Posted on: Thursday, February 3, 2005
Nearby school not always best
By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Education Writer
With two daughters at Royal Elementary near downtown and one daughter at the Education Laboratory in Manoa, the Tokushige family spends few daylight hours during weekdays at their home in Kane'ohe.
Applications for geographic exceptions will be accepted through March 1 for students who want to attend a school outside their home area or who want to transfer from a school not in good standing under the No Child Left Behind guidelines.
Who is eligible: Any student can transfer under a geographic exception, but only students in schools that have not met state and federal academic standards for at least two years can qualify for NCLB "Public School Choice" transfers. See doe.k12.hi.us/ for a list of schools eligible for NCLB transfers. NCLB transfers are limited to schools on the same island. Who has priority: Students using NCLB "Public School Choice" transfers will have priority and can qualify for transportation, which is not provided for regular geographic exceptions. Priority among NCLB transfers is determined by the greatest academic and economic need. After the NCLB transfers, priority for regular geographic exemptions is given to students who want a program of study not available at their area school, who have siblings already attending the school, children of staff members at the receiving school and students not living with their parents who have an authorized physical residence in the receiving school's attendance area.
How to apply: Application forms are available at any public school. The applications should be returned to the area school by the March 1 deadline. The area school will forward the applications to the requested receiving schools.
When will parents find out if their children have been accepted: Schools can accept geographic exceptions only if they have space. Schools whose geographic exception applications exceed the available space will hold a lottery on April 1.
For more information, contact the child's area school.
Source: DOE Not only is he pleased with Royal Elementary, but its proximity also makes family life easier after school when the girls participate in extracurricular activities at the Nu'uanu YMCA and at the Lab School.
"It would be too hard for us to go to school and pack everybody up and go back to Kane'ohe in time," he said.
The trade-off is that the girls have not formed bonds with other children in the neighborhood. But even without a close neighborhood friend, they are not wanting for friends, Tokushige said. "They're well adjusted, they have friends at school, at aikido, ballet; they just don't have that one close pal that we used to have when they were younger."
As a March 1 deadline nears to apply for a "geographic exception" to get into a public school outside the neighborhood, parents around the state can consider what might be the best fit for their child.
Parents list a variety of reasons for selecting geographic exceptions, such as an interest in programs not offered in every school, such as ROTC, video production or certain foreign languages. They may prefer a school closer to their workplace or to after school caregivers. Sometimes they opt for a school they think will give their child a better chance of academic success.
While students eligible for transfers under the federal No Child Left Behind Act have the highest priority — students are allowed to switch from a poorly performing school to a better one — students who do not qualify can also get into different schools if space is available.
According to Karl Yoshida, the director of the Department of Education's information resource branch, the DOE usually accepts 6,000 to 8,000 applications for geographic exceptions each year, a number that doesn't include those students who were accepted in past years.
Once students are accepted to schools on geographic exceptions, they do not have to reapply.
The number also does not indicate how many children actually use the geographic exceptions, since many parents apply for transfer to several schools, but select only one.
This year, 692 geographic exceptions were given to those transferring from schools that are not meeting the NCLB standards. While still a small fraction of the 55,000 students eligible for the transfers statewide, the number has been steadily rising from the 21 in 2002 and the 147 in 2003.
Yoshida isn't sure why more people are opting for the NCLB transfers. "Maybe the word is getting out. With all the publicity focused on No Child Left Behind and schools meeting 'adequate yearly progress,' more parents are interested," he said.
Patricia Dang, the principal at Kapalama Elementary School in Kalihi, which accepts several geographic exceptions each year, said few of the transfers are related to NCLB. "With the NCLB, we've seen very little change with the flow because they would have come here one way or another," she said.
Situated at the bottom of the Likelike Highway and near downtown, the school is a convenient drop-off point for families coming from the Windward side, and an easy detour for those coming from the Leeward side.
In many cases, the children's grandparents live in the neighborhood, which makes it easy for them to watch the children after school.
But besides convenience, Dang said a lot of parents choose Kapalama because of tradition.
"They came here and they had a good experience, and they want their children to come here," she said. "They have since moved out, but they always come back to roost."
Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8014.
But the benefits of having their girls in schools outside of their neighborhood outweigh the advantage of having them attend school closer to home, said their father, Michael Tokushige, a life insurance agent.
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