Reply to How is the meeting at Dunbar going?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think a number of schools with sizable OOB populations would be helped and the set aside proposal rationalized if "the cap" -- the 30 percent of at risk students were scaled to the OOB set aside.  So with the 10 percent set-aside at elementary schools, you only give preference to at-risk kids if their population is below 10 percent.  At middle school where the set-aside increases by 10 percent, you increase the cap to 20 percent.  And at high school, you finally increase the cap to 30 percent.

This change doesn't perfectly solve some of the "bunching" problems with the set-asides as I see them but it should mitigate them and hopefully smooth them out over time.  Otherwise at school with more than 30 percent OOB and with less than 30 percent at risk, you could have very large at-risk populations concentrations in certain grades.  In other words, the school is under the cap, but then it takes in almost solely at risk children for a few years and hits the cap.  Then it might take in not so many at-risk kids until the concentration of at-risk kids runs off.

Worse, very high concentrations of at-risk kids in certain grades might overwhelm the school's resources, and reduce their ability to adequately help them.  The at-risk kids are traveling across town, but in their grade level to a school that looks a lot like the one they left. [b] Relatedly, IB and non at-risk OOB families may pull out of the school when faced with high concentrations of at-risk children and send the school into a spiral.  [/b]

Of course, the proposal has other issues at a very small number of schools including overcrowding.  And it has the potential as others have noted of shutting out middle class families from the "better" schools and send them to charters or out of the city.  [/quote]

You can rest easy PP, 10%, even 20% is not a high concentration.[/quote]

Agreed, but 50 percent or more in one grade is, and you could have that under this proposal in schools with high OOB populations. If you are under the 30 percent cap, at-risk children have preference. So then they may take up all of the slots in a grade, perhaps even for a few years before the cap it exceeded. [/quote]

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