Transfers from failing
schools start in October

Poor kids with the lowest test
scores get priority under the law

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By Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.com

The state Department of Education will allow low-income students with low test scores to transfer from low-performing schools at the end of October under a tentative schedule for implementing the federal No Child Left Behind Act, said schools Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto.

Parents will not know until September which students are eligible to transfer. The department is waiting for the federal guidelines and the test scores that will be used to determine which schools and students are eligible, Hamamoto told the Board of Education yesterday.

Student transfers and transportation will be provided as space is available, Hamamoto said. No current student will be forced to leave a school to accommodate a transfer student.

The federal law says high-poverty schools that have not shown adequate progress toward meeting the state academic standards for at least two consecutive years must offer students the option to transfer to better-performing schools on the same island.

According to this schedule, in September parents can apply to move their children to different schools and will be informed whether the child has been accepted by Oct. 15. Transfer students' first day at the new school will be Oct. 28, the start of the second quarter.

Students in grades 4, 6, 9 and 11, who took the statewide standardized tests in the spring, will be ranked and students from low-income families with the lowest test results given first priority, Hamamoto said. The scores are expected in mid-August. Board member Donna Ikeda, who says she will leave the board to run for lieutenant governor, said that moving poor-performing students to higher-achieving schools could bring down that school's performance, since resources will have to be reallocated to accommodate the new students.

"What you're doing, in effect, is not raising standards, but bringing everyone down to the same level," Ikeda said.

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State Department of Education