Okay, I think I've stumbled across something rather big! As we all know schools are subject to API scores, and we all know that Gold Ridge passed with flying colors. There is also another test that schools are subject to put in place by the No Child Left Behind Act. This one is called the AYP Test, (Adequate Yearly Performance). I've never heard of this one before and I don't know if any of you have. I've discovered that we do have 4 Title 1 schools in our district which are Waldo Rohnert, La Fiesta, John Reed and Thomas Page. While all schools are subject to this same test, only Title 1 schools are held accountable. If a school does not pass AYP for 2 consecutive years they are then put into a program called "Program Improvement". A school identified for PI must notify its parents and guardians about its PI status and offer certain types of required services during each year that it is a PI school. In the first year parents and guardians are eligible to send their children to a non-PI school and to receive transportation at school district expense. Also, the school must revise its school plan within three months. In the second year all the first year stuff applies as well as providing supplemental services, such as tutoring, available to all eligible students. And it just gets worse financially from there. In order to come out of "PI Status", the school must pass Ayp for 2 consecutive years.
There is just one school in our district that did not pass AYP in 2007 and that is Waldo Rohnert. Where are all those parents who elect to take their kids out of that school going to put them if all of our other schools are at capacity? How much money is it going to cost the school district to get this school back up to standards? The list of financial obligations that goes along with this is endless. It's just unbelievable to think that they would elect to keep a school like this open with PI being almost eminent and to close a perfectly good school with passion and pride and not to mention passing API and AYP scores to boot!
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Just a reminder about the students who are at the schools receiving Title 1 funds: those funds will follow the students if that school were to close. If a school is in PI and gets closed, the same thing can happen at the new school. Parents who are not sending their kids to the school that is in PI may eventually have to deal with that problem again if that school is closed and those students go to their school.
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