Reply to Summary of change to Focus/Title I school designations?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Bump. I’ve always been confused by this and haven’t gotten clarification on the cutoffs for being a focus / title I school.[/quote]

The Oak View/NHE PTA folks did a really good presentation on this, but I don't have the link from the PTA meeting. Going from memory, federal law says that schools above a certain threshold (75% maybe) receive Title I funding. After that, districts have some discretion on how to use federal/state/local funds for schools that fall below that threshold but are still high needs, or have high needs populations within a higher-income school.

What happened this cycle is that several of the highest-needs schools stopped collecting FARMS forms because they were so far above the threshold that it made sense to just give everyone free breakfast/lunch than to use resources running down FARMS forms.

So, in the absence of FARMS forms, MCPS used a new formula that relies much more heavily on benefits that require interaction with the state and/or federal government. Moreover, they are using metrics that in a Trump Administration could lead people to be denied asylum status.

This requirement that families be registered with the federal government in ways that could impact their immigration proceedings disproportionately impacted schools with large Hispanic populations. So, schools that lost their status like Oak View and Viers Mill are majority Hispanic, and schools that gained Title I status are primarily Black/African immigrants.

For what it is worth, I would not expect those new categories to "hold" for next year. MCPS will change the formula again, which is going to be disruptive on all sides.

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