Audrea Folsom isn’t sure what she’ll do in the fall.
This school year the Decatur-area mom drove her son to a school near Avondale Estates every day so he wouldn’t have to attend the “failing” high school near their home.
“Just because you can’t afford a Beverly Hills neighborhood,” she said, “it doesn’t mean your child shouldn’t have the best education.”
The No Child Left Behind Act identified “failing” schools and enabled parents like Folsom to choose better ones. Georgia, however, was recently granted a waiver from the act and its requirements.
Starting in the fall, school systems will no longer have to accommodate students who want out of their neighborhood schools. Many still are allowing transfers because of a state law that says parents can opt out if there is enough space at a school of their choice. In this era of budget cuts, though, classroom sizes have been growing, resulting in more crowded schools — and fewer transfer options.
Most school systems don’t have solid numbers for next year, but some are expecting fewer transfers.
In DeKalb County, which had more students seeking transfers this school year than any other major metro Atlanta school system, the population opting out of their local school is expected to drop by about a quarter in the fall.
One big reason: DeKalb told parents in April that it would grandfather in children who had previously transferred under the federal law, but would no longer reimburse their travel costs. That subsidy went by the wayside with the waiver of No Child Left Behind.
Cary Culbreth, of Stone Mountain, said he spends more than $100 a month driving his daughter to the same school Folsom’s son attends. The school is in the recently closed Avondale High building, and operates as an annex of Druid Hills High several miles away. He and his wife are uncertain they’ll be able to afford to continue driving there in the fall. Their younger daughter, still in elementary school, likely won’t have an option with the loss of mandatory transfers.
“I feel that they have a good program going on so it is a disappointment,” Culbreth said. He said the loss of the gas subsidy will probably put a lot of kids “in jeopardy” of not attending their preferred school.
In DeKalb, 1,300 requested transfers at the beginning of the current school year. By the end of the school year, there were about 900 in an optional school because of No Child Left Behind. That number is expected to drop to fewer than 700 in the fall, according to numbers provided by the district.
In Cobb, school system spokesman Jay Dillon said the transfer request numbers weren’t available yet. This school year, there were 1,020 of them.
“I do know that we will have fewer available spaces next fall,” he said, because of an increase in class sizes.
Gwinnett expects to have space at 52 schools, but relatively few students there are expected to request a transfer. It’s the largest school system in Georgia, but only 255 wanted a different school this year, system spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.
“I would not anticipate it would change greatly” in the fall as a result of the waiver, she said.
Fulton hasn’t compiled transfer requests, but has announced that 19 schools have space for new students. Cherokee typically sees 300 to 400 transfers a year and expects a slight increase in the fall with the opening of two new schools, a spokeswoman said. In Fayette County, the waiver will have no effect.
“Fortunately for Fayette, none of our schools are failing,” spokeswoman Melinda Berry-Dreisbach said. “We have students who will attend schools outside of their attendance area, but not because their schools are failing.”
Besides the option to transfer to any uncrowded school, Georgia law also allows transfers for specific reasons, such as the absence of desired curriculum, a “hardship” due to a medical or psychological condition or a problem based on location.
The mandate to allow transfers under No Child Left Behind went away in February, when the federal government granted requests from Georgia and nine other states to opt out of the act. It had escalating targets on school testing that critics, including U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, said were unrealistic. It would have required all Georgia students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014, leading Duncan to call it a “slow-moving train wreck.”
What concerns Audrea Folsom is her son’s access to a decent education. Jayme, a freshman, attended Peachtree Charter Middle School in Dunwoody as a transfer student. He was challenged by the curriculum there. The Druid Hills High annex, however, is located in a less wealthy part of the county, and the curriculum was less challenging, his mother said.
“I don’t think he did a book report all year,” Folsom said. She said the only alternative, Towers High, their neighborhood school, is out of the question because it failed to meet performance benchmarks of No Child Left Behind. The lack of choices has left her frustrated.
When asked what he wants to do in the fall, Jayme didn’t hesitate: He’d pick what he can’t have — the school that Peachtree Middle feeds. “I would rather go to Dunwoody High,” he said.
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Transfer changes
This fall, fewer DeKalb County students will be transferring from schools that were described as “failing” under the No Child Left Behind Act.
School | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | Change
Arabia Mountain High | 113 | 62 | 51
Cedar Grove Middle | 58 | 43 | 15
Chamblee High | 100 | 87 | 13
Chamblee Middle | 130 | 125 | 5
Columbia Middle | 3 | 0 | 3
DeKalb Early College Acad. | 27 | 20 | 7
Druid Hills High | 114 | 70 | 44
Druid Hills High Annex @ DSA | 211 | 140 | 71
Hambrick Elementary | 2 | 0 | 2
Kelley Lake Elementary | 3 | 3 | 0
Kingsley Elementary | 4 | 4 | 0
Lakeside High | 3 | 3 | 0
Livsey Elementary | 7 | 4 | 3
Miller Grove High | 4 | 3 | 1
Redan High | 1 | 1 | 0
Redan Middle | 2 | 2 | 0
Sequoyah Middle | 2 | 0 | 2
Southwest DeKalb High | 14 | 14 | 0
Stephenson High | 6 | 6 | 0
Stone Mountain High | 6 | 5 | 1
Stone Mountain Middle | 67 | 67 | 0
Tucker Middle | 35 | 33 | 2
TOTALS | 912 | 692 | 220
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