Last-minute transfers to alternative school: Helping students or helping system?
The AJC has been looking at Hall County over the last few weeks because of the high number of students it moves from its regular high schools to its alternative school. The practice has long been a source of complaints from a few folks in Hall, including a regular poster here at Get Schooled who often shared troubling numbers about transfer rates.
In a data analysis, the AJC found multiple years in which a small number of graduates affected whether schools made adequate year progress, better known as AYP. The AJC found that three of Hall’s high schools missed their graduation-rate targets in 2007; East Hall missed by 14 students. Chestatee was off by three students, and Johnson High missed by one. (The AJC notes that Chestatee and Johnson still made AYP because of a second-chance option that allows schools to use a multi-year average.)
During the next two years, when transfers to Hall’s alternative school, Lanier Career Academy, jumped, the three schools posted better outcomes. East Hall made its graduation-rate goals by 10 students in 2008 and nine in 2009. Johnson did so by 12 students in 2008 and 11 in 2009. Chestatee did so by 18 students in 2008 and 14 in 2009.
The AJC data analysis found that during those two years, Hall high schools transferred a total of 79 students to Lanier at the last minute. State data obtained by the AJC does not show where the transfers originated.
In the latest piece, AJC investigative reporter Heather Vogell talked to transferred students about their experiences.
Dillan Hatcher said officials at Chestatee High School told him he was hurting the school’s chances of meeting federal standards for its graduation rate. Hatcher failed one portion of the Georgia High School Graduation Test and, as a result, expected to receive a certificate of performance instead of a diploma. Only diplomas boost a school’s graduation rate.
Hatcher said that when he arrived at Lanier Career Academy the final week of school, educators told him it was too late in the year to enroll in any programs. He said he sat in front of a computer, texted friends and stared at the wall. “I went for nothing,” he said. “I should have just gone home.”
Hall’s practice of transferring struggling students from regular high schools to Lanier days before graduation has been criticized by some who questioned whether the district simply shuffled students around to game the state’s accountability system. The pressure is much greater on regular high schools to meet graduation-rate standards than on Lanier.
Superintendent Will Schofield has vigorously defended the transfers. Last week, however, he said it is possible high schools had moved students to benefit their graduation rate in a few instances. But he said such transfers are not district practice. “I would be pretty Pollyannaish if I said that that didn’t happen at some point somewhere,” he said. “But in terms of the whole philosophy of the program, that’s not who we are.”
At one point, West Hall High School was in the running for an award — a Blue Ribbon of Excellence — but missed adequate yearly progress, or AYP, by three students, he said. All the district had to do was transfer the three, he said, but school officials “took our lumps.”
Overall, the district has defended sending students to Lanier, saying the moves are almost always voluntary and allow the district to provide assistance to students in danger of dropping out. Some are studying to retake the graduation test over the summer; others may take GED classes. Enrollment in Lanier even at the end of the year improves chances students will continue in their studies, officials said.
The Hall district in northeast Georgia is only the latest school system to face accusations of monkeying with the numbers to try to improve schools’ status under the accountability system built after the No Child Left Behind Act passed in 2001.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported this month that, in the past three years, at least 94 Hall County students who were due to receive certificates instead of diplomas transferred to Lanier in the final days of the school year. A 2009 email by the former principal for Lanier urged other schools to transfer their certificate students to Lanier at semester’s end “to improve your graduation rate.”
Hatcher said that, after he failed the graduation test, Chestatee High officials pulled him into the school office and told him he needed to go to Lanier. They convinced his father the move was good for him. “They said you’ll learn everything you need at LCA,” said Hatcher, who was reluctant to leave the school he had attended since freshman year.
“When I got to LCA, they said, ‘Get on the computer and do whatever,’ ” he said. “They said, ‘It’s too late in the year; we can’t get you in a program.’ ” He passed the graduation test re-test anyway. A few weeks later, he received his diploma.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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77 comments Add your comment
Pumpkin Eater
May 31st, 2011
7:25 pm
Thank you AJC. Without you, those of us in Hall County would know nothing about the cheating going on with our schools. We use the Gainesville Times for camping trips.
Lee
May 31st, 2011
7:51 pm
So, what I want to know is “Where is the Professional Standards Board in all this?”
I know, I know. I was just being facetious.
The most troubling thing about all this is that I am hearing some of you say that the system (AYP, CRCT, Graduation, EOCT, etc, etc) of measure is so broken, it forces you to “cook the books”.
The irony is, if a large percentage is cooking the books, it becomes the new norm.
Sorta like all the businesses who now claim they cannot stay in business without hiring illegal aliens…..
Weave that wicked web….
Mom of transfer student
May 31st, 2011
7:52 pm
I’m a parent of one of these students from this year’s senior class. The school doesn’t want them to choose to just stay at the school and finish the year. This was my daughter’s first choice. They keep telling of other options. They may it sound as if the student stays there they probably will never receive their diplomas. My daughter finally chose LCA because she said she just wanted it over with. This is hard on these students who have just a couple weeks left of their senior year. Also as the other student in the story said the only help given at LCA is setting them up on computer program a few hours a day until school is out. At this time they are on their own until test time in July. I don’t see why they can’t finish with their friends at their schools and be given these web sites to work on in the summer before the test. My school said that transferring these students didn’t affect the AYP results. Not that they would admit it if it did. I’m sure in all these schools they want these students to have school spirit and support the sports teams and stand behind them even if they come up short on game day. They definitely don’t practice what they preach. For these students who have passed all classes and earned credits but just lack one of these tests. They are ready to discard them so they don’t have to count them.
And for those who made the comments about these students being in this situation because of not trying or being lazy and not wanting to do the work. Don’t be so quick to judge unless you know each student involved. I think most of the teachers would tell you different about them. Some of these work harder beacause they have too.
Really?
May 31st, 2011
8:08 pm
“Superintendent Will Schofield has vigorously defended the transfers. Last week, however, he said it is possible high schools had moved students to benefit their graduation rate in a few instances. But he said such transfers are not district practice.”
Hate to tell you dumba$$, but if 3 or more of your high schools are doing this, it most definitely is a “district practice”.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Augusta
May 31st, 2011
8:15 pm
Until a significant percentage of those GA educrats who “cook the books” are convicted and incarcerated in state prisons, we shouldn’t expect to see a diminution in the prevalence of their test-cheating, their attendance-/enrollment-falsifications, and their manipulations of graduation data.
Graduation Games Part Deux – Panic on Green Street « The Hall Monitor
May 31st, 2011
8:24 pm
[...] Get Schooled: Helping students or helping system? [...]
Really?
May 31st, 2011
8:38 pm
Seems like Schofield would be a good start Dr Spinks.
catlady
May 31st, 2011
9:05 pm
It might be believable to “help the student” if they were identified earlier and joined LCA in time to get some significant help. However, transferring them at the 11th hour? No, it is to help the schools in the system.
A scenario: You are at the beach. A person is drowning. Do you A) jump in immediately and rescue them or B) wait till Channel 2 arrives with video equipment? If your goal is to help the person who is drowning, you rescue them when you first notice they are drowning. If you are out to feather your own nest, and hedge your bets (maybe the drowning person will figure out how to swim so you won’t have to get your clothes wet), you wait till the TV cameras are on.
Dr. Schofield has SEVERAL friends in high places, BTW.
And, re earlier options via SACS, there is D) pull out of that moneymaking organization and tell them to take a flying leap.
anonymous
May 31st, 2011
9:10 pm
Thank goodness for those friends of Schofield… Without that political spotlight, this would have been swept under the rug like so many other things in Hall County.
HallTeach
May 31st, 2011
9:26 pm
Schofield is not a Dr. just for the record.
sloboffthestreet
May 31st, 2011
9:44 pm
Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!
Fourloined student
May 31st, 2011
10:17 pm
Why do de goverment all ways be picks on us dat bees lazy and trifing, and then mak us go to the allternetive school. I could be done graduated ontime wif’in my hommes if dey had let me go to
one of them Chartar Schools.
directlyintheknow
May 31st, 2011
11:01 pm
This is not news…what do you think is the primary function of Elizabeth Andrews High School in DeKalb County? Puhlease……
Reality
May 31st, 2011
11:54 pm
A few really false claims floating around on here…
1. Charter schools or other ‘alternatives’ are not the answers. They fail to make AYP at a higher rate than public schools in the State of GA.
2. There are no teacher unions in Georgia. This lovely State has made them illegal. Thus, all we have are neutered ‘professional organizations’ that have exactly ZERO power to do anything, much less protect a teacher will to rat out these cheaters.
3. There really are a number of good public high schools that excel on a national level in Georgia. It is wrong to lump all public schools into one category. They prove that it is possible to succeed.
mike
June 1st, 2011
4:47 am
So SACS is only geared toward though schools that have a darker enrollment. Who would have thunk it?
Warning signs
June 1st, 2011
8:32 am
Whenever you hear educators loudly proclaim that they are acting in the best interest of a student, you know something is fishy. I’ve suggested LCA services for a student in Hall that wasn’t fitting in with a traditional school model, and a central office staff person stated, “I don’t think he will get anything out of it” The reason is that all the students sit in front of a computer for their “virtual coursework” and receive zero instruction provided by a teacher. As an example that the bigwigs in Hall really don’t care, look at the number of Sp Ed teachers and ESOL teachers that have been non-renewed over the last 4 years. The number is nearing 150. These cuts are justified due to the budget while there is room in the budget to pay In-school suspension teachers between 68,000 and 90,000 dollars a year to supervise 1 or 2 students a day. Hall County is gaming the AYP process by stopping the referral for students with disabilities to gain entry into SP ED programs. The RTI process in Hall has virtually stopped students with learning and behavioral weaknesses from receiving SP ED services thereby decreasing the size of the sub group within a school so that it doesn’t count for AYP. The gaming of the AYP system in Hall is much more involved than just a few dozen high school seniors transferring. They are reducing the numbers of students in SP ED to lower the sub group size and providing testing accommodations to students that don’t need them in ESOL. Because of a lack of intervention for struggling students in early years, guess what happens when they are seniors, that’s right; they don’t pass the high school grad. test after they have been passed along from earlier grades. If the bigwigs in Hall really cared about the best interests of the students, they would provide resources for intervention instead of saying meaningless things like “doing more with less”
Ole Guy
June 1st, 2011
9:11 am
Doc Tom, your observations, though not entirely without merit, serve as vivid illustration of the reason why so much nonesense goes by without so much as a wimper of REAL protest. While parents should be up in arms DEMANDING a little professionalism at the educational helm, good folks, like you, seem content to merely salve the situatioin with an “ALL”S OK” approach. The “shock n’ awe” journalism, to which you refer, simply points out the misuse of an otherwise fine program. The issue, indeed, is all about timing; of manipulating the program in order to place a happy political face upon systemic failure.
I could not agree with you more in the fact that this program has become a port in the storm of abject indifference and self-engineered failure; if it was up to me, this program would be closed to high school juniors and seniors. By this stage of the game, as far as I am concerned, if they haven’t gotten with the program, they should be lawfully inelligible for further publically-funded education; any further expenditures, on these kids’ behalf, only represents a waste of limited tax revenue.
That being said, Doc, the program, in it’s INTENDED function, is a fine thing. The powers that be, in the misguided notion of “NCLBesq”, wish to salvage a portion of the student population which cannot/will not get with it. You know, and I know, that 99.99% of these kids will wind up leading lives of mediocrity. As I’ve always contended, no matter how advanced our civilization becomes, there will always be need for menial labor; these kids provide that very labor pool; as long as our educational system is run by a leadership whose only concern is apeasment of the pc gods, that labor pool will always be in abundance.
Hmmm.....
June 1st, 2011
9:46 am
When does the blame fall on the students for failing to pass the graduation test on multiple attempts? When does a students own accountability come into play? Lots of folks on here are ready to skewer administrators, but come on….if a student acted responsibly, studied, and came to class and acted like a mature student, would any of the schools be in this situation to begin with?
Teacher's Husband
June 1st, 2011
9:50 am
There isn’t a county in this state that doesn’t have at least ONE administrator who doesn’t recognize ethical boundaries. The problem is that there really isn’t any **measurable accountability for school administrators** the way there is for teachers. Sure, they do go through a yearly evaluation by the county, but most of the materials that they are evaluated on are things that they gathered together themselves so that they look good on paper but instead are a complete and total nightmare when the rubber hits the road in the school house.
If you take, for example, a strong system like Walton County, who is renowned for ethical dealings, you will still find pockets of poor administration. For example, there is one administrator there now who is currently serving a one month suspension handed down by the PSC for TWO ethical violations. Has this person lost their job? No. But if a teacher were convicted of the same thing, they could kiss their career good bye.
Hall Co Parent
June 1st, 2011
2:32 pm
I think we need some new leadership in the Hall County School System. Schofield needs to go. Listen up Board Members.
Beaver Cleaver, Curious About SACS
June 1st, 2011
11:28 pm
Beaver Cleaver: “Wally, I don’t understand…Does SACS ever take on a white school system?” Eddie Haskel: “Shut up, kid, and do your homework!”
j4a
June 2nd, 2011
1:00 pm
I have to agree w/cat lady and question how these students were passed from k-12 and were not identified in earlier school years and given appropriate help. My third grader made a comment to me this year that I believe hit the nail on the head. My child said , ” Mom I noticed that only the real bad kids and the really smart kids get the attention and the middle kids get nothing.”
anonymous
June 2nd, 2011
7:26 pm
Does anyone think the negative press will encourage Schofield to make a move from Hall County?
Ole Guy
June 3rd, 2011
6:48 am
Teacher’s Husband, perhaps you, as a (presumably) non-educator/interested party may see the wisdom and necessity in forming a collective voice among the Georgia Teacher Corps. The example of an administrator, found guilty of an infraction which earns little more than a slap on the wrist, is more than ample reason why the educational system is in shambles. Under the current “do as I say, not as I do” doctrine, teachers’ morale/much less classroom efectiveness surely suffers. As so-called leaders/administrators behave with impunity, teachers must stand by the sidelines fearful of career-busting punishments for similar infractions. most-certainly, mutterings of protest would yield comparable results.
i have presented the drumroll of unionization among teachers for some time, yet, despite the complaints surrounding the many irregularities within the educational camp, no one has yet to initiate any progress along these lines. This inaction can only lead to one of two conclusions: 1) despite the political pressures which seem to generate a fair amount of teacher complaint, the teacher corps, as a whole, is really quite content to work with, and allow these inequities, OR 2) teachers are scared…afraid of displeasing the powers that be and, ultimately, loss of job and career. This final conclusion is somewhat perplexing in that, almost to a man/women, a teacher will expound and pontificate on the “love of children” as the primary professional goal. Yet, the very inaction, among teachers, points to self-concern over concern for the educational welfare of generations to come.
As an “interested party”, perhaps you might see the wisdom in actively pursuing a collective voice among teachers by way of unionization.
Teacher's Husband
June 3rd, 2011
12:41 pm
@ Ole Guy
I think the answer to your question as to why Georgia teachers don’t unionize IS #2: “teachers are scared…afraid of displeasing the powers that be and, ultimately, loss of job and career.”
An unethical administrator who wants to get rid of a teacher has tools in their arsenal to make it happen. All it takes is the correct paperwork. For instance, in my wife’s school, the principal currently under PSC suspension would go into “targeted” teacher’s classrooms to do an observation at 2:30 on a Friday before a holiday when school let out at 2:40. It didn’t seem to matter to this woman that observations are supposed to last at least 15 minutes or at that time of day it would almost take a whip and a chair to keep kids focused and on task. The important thing to that administrator seemed to be to intimidate and harrass teachers. (That particular teacher in question opted for early retirement as she couldn’t handle the pressure any more.)
School administrators SHOULD be in in the business of being supportive to both teachers and students and allowing them to have the tools in order to be successful. There are many good administrators out there. But there are some, like this woman at Youth Middle School, who are on a serious personal power trip. Why she is allowed to go unchecked is beyond me, but that is a decision that is supported by the Walton County BOE.
Concerned Teacher
June 4th, 2011
9:40 am
Hall County is not the only school system in Georgia that makes these last minute moves for graduation rates. As a teacher, I feel the integrity of education is being greatly undermined with this. The students certainly know how to play the game. Alternative school is not as demanding as the regular classroom (or at least that is my experience) so students just sit back and wait for the “move.” The can accomplish many “weeks” of work in just days. Amazing. And what have they learned? How to play the system without doing the work. Sweet.
Former Hall Co Student
June 5th, 2011
1:36 pm
I was a senior at Chestatee High School when this first went into place. Originally it was if you were going to fail anyway by Christmas Break you would be transferred as soon as you got back. Then it turned into you got transferred for messing anything up. The last week of my senior year I skipped school for one class period, and was called into the office and told I was a disgrace and embarrassment to the school and I would be transferred to LCA immediately. I mean we were seniors and had been going to school for 13 or 14 years of course we were going to skip once or twice at the end of the year it doesn’t mean we a disgrace. At the end of the day I was called back and had to fight my way to graduate with the class I have been with since kindergarten. They gave me what we call “senior week” to think about what I had done and I would have to sit in ISS. All of this for skipping one day. Ever since Former Principal Bill Thompson left the school went down hill all of the policies changed and it was no longer “The place to be”. Things were miserable and it still is. The school has changed three principals in two years and can not find a stable administration for its students.