4 TUSD magnet schools retain magnet status, desegregation funding

U.S. District Court Judge David C. Bury ruled that Roskruge Bilingual K-8, Booth-Fickett K-8, Drachman Montessori K-8 and Borton Elementary will retain their magnet statuses for the time being.

The four schools, along with Holladay Elementary, have been at risk of losing their magnets since November because they weren’t meeting academic achievement and/or integration standards set by the TUSD’s Unitary Status Plan, according to a filing by Special Master Willis Hawley, a desegregation expert appointed by the court to oversee the district’s efforts.

Bury said Booth-Fickett, Drachman and Borton should keep their magnets because the district has taken “concrete steps” to improve the areas in which each school struggles over the last couple of months.

Bury has also allowed Roskruge to retain its magnet and magnet coordinator, but leaves the decision of whether to keep it up to the TUSD, which hopes to transition the K-8 school from a bilingual magnet into an open enrollment-only, two-way, dual-language program, according to the TUSD Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo.

MAKING IMPROVEMENTS

The court supported retaining magnet status at four of the five magnet schools put on the chopping block last November for a variety of reasons.

The TUSD has shown it is committed to improving student academics at Drachman by adding computer education curriculum and by stiffening admission requirements at the middle school level, Bury wrote.

At Borton, the TUSD hired a reading instructional coach and plans to bring on a math equivalent soon — so the school can provide more one-on-one interventions for kids who are struggling. Those kids often come from the Borton neighborhood boundary, which is mostly lower income, Hawley noted in a filing last month.

Bury cleared Booth-Fickett because the TUSD provided the school with staff and administrative support that will likely lead to academic improvements, he wrote. The school has also partnered with Amplify, a technology curriculum provider, that will strengthen its STEM magnet theme.

The court has not ruled on whether Holladay Elementary, the fifth vulnerable magnet school, should keep its status because the special master hasn’t yet weighed in on its situation, Bury wrote.

THE FUTURE OF ROSKRUGE

Roskruge was the only school the special master said should lose its magnet status because the school — whose student body is 79 percent Latino — would likely never become integrated, per USP standards.

The district allotted roughly $1.2 million to Roskruge in desegregation funding this fiscal year, according to the TUSD spokesperson Leslie Lenhart. The school works under two key sections of the USP: as a magnet school and as a dual-language school.

“Our proposal is to move (Roskruge) from one side of the USP to the other,” Trujillo said at a recent press briefing. “It will simply not be referred to as a magnet.”

If Roskruge makes the transition, it won’t lose any of the desegregation money it currently receives as a bilingual magnet, Trujillo added. It could receive additional desegregation funding because the two-way, dual-language program will likely cost more than the magnet program.

The curriculum programs used at two-way, dual-language schools are more expensive than the ones Roskruge currently uses. The TUSD would also have to pay teachers incentive stipends for two-way, dual-language retention and recruitment, Trujillo said.

And, if Roskruge drops its attendance boundary, the district may have to spend more money on transportation to bus students in from farther distances, Trujillo explained.

“There is a possibility (desegregation funding) could be a little more,” he said. “But there are no guarantees.”

The TUSD believes dropping Roskruge’s attendance boundary and transitioning away from the magnet will promote better integration long term, Trujillo added. The model integrated Davis Bilingual K-5, another bilingual magnet school, and “highly” diversified Bloom Elementary’s student body.

“We believe that that could be the recipe over at Roskruge to really further integrate the school without any major changes,” Trujillo said.

Roskruge will still be held to a high standard for reducing student achievement gaps and boosting integration if it drops its magnet status, Trujillo said.

INTEGRATION IMPLICATIONS

While Trujillo has pledged to work to boost integration at Roskruge, under the USP, only magnet schools face consequences — like losing their magnet and the desegregation funding for transportation, programming and teacher stipends that comes with it — if they fail to sufficiently integrate or meet certain academic achievement requirements.

The plan never explicitly addresses the consequences of failed integration at two-way, dual-language schools. It only mandates the district to “build and expand” them so more TUSD students have access to them.

The district has been framing Roskruge’s “transition” to a two-way, dual-language model as a huge change, according to Sylvia Campoy, the representative for the desegregation case’s Latino plaintiffs. In reality, Roskruge has been offering dual-language education for years. As far as Campoy is concerned, the move to demagnetize Roskruge shows the district doesn’t want to work at fully integrating the school.

“The magnet schools are monitored at a much more intense level than any of the other schools. Each of those schools have a specific magnet plan ... other schools do not have those plans,” Campoy said. “So right there you see a significant difference. ... (Roskruge) will not be held to the same standard.”

MOVING FORWARD

The TUSD’s transition proposal for Roskruge is still making rounds through district study committees and will eventually need to be approved by the governing board if it’s ever going to become reality.

Just because the four schools have been pulled out of “the danger zone” does not mean everything is fine, Trujillo said.

The TUSD plans to continue monitoring academic and integrative progress at Roskruge, Borton, Drachman and Booth-Fickett, according to Trujillo.

School improvement efforts are also underway at Holladay, a D-rated school, even though the special master hasn’t yet weighed in on its improvement plan.

The TUSD has generated a “school improvement addendum” for Holladay that will focus on shrinking racial achievement gaps through math and English-language arts interventions, Trujillo said at a recent press briefing.

“It’s our responsibility to close achievement gaps here to move every school forward academically and to show gains with integration as we’ve had in the last three years,” Trujillo said.