Reply to CES to Criteria-Based Middle School Magnet

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How are there more spots in CES than MS magnets?? Regionally, it's the same pool of kids. There are around 130 spots each in both the Humanities and TPMS programs.

Here's something for thought -- if the 60 or so kids in any respective CES all qualify for the MS criteria-based lottery, which they all probably need the program instructionally, but only 3-4 spots are offered per school, they probably have a better shot at those spots by staying at their home school and doing ELC than being in a super competitive already magnet pool in 5th grade. [/quote]

Hi - just wanted to note the error in your hypothetical; for the middle school magnet pool, kids are grouped with their *home* (zoned) elementary.  So for example, my kid who went to Oak View CES but was zoned for a different school was not "competing" so to speak with other OVES students, but with students form the home school.  This actually worked to a disadvantage because the home school was in the lowest FARMs tier so that meant the MAP cut-off was about 93rd/94th percentile for the MS lottery pools.  The kids in the OVES CES, for whom OVES was their zoned school, had a lower MAP cut-off due to the higher FARMS rate for that school.

And I used "competing" in quotes because to my knowledge, there is no elementary school quota for CES nor is there one for MS.  Students with the required grades and MAP scores are all placed in the lottery pool and have equal chance to get pulled out at random for a spot in CES or a MS magnet.  The only difference is that the MAP threshold will vary depending on the home school's FARMS rate, and I believe there is also consideration given to students in certain populations (e.g., IEPs?) but am not sure of the latter. as our kid wasn't one of those - they just made the lottery pool based on grades and MAP scores.

In sum, whether or not your child is in CES has no bearing on their later eligibility for a MS magnet.  As a parent whose child did the CES program I wholeheartedly recommend it.  It's not nearly the same as receiving ELA enrichment at the home school.

As far as the numbers go, while we know how many spots are at each CES and MS magnet program, I really have no idea of the typical size of the lottery pool from which either draws.  I would guess and say there are "more spots" in CES only because they are regional programs and the 52-54 slots (or whatever) at OVES only drew from 6-8 elementary schools.  Whereas TMPS and Eastern, while they have about 125 slots each, draw from the whole bottom half of the county - right?  But I could be off; maybe someone with a better idea of the general overall pool number can do the math.   
 [/quote]

Thanks -- I'm the PP with the hypothetical. This is a helpful explanation. Is there documentation somewhere that explains that the CES kids are in fact grouped with their home school (and not the CES school) for MS lottery?[/quote]

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