Anonymous wrote:It is my understanding that nobody can be "forced" to attend J-H because of NCLB sanctions.

Yes but the hope is probably that at least some parents that were zoned for Maury would choose it because it is so close by. They are planning to remodel which will make it all new and shiny. The academics will still suck but hey at least the building will be new! The City really embraces that idea - see TC Williams for another example.

It is my understanding that nobody can be "forced" to attend J-H because of NCLB sanctions.

Anonymous wrote:"The rationale for not using the first come, first served approach was to avoid potential "3 am wait lines" to register children. The fairness of keeping an open window for registration was a key discussion when the policy was first created... one of the conclusions was that an open registration process during a window of time would avoid some families not able to get to the early lines of registration for any number of reasons (e.g., what if a child were sick that day?)."

I call BS. We enrolled last year at a high-demand, at-capacity school in ACPS, and there was none of this. Not even close. And we registered for K a month after registration opened. A friend in the Mason district enrolled her kid for K in June last year--no issues. NO one we know at ANY of the other schools that are at-capacity in ACPS had any experience remotely like "3 am wait lines." Unless there are a MASSIVE number of kids enrolling this year compared with last year, it's hard to imagine this is the real reason.

Yeah, this is really about forcing more upper middle class white kids into J-H.

Anonymous wrote:Apparently this MOE is not a new policy, but does anyone know of a school where it was implemented in 2010-11 or 2011-12? In my local elementary school, the kindergarten didn't exceed capacity until after the June deadline. The families that enrolled after that were turned away.

Tucker for sure.

MacArthur had one kid turned away.

"The rationale for not using the first come, first served approach was to avoid potential "3 am wait lines" to register children. The fairness of keeping an open window for registration was a key discussion when the policy was first created... one of the conclusions was that an open registration process during a window of time would avoid some families not able to get to the early lines of registration for any number of reasons (e.g., what if a child were sick that day?)."

I call BS. We enrolled last year at a high-demand, at-capacity school in ACPS, and there was none of this. Not even close. And we registered for K a month after registration opened. A friend in the Mason district enrolled her kid for K in June last year--no issues. NO one we know at ANY of the other schools that are at-capacity in ACPS had any experience remotely like "3 am wait lines." Unless there are a MASSIVE number of kids enrolling this year compared with last year, it's hard to imagine this is the real reason.

Superintendent's reply:



From: "Morton Sherman" <morton.sherman@acps.k12.va.us>
To:
Cc: "Board" <Board@Acps.k12.va.us>, "executivestaff" <executivestaff@acps.k12.va.us>, "karl smith" <karl.smith@acps.k12.va.us>
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 8:56:02 AM
Subject: Modified Open Enrollment

Good morning,

Several questions have been raised about the process and timetable used to make final determinations for placement of elementary students who are new to our schools for the 2012-13 school year. Most of the questions have come from families of entering Kindergarten children.

So that all of you have the historical information, including policies, regulations, and analysis of enrollments by school and grade level, the best source of information can be found at this link: http://www.acps.k12.va.us/budgets/moe/

We are in the final stages of updating projections for this coming school year. According to board policy, I must present that information by April 1. You can see on the site noted above how we have handled that the past two years. The expectation is that as soon as I have the updated information, it will be posted, shared with the board and community, and on the agenda for March 22.

One of the goals we set in creating these policies and regulations was to personalize the placement of children in our schools. To accomplish that, I have asked one of our most respected administrators with great history of the school division, Karl Smith, to oversee the communication and recommended placements. Mr. Smith has done an exceptional job of coordinating these efforts the past two years and will continue to handle the overall responsibility for working directly with families and for keeping me updated on a weekly basis about any issues or concerns that have developed.

We take great pride in the way we have implemented the MOE policy and regulations, even as we would much prefer to have sufficient space throughout the school division to have no need for this process. We have not used a lottery, as is mentioned in the policy; we continue to be optimistic that we will not have to use a lottery this spring.

Some key issues have been raised by parents in the past couple of weeks, i.e.,

- why even think of a lottery rather than a "first come, first served" approach?
- why not move the dates earlier than June 15th for traditional calendar schools?

The rationale for not using the first come, first served approach was to avoid potential "3 am wait lines" to register children. The fairness of keeping an open window for registration was a key discussion when the policy was first created... one of the conclusions was that an open registration process during a window of time would avoid some families not able to get to the early lines of registration for any number of reasons (e.g., what if a child were sick that day?).

The setting of the June 15th date for deciding if a lottery were necessary due to over enrollments was set simply to allow a sufficient window of opportunity for families to register.

As with any policy, it is up to the School Board to decide whether to revisit these or other provisions. I have been asked by several board members to look at the June 15th date to see if there should be a change.

Our long term planning calls for new PreK schools at Jefferson-Houston, Patrick Henry, and Cora Kelly. In addition, we have added modular units at Barrett, Adams, Patrick Henry, and Polk. (Some parents have asked why we can't simply add more "learning cottages" to some of our schools... for most of our schools the answer is simply that there is little room on the sites, e.g., Tucker, Lyles Crouch, Maury, George Mason.)

Please feel free to share this note with parents and staff members. We are all committed to working together to assure each of our students the best possible education; so, if there are questions or suggestions, please let me know.

Best wishes,

Mort Sherman

--
Dr. Morton Sherman
ACPS Superintendent of Schools

Because in previous years, at the open houses and in various other communications, parents were assured that there was sufficient space and that having Modified Open Enrollment was highly unliklely. Schools like Maury were actually taking overflow children from Tucker.

Anonymous wrote:I think one of the reasons for doing a lottery is to avoid huge lines and general chaos on the first day of registration. You know how it is with
Preschool registration.

But I haven't heard any stories like that to date - and it had been working so far.

I think one of the reasons for doing a lottery is to avoid huge lines and general chaos on the first day of registration. You know how it is with
Preschool registration.

Anonymous wrote:Apparently this MOE is not a new policy, but does anyone know of a school where it was implemented in 2010-11 or 2011-12? In my local elementary school, the kindergarten didn't exceed capacity until after the June deadline. The families that enrolled after that were turned away.

This WILL BE NEW POLICY. Granted, it's built off of old policy but all schools are affected and all registrants are affected if their school exceeds capacity.

There is a new part: the early registrants get placed into the lottery as well as the later registrants, if capacity is exceeded. And I believe Tucker was affected in previous years.

Apparently this MOE is not a new policy, but does anyone know of a school where it was implemented in 2010-11 or 2011-12? In my local elementary school, the kindergarten didn't exceed capacity until after the June deadline. The families that enrolled after that were turned away.

Consider contacting the Superintendent's office if you can't make it to the School Board meeting. They are hearing lots of complaints so hopefully they will change the policy back to eliminate the lottery.

superintendent@acps.k12.va.us

Why is June unacceptable? The NCLB kids didn't find out until August last year and the private school admission season is already over.

That would be unacceptable to me as well. The fact that some other people are in an even more ridiculous situation doesn't make the current situation more acceptable.
As people sign their kids up starting in April, they can simply assign students spots. It could be clear as soon as the sign up day whether the school was full. In that circumstance, why wait till June to let people know?

Anonymous wrote:I am so upset, disappointed and worried about this.... We are in bounds for Maury, but who knows what will happen. The fact that we won't know until June is unacceptable.

Why is June unacceptable? The NCLB kids didn't find out until August last year and the private school admission season is already over.