Five TUSD magnet schools at risk of losing millions in federal funding

Five TUSD schools are at risk of losing their magnet status — and the funding and enrollment perks that come with it — as soon as the next school year, according to a recent filing in the district’s decadeslong desegregation case.

Booth-Fickett Math/Science Magnet, Roskruge Bilingual K-8, Holladay Magnet Elementary, Borton Magnet and Drachman Montessori Magnet are in danger following recommendations by a national desegregation expert charged with overseeing the Tucson Unified School District’s efforts.

The report is based on findings that the schools don’t meet racial integration or academic achievement standards set by TUSD’s Unitary Status Plan.

Magnet schools receive additional federal funding to offer specialized programs designed to attract a diverse body of students from around the city.

TUSD Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo estimated most magnet schools receive no fewer than $125,000 a year in desegregation funds. Roskruge and Booth-Fickett alone receive “easily half a million” in desegregation funds every year.

“For all the magnets put together, you would easily be looking at over a couple million dollars, if you added up all the money,” he said.

Losing magnet status would have significant immediate and long-term ramifications on the schools and the district as a whole, according to Trujillo.

Transportation would be the most pressing concern, Trujillo said. When a school loses its magnet, it loses federal funding allotted to it for busing open-enrollment students from outside neighborhood district boundaries.

“You get hundreds of kids that’ll get cut off … because that money would go away,” Trujillo said.

Students could also decide to unenroll from a former magnet school due to the loss of specialized programming.

“Whatever the magnet was, it’s no longer funded,” Trujillo said. “So if it was a performing arts magnet, now you’re losing that base of students that only go to that school for that theme. And that’s a tremendous loss for the school.”

TUSD filed objections to Special Master Willis Hawley’s report and recommendations, arguing that in some cases, students’ academic achievement shouldn’t be taken into consideration when deciding whether schools should retain their magnet status, even though some of the campuses in question earned grades as low as a D from the state.

“It really matters not why a school is successfully attracting desired students,” the objection read, “as long as it is in fact attracting desired students.”

The district went on to argue that academic achievement should only be considered when schools fail to attract the diverse student body intended.

Trujillo says academic achievement and integration should be viewed as separate issues in terms of assessing magnet schools, because TUSD values lessening achievement gaps and boosting academic success across the district — not just at its magnet schools.

“Achievement gaps are a district wide problem,” Trujillo said. “I don’t look at it through the lens of what we’re just going to do for magnets. … I don’t think it’s equitable.”

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The Latino plaintiffs disagree, according to a response they filed against TUSD’s objection on Dec. 14. They wrote that academic achievement has been a determining factor in magnet schools since January 2016, when the district passed its comprehensive magnet plan.

According to the district’s magnet plan, “Magnet schools will reduce achievement gaps between the racial groups so that achievement gaps between racial groups are less than those in schools not participating in magnet programs.”

The plaintiffs also argued that academic achievement and integration, in the case of magnet schools, are linked — magnets will only fulfill their purpose, they wrote, if their high-achieving, unique academic programs attract a racially diverse group of students.

Achievement gaps between white students and black and Latino students persist at the vulnerable schools, but they are most concerning at Booth-Fickett, Holladay and Borton, according to Hawley’s report. Roskruge and Holladay are the least integrated, Hawley wrote. All five schools enroll predominantly Latino students. Achievement gaps affect schools across the nation, research shows, and they are linked to racial segregation.

“They all have achievement gaps,” Trujillo said, “But they’re not under federal supervision.”

THE PATH FORWARD

This isn’t the first time TUSD has faced this situation.

Six TUSD schools — Pueblo and Cholla high schools, Safford K-8, Utterback Middle, Ochoa Community School and Robinson Elementary — have lost their magnets, according to Sylvia Campoy, the representative for the desegregation case’s Latino plaintiffs.

The losses could have been avoided, had TUSD more proactively supported the vulnerable schools, Campoy said.

“The reason those schools lost their magnet status, bottom line, is because the TUSD administration — for whatever reason, rationale, excuses they may have — did not support those schools the way they should have been supported,” she said. “There’s a pattern of practice by TUSD in having schools like Booth-Fickett end up where they are today because of neglect, plain and simple.”

This time around, TUSD has been ordered to submit a strategic plan for improving the five at-risk schools.

According to Trujillo, the plan will likely focus on transitioning Booth-Fickett into a college-prep-themed school and Roskruge into a full two-way, dual-language school. At the other schools, the district will do more “targeted work” on daily instruction and curriculum for students, and increase professional development opportunities for teachers.

Over the next couple months, the special master will monitor the schools’ academic and integrative progress and analyze their respective AzMerit test scores and achievement gaps. Then, in spring 2019, Hawley will recommend to the federal judge overseeing the case whether the schools should be demagnetized.

Demagnetized schools have a year to transition out of their magnet themes before their desegregation funds expire, per TUSD’s Unitary Status Plan.

Leaders at Booth-Fickett, Roskruge, Borton, Holladay and Drachman are aware their schools’ magnet status could be taken away, Trujillo said. He said district leaders — himself included — view the possibility more as an opportunity to make TUSD better, than anything else.

“We don’t want anyone to lose their magnets,” Trujillo said. “We want to make sure that we are putting together the best quality plans — not just writing the plans, but making sure that they’re well budgeted and well supported, and that we have teams that monitor plans at the school level, the classroom level, throughout the year.”