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Tiare

The school that my child attends is not a neighborhood school. The only people whose children attend one of our districts six high-scoring alternative schools are those who already know that these schools exist. (I am increasingly amazed to learn how few people in our district even know about the alternative schools and just send their children to any old neighborhood school). Despite the extremely diverse nature of our school district (Many races, economic backgrounds, and languages), these fantastic alternative schools are primarily attended by middle to upper middle classed caucasian families. All of these schools require parental participation, in and out of school.

So where are the Black (or Hispanic, ftm) families? Where are the working class or the poor families? These, too, are public schools. Why don't they know about it? Is there anyone who can tell them? Perhaps I could, but where would I begin? If no one takes charge, organizes them into a public meeting, hands out flyers, or something to inform them of their options, few families will ever hear about these choices, and little will change.

latenight1
Tiare,

Do you mean that if I moved into your district and went into the appropriate office to register my kids they wouldn't give me a piece of paper that said "Do you want your child to go to A) nearby school or B) further school that specializes in X,Y,Z, requiring parent participation"? How would people not know about these alternate public schools? If that is the case it is the fault of the schools for not getting the word out. Are the parents unable to devote the time for particapation so take the easier option?

I have little experience and no answers for this topic. The only thing I can think of is that the community needs a galvinizing leader- on the scale of MLK- who will help and encourage the families to change their habits. I can't think of anyone who has high enough stature with the community to do such a thing. I am sure there are several willing, but they are probably swimming against a current that is too strong. The sports and music figures don't seem to have taken a strong stand (and besides, they made their success in arenas that are non-academic.)

lunita1
I'm in the same district as Tiare so I'll answer.

To get your child into one of these schools, you have to put your child's name into a lottery by a certain date, usually in January of the year previous to when you'd like your child to start attending the school. You have to be at an office at a certain time on a certain date to fill out the form. On the form, you can list three schools in your order of preference. If you don't get into any of them via the lottery, you are put on the waiting list for your first-ranked school. If you miss the lottery (either because you didn't know or move into the district after January) then some/most schools will put you on the waiting list behind everyone else (which, at popular schools like Amanda's, means you have almost no chance to get in.) The lottery isn't highly publicized, and its implications are even less publicized -- it is possible hear that there is open enrollment on a given date, but not know that there are schools that you can only get into via open enrollment, that they have special programs, etc.

If you go to the district's website, you can find information about our schools but only by digging (click on ""schools", then "special programs/alternative schools", then scroll past information on special ed and continuation schools to a paragraph that mentions open and fundamental schools and links you to the pages about the individual schools. The enrollment page states:
"In addition to our resident schools, the XYZ School District offers several special programs and schools for elementary, middle and high school students. These options include Fundamental, Open-Structured, ROTC, Rapid-Learner, High Achiever, International Baccalaureate, and Honors programs; programs with a special subject or career focus; block schedules; English language development, and special education." It also gives the dates for open enrollment, but it never explicitly states that if some of those programs are only available based on test scores and some are available through the open enrollment lottery.

Anyway, the process isn't well publicized and neither are the schools. There's no bus service to these schools since they have district-wide attendance boundaries; this puts the burden on the parents to transport kids to school instead of letting the kids take the bus. Most people hear about the open and fundamental schools from friends who have kids at the school, which perpetuates the lack of diversity. People who move into the area after January of the year before they want their kids to attend school here also simply don't have a chance to get their kids into the special schools. Amanda's school is 85% white and less than 1% black (and also has a high percentage of parents who are college graduates or have graduate degrees.) The minority kids who live in the apartments across the street from the school ride the bus to a neighborhood school that's is 67% white and 9% black (and also has a number of Russian, Ukrainian, and Romanian immigrants, which our school lacks). It's true that Amanda's school requires more time (and financial) commitment than many families can give, but I also think that if the programs were more widely understood and publicized, we'd have a more diverse school population.