The Tucson Unified School District is being urged to pull the plug on six magnet school programs, losing millions of dollars in funding that comes with the designation.
Though the schools — Bonillas, Ochoa, Safford, Roskruge, Utterback and Cholla — would continue to operate, the specialized programming they offer would suffer without the extra money to fund them.
As magnet schools, the campuses are tasked with offering programs to draw enrollment from families across the city, creating a more diverse student body.
The schools, however, continue to be racially concentrated. That makes the six schools unsuccessful in the eyes of Willis Hawley, a desegregation expert appointed by the federal court to oversee TUSD’s efforts in the decades old case.
Previous studies have found a number of TUSD magnet schools to be ineffective, prompting a call for criteria to determine whether schools should retain their status. To retain the magnet label and the funding that goes with it, schools would have to be integrated, meaning no single ethnic group can make up more than 70 percent of the student body. They’d also have to meet academic criteria by the end of the 2016-17 school year.
Over eight months, magnet schools developed improvement plans containing goals to meet court requirements. Hawley was to review the schools’ 40th-day enrollment data to scrutinize their diversity progress.
Instead, 22 days into the school year, Hawley told TUSD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez that he had already reviewed enrollment numbers and was convinced that seven schools would not achieve integration this year or the next.
Schools that were spared include Davis, Carrillo and Drachman, which had less than 70 percent Latino children entering kindergarten and sixth grade. Those two grades along with ninth grade were the ones measured.
Robison and Holladay came close to the enrollment mark, so Hawley postponed making a decision on their magnet status. However, he noted that both schools will likely struggle to meet academic achievement goals.
Pueblo, which was initially considered for withdrawal of magnet status, was pulled from the list. Hawley called the south-side school a “special problem.”
Pueblo is 90 percent Hispanic and its ninth-grade class is 86 percent Hispanic. Still, freshman enrollment in the school’s communication arts magnet is 70 percent Hispanic, which meets integration standards, Hawley noted.
Hawley anticipated that his premature recommendation would leave the district, schools and families on edge.
“How this is dealt with is critically important because it could be seen as cataclysmic, further undermining confidence in the district, perhaps leading to flight,” he explained in his notice to the desegregation parties.
He noted, however, that the “situation could not be a surprise to anyone paying attention.” He said most of the schools were identified as being vulnerable and there is nothing different they could do this year to dramatically change the challenges they face.
Hawley’s recommendation will be sent to the court by the end of the week.
Sanchez has reacted to Hawley’s notice by gearing up for a court battle. He’s asked the TUSD Governing Board to support an appeal.
“There was trust that if the administrators and their teachers and their magnet coordinators worked on a plan, and if it was good and approved by the special master, the plaintiffs and the board, and they put it into place that they would get the benefit of more than seven weeks to show growth,” Sanchez said.
Cholla’s experience
Together, the schools receive about $3.5 million a year in desegregation funding to support International Baccalaureate, dual language, JROTC, fine- and performing-arts programs, family engagement and alternative approaches to learning.
If stripped of their magnet status, Hawley believes the schools should retain some funding with the rest being allocated to other efforts.
Hawley cites a significant number of students who are underperforming at some of the schools, saying it will be essential to invest in improving their performance. He also said numerous magnet programs should be sustained because they keep and attract students to TUSD.
He cited the Advanced Placement classes offered at Cholla, which also offers Arabic studies and International Baccalaureate. He noted, however, that the cost of those programs can be streamlined.
Understanding that high academic standards would draw more students to their campuses, schools like Cholla, Ochoa and Roskruge set their sights on achievement. They’ve shown overall academic improvement, but they continue to have enrollment well above the 70 percent goal for Hispanics.
Teachers, students, coordinators and others gave about 75 hours of their time strategizing ways to improve diversity at Cholla, which sits on Tucson’s west side. The school’s state rating has climbed in two years from D to B.
“To think that you want to throw this out the window and not give us the opportunity to finish what we started ... I’m very disappointed,” said Cholla’s principal, Frank Armenta.
D-rated Utterback has more ground to make up, something Robin Dunbar, its principal, acknowledges.
Unlike the more experienced Armenta, Dunbar is starting her second year at the south-side fine- and performing-arts middle school. But Dunbar said she is hopeful that participation in a turnaround model and a new program this year designed to close achievement gaps and prepare students for high school and college will make a difference.
“These are the kinds of things that will improve our student achievement,” Dunbar said. The program was adopted to “give students higher, more rigorous academic structure,” she said.
With a new energetic staff and parents showing increased interest in volunteering and visiting classrooms, it’s the wrong time to cut off the school, Dunbar said.
“I think to give up this early for Utterback would be a shame,” she said.
SUPPORTIVE BOARD
From the dais Tuesday night, four of the five Governing Board members pledged to protect the programs to the best of their ability.
Michael Hicks did not state his position, but he did question how Hawley could make a determination earlier than what was agreed upon.
Board members lamented the fact that there have been several iterations of the plan to determine under what conditions magnet status could be withdrawn, leaving the district and schools in limbo.
“We can’t continue to change the rules and expect us to move forward,” TUSD Board President Adelita Grijalva said. “My concern is the stress of this process is going to be felt on all of the campuses if it isn’t already.”
Grijalva recalled when the district released a list of schools being considered for closure and how the community became preoccupied with that, affecting enrollment and the learning environment.
“It’s going to take an incredible effort on the part of the staff, administration, and central support to reach out to the campuses and assure the community that we are going to do our level best — the best that we can — to make sure that we continue to support the programs at these schools because this board voted to do that.”
Though board member Mark Stegeman expressed sympathy for what the schools are going through, he felt that the district was partially to blame for the situation.
“I have concerns about how we as a district have managed the relationship with the deseg plaintiffs and the special master over the last couple of years.”
