CHAMPAIGN — The sound of xylophones and drums spilled out from the music room at Bottenfield Elementary School on Tuesday as four prospective kindergartners banged on the instruments during the second of the Champaign school district’s two Schools of Choice open house nights. Families milled around the hallways and filtered into classrooms after staffers greeted them at the doors.
The word is out that Bottenfield is one of the select few schools that incoming families pick.
“I have a friend who has a child who goes to school here, and I’ve heard great reviews,” Angela Rediger said as she and her husband, David, led their twin daughters, Morgan and Monica, around the school. “We’ve been asking throughout the year, and this is the one we’ve heard the most.”
The Redigers know very little about specific schools in Champaign. Angela comes from Gibson City, and David comes from Oakwood. But Bottenfield is going to be their No. 1 pick, and that falls right in line with district trends. In 2018-19, 119 families listed Bottenfield as their No. 1 choice, and 68 of those lived outside of the 1.5-mile proximity that the district weighs in its selections.
Only Carrie Busey, with 122, had more parents pick it as their first choice, and only 48 of those lived outside the 1.5-mile proximity zone of the Savoy school.
It’s a dizzying process, where parents consider factors like start time, location, test scores, uniform policy and facilities, among other variables. Tuesday was the second of two open houses, when half of the schools were open to the public on each day. Schools are also open for tours at 9:30 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout February, and parents have to pick their top five choices before registration ends March 31.
School board president: ‘We all have something to learn from each other’
Factors that affect assignments include parent choice, proximity, the presence of siblings in a school, building capacity, socioeconomic status and the availability of special programs.
“I think (Schools of Choice) makes it harder,” Michelle Young said as her daughter, prospective kindergartner Amaya, played musical instruments at Bottenfield. “There’s a lot of good options, but it makes it harder. Then there’s the worry of, am I going to get the school on my list?”
The Schools of Choice policy was put in place after a civil-rights complaint led to a consent decree in force from 2002 to 2009 that bound the district to eliminate “unwarranted disparities.”
While the policy can’t legally factor in race, the goal is to evenly disperse students of high and low socioeconomic status throughout the district’s 12 schools.
“By helping balance out across the district, everybody’s working from a model where all are trying to help the others,” school board President Amy Armstrong said. “We all have something to learn from each other.”
The process, though, has left at least one school with a disproportionate amount of high-poverty students and little racial diversity.
Garden Hills Academy had a little over half an hour remaining at its open house Tuesday night when Lindsey and Avery Trout, parents of a prospective kindergartner, walked into the cavernous front hallway of a school that underwent a $13.7 million renovation in 2010.
They were the only family there.
Jackie Hohn is familiar with Garden Hills because she volunteers there with the “I Read, I Count” program. As an accountant, she’s fastidious and doing her best to visit and analyze every school.
“I’m a numbers person, so I created a spreadsheet so I could analyze all of the schools,” she said. “I say, ‘OK, is it an early or late start? Does it have uniforms? Is it a magnet school? Does it have a gifted program? Really trying to put the factors in there so we could really figure it out.”
Principal Beth Ladd and magnet coordinator Melissa Kearns gave the Hohns a personal tour of the building, trying to make the case for what was special about their school. Not enough parents, though, are hearing that message.
Garden Hills principal: ‘I know it can be a little overwhelming’
Only 23 families chose Garden Hills as their top choice before the 2018-19 school year, nine of which came from outside the school’s 1.5-mile radius.
Only Dr. Howard, with 22, was chosen less, and that school was moved to the Columbia Center last year while its new building was under construction.
As a result, seats remain open at Garden Hills far after the first round of assignments are made.
At the school board’s Dec. 9 meeting, the topic of unfilled seats at Garden Hills was discussed as part of a broader conversation about swapping that building with International Prep Academy.
That’s when the board’s attention turned to the Schools of Choice process, Armstrong said, and the possibility of leaving spots open at other schools for late-registering, high-poverty students was broached.
“That’s when we realized how out-of-balance things were,” Armstrong said. “That’s when we realized, ‘Oh, we’ve got to look at Choice.’”
The district is working on a plan for how to move forward with the Schools of Choice policy and how it affects a school like Garden Hills, Armstrong said. That plan will be presented to the board sometime over the next few months.
Getting families to choose that school over one like Bottenfield, though, will be a complex problem to solve.
For now, Ladd is doing her best to pitch the few parents who show interest.
When the Hohns finished their personalized tour, weighing the pros and cons, she gave them information forms from a stack at the front of the school and pushed them to take home a Garden Hills Academy drawstring bag.
“It’s super cool, and every time you use it, you’ll think of us,” she said.
“Good luck with this process,” the principal added as they walked out the door. “I know it can be a little overwhelming.”
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Tough choices: Unit 4 looking to even out ratio of high-poverty students among schools - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette
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