No more schools to join 'failing' list this year

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Education Writer

No new Hawai'i schools can be added to the list of 85 "failing" institutions for at least another year under an exception to the new federal No Child Left Behind Act related to standardized test scores due later this month.

Schools that perform well on the tests can be removed from the list of failing schools, but no schools can be added until this time next year, when the next round of test scores returns to the district, under a decision issued recently by the federal government.

"We have a one-year bye" as far as the Hawai'i-based standardized tests are concerned, Superintendent Pat Hamamoto said.

The ruling also means that the pool of students eligible to move to another school because their school is failing could shrink.

Already, educators and some parents are acknowledging that few Hawai'i students will likely be able to transfer, though more than 50,000 attend schools labeled as failing.

That wasn't the official message yesterday as 500 principals and vice principals gathered at the Sheraton Waikiki to learn more about the No Child Left Behind Act and how families can take advantage of the transfer option known as school choice.

Hamamoto released a series of draft letters that help explain the act to parents and detail how they can transfer their child out of a failing campus. The letters — translated into 12 languages — will go out to all public school parents and be posted on education Web sites once they are in final form next week.

Hamamoto said all schools that might lose or accept students need to know what to expect.

"If one parent decides to exercise choice, the entire state needs to be ready," Hamamoto said.

It was standing-room only in the conference session designed for the 85 high-poverty schools that have been designated as low-performing.

Students at those schools who are from poor families and have the lowest grades will be given top priority for transfers to higher-performing schools.

The No Child Left Behind Act is a federal education law that mandates yearly improvement in the nation's high-poverty schools, which is defined as campuses where 45 percent or more of the children qualify for the free and reduced lunch program.

Hawai'i has 142 high-poverty schools. But because schools can come on and off of that list depending on their school population that year, Hamamoto said that all schools in the state will have to hit the same criteria for ongoing improvement.

"Rather than have two sets, we're going to have one accountability system so that we're all on the same page," Hamamoto said.

As for the number of students who will actually be able to switch schools, Carol Nafus, president of the Hawai'i State Parent Teacher Student Association, said she thinks there will be lots of requests for transfers but little movement.

The distance between school campuses and situations like the one on Moloka'i, where all of the schools ended up on the failing list, mean that most families who want to will not be able to change campuses, she said.

Students from poor families who have done well in school will likely be told they can't leave their home campus, she said.

"A concerned parent is going to want to move their child no matter what the grades are," Nafus said.

Many principals also expressed doubt about how many of the better-performing schools would be able to accept transfer students.

The law does not require successful Hawai'i schools to grow beyond a teacher-student ratio of 1:20 in kindergarten through second grade and a 1:27 ratio in third through 12th grade.

Most campuses operate above that average already, and many campuses are severely crowded.

The letters — which will go to all parents, not just those whose children attend failing schools — were translated into Chinese, Ilocano, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Marshallese, Samoan, Spanish, Tagalog, Tongan, Vietnamese and Visayan. Bilingual assistants will help translate if parents cannot read in their native language, said Alan Ramos, state English as a Second Language specialist.

"It's a civil-rights issue that parents have access to the information no matter what the language is," Ramos said.

The letters let parents know the timeline for how the transfer will work, give them an application form and provide information about the federal act.

A list of which schools that can accept transfer students will be posted by Sept. 11.

By Sept. 20 the DOE will announce a final list of schools on the so-called "failing" list, from which students can transfer.

Parents must apply for a transfer by Sept. 30, and by Oct. 15 will know if their child has been accepted.

They will have two working days to accept or decline.

Students can start at their new campus Oct. 28.

A waiting list will be kept by the receiving schools until Jan. 31 so that spots can be offered to other children.

With the large number of students attending schools labeled as failing, DOE officials face an uphill battle in meeting the logistical requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act: setting up a system to allow student transfers, solving transportation issues, providing for private tutoring and improving schools to get them off of the failing list.

Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.