has some guidelines about re-districting. I don’t have a handy link, but I’m pretty sure it includes grandfathering in rising 5th graders.
If in fact the first notification the parents had was via the website, that is thoughtless, at a minimum. I saw this when it was first posted. We’re out of MMSD for now, but at least one child may return for HS, so need to keep an eye on things. Now it’s posted in bright red on the main page, but at the time one needed to first click on Bd. Of Ed. and then Long Range Planning and finally Plan A to get to it. When I saw this I assumed that MMSD families had received notification in some other form. The plan affects our attendance area. An area which had been slotted to move from Chavez into our elementary school will now not be moved. There are other changes to the prior most recent plan as well, all of which involve not moving students who would have been moved.
When we were in MMSD, I believe our elementary school gave the heads up in the school newsletter about proposed changes, and also had hard copies posted on bulletin board and available in office for people to read, although I can’t be certain about the lag time. There still exist people who don’t have easy access to computers. Then some people who do have computers are quite averse to using them. I discovered this when I was parent-coordinating a group primarily via e-mail and encountered people who just wouldn’t use their computers. Even people who live in front of their computer may not have the time or inclination to spend all their time doing surveillance of MMSD to be sure nothing slips past them. It is necessary to let people know what is going on through multiple pathways and also multiple times since many people miss the first announcement.
It is a darned nuisance for school districts that they deal with real people with feelings, who won’t behave like game pieces which move about on command without resistance. But officials are aware of this and presumably know that people who are treated respectfully by being included in the loop and listened to are much happier with the process and the administration than people who receive less courtesy, even if the final outcome is not a happy one for them. School districts have been obliged to open/close schools and redistrict for many many years. There must be much written about how best to placate families (and employees) involved. Posting a plan in an obscure section of the district’s website, then waiting for parents to stumble across it can’t be a recommended way of building good relations. When people feel ignored and shunted aside they become angrier about these things than they would otherwise.
Of course, this whole thing may just have been an oversight, not an intentional slight, but it highlights the difficulties MMSD has in general with effective communication. There should be set procedures for getting the word out about various issues. Whether there are many iterations of a plan or one, people need to know what is happening, what’s being considered, as things develop. Communication is not an area where MMSD excels.
Few families are happy at the prospect of being moved, even when according to some measures they would be better off after the move. One of the early plans would have moved a few blocks from our elementary to a school with exceptionally low poverty and high test scores. Nonetheless, some parents who live there reacted to this plan with distress. Their children liked their teachers and classmates, were familiar with the routines, and some parents expressed a desire for their children to remain in a more diverse environment. People who are unhappy cast about for as many reasons as possible to justify their unhappiness, to add to the basic cause. In one case it may be worry about low test scores. In another, it’s separation from classmates or a longer walk to school.
Parents can file an Application for Internal Transfer Form (due mid-March for the following school year) requesting to remain at their current school, although with boundaries in flux, not sure how that would actually work if no boundary decision is made by the time transfer decisions are made. If more students request spots in a school than there are places available, a lottery determines who gets in once priority policies are applied. Once in, the student gets to stay at the school for duration, no need to reapply every year. MMSD has info on website about transfer policies. Click on Bd of Ed, then policies, then pupils, then 4023. This situation of transferring from current school to current school is only alluded to in that students already at current school get priority among transfer requests.
As far as I can tell, only Allied Dr. students will be offered grandfathering.
If we really wanted to do long range planning we would change the boundaries to make more sense similar to the approach I fought hard against about 4 -5 years ago.
The different approach I would take, to not only make more sense on the visual map of where kids go to school, but on income, would be to establish a plan and say in 6 years this is what we are going to do, (and stick to it). Not in 6 months your child will have his world shifted and changed. Parents would have plenty of time to prepare, move, adjust their mind to the concept and if it’s their third child that’s affected they may realize they will survive this change.
At Crestwood we are moving out 120 students, moving in students and potential going to be paired with another school (the dumbest idea of all). I only have one more year left at Crestwood and I feel my sons last year will be about as disruptive as possible. As a parent I would prefer he not switch schools or have such a wild year, and if I thought this was a long term solution it might be better but if they pair us with Stephens, Falk is still at 68% low income, if they pair us with Falk, you take families that walk to school and bus them to Crestwood which is not all that close, and Stephen’s is still at 102% capacity, and pairing will not improve the low income numbers just as it did not at Midvale Lincoln, because if you send a wealthy neighborhood into Falk or pair them you will lose half of those students to private schools and it will not shift the low income % downward.
I am aware of several families who literally moved from Falk to Crestwood neighborhood in the last few years and it had little to do with test scores. Their move had lots to do with the increasingly difficult neighborhood, (which has received plenty of press)the change in family structure in the area, and the perceived poor behavior of the students. I am not an expert on this but that is what they are reporting and I am sure that is the issue that concerns these parents, but quite frankly it is much more politically soft to say “test scores”.