Thousands of Gwinnett County students enrolled in low-performing public schools have the option to transfer out of them this week.

A provision under the federal No Child Left Behind Act provides school choice to children attending campuses that fail to meet state benchmarks measuring student achievement.

Forums will be held at six schools today to discuss transfers or other options available to students should they decide to remain at their home school. For example, schools that fail to meet annual state progress goals must offer free tutoring.

Extras like free tutoring often are a deciding factor when a family is faced with the dilemma of whether they should send their child to a new school or keep them in the neighborhood, said Sloan Roach, spokesperson for Gwinnett Schools.

"You can't decide to transfer and still take part in tutoring," said Roach. "We really want to make sure parents are aware of what additional help will be offered if their child stays at their school. A lot of parents, when they learn about the resources that will be offered, they opt to keep them there."

Last year, of the 20,200 students in low-performing schools offered transfers only 189 actually took advantage of the option. More than 11,800 students will be considering school choice again this year. The following schools offering tutoring and transfers are: Berkmar High, Meadowcreek High, Richards Middle School, Snellville Middle School, Sweetwater Middle School and Radloff Middle School.

Berkmar High, Richards Middle, Snellville Middle and Meadowcreek High are on a state list of schools that "Need Improvement" for not achieving Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals. They will offer both tutoring and transfers. Meadowcreek, which enters its third year as a Needs Improvement School also faces corrective action to improve student achievement.

Sweetwater and Radloff middle schools will offer tutoring and tranfers even though they made AYP goals last school year. The schools did not make AYP in the 2006-07 school year. The schools must make AYP two years in a row before transfers and tutoring services are dropped.

Parents who transfer their kids out of low-performing schools, will have to provide their own transportation. Gwinnett Schools will reimburse mileage costs for those who qualify.

Tutoring programs for those who stay at low-performing schools have led to success on state standardized tests. This year, four Gwinnett Schools that offered tutoring moved off the Needs Improvement list: Summerour Middle, Shiloh Middle, Norcross High and Lilburn Middle, which also faced corrective action like Meadowcreek will this year.

Lilburn Middle is a diverse school of about 1,200 students, nearly 90 percent of whom qualified for free and reduced lunch last year.

"We are a bona fide successful school," said Lilburn Middle's new principal Gene Taylor. He credits the schools turn-around to the "hard work" of students, teachers and leadership of past principals Cecilia Garcia and James Rayford. "We have spent a lot of time looking at data. We have some great plans for next year to keep us moving in the right direction. We want to build on this momentum.''