From a parent who attended the March 16 P/P coffee

I received this from a parent and with his permission I am posting this so you can have some idea of what is going on: At a recent Parent – Principal Coffee, Dr. Knoester mentioned an article in the Grand Rapids Press that talked about changes coming in the Schools of Choice program. In this article, Ron Koehler, an assistant superintendent at Kent Intermediate School District (KISD) said that it was hard to justify giving preference to Charter School students over other public school students in the Schools of Choice selection process. One of Excel’s parents wrote to Mr. Koehler and he agreed to talk at this month’s meeting. This meeting took on added urgency at the last minute, when a parent, whose 8th grader signed up for classes when the EKHS counselor came to Excel, was told by Kentwood officials on Wednesday that they would most likely not be allowed to attend EKHS as they were non-residents and Kentwood did not expect many openings through the Schools of Choice program this year.

Despite the fact that KISD represents all public schools, including Charter Schools, it appears that KISD and the Kent County Superintendents are out to “punish” Charter School Families in that they will not allow Charter School administrators to attend their meetings, nor did they have a Charter School representative on their committee discussing changes in the Schools of Choice program for next year. Ron Koehler stated that it would not be fair to allow a Charter School such as Excel with 700 students to have the same representation as a district like Kentwood that has over 10,000 students. When pressed, however, he had to admit that if the charter schools through the county were counted as one “district”, they would be the 2nd largest district in the county with about 17,000 students.

The State of Michigan has a “Schools of Choice” law which allows districts to publish the number of openings at each grade level that it will have for non-resident students. The Kent County Superintendents, facilitated by KISD, has modified the state plan to move the timeline for this process to April of each year with a lottery in May.

For the 2006-2007 (this) school year, schools around Excel published the following numbers for 9th grade openings for non-resident students:

Kentwood - 0
EGR - 2
Caledonia - 2
GRPS - 50
Forest Hills did not specify grades, but said they would accept 50 students K-12.

In addition to the Schools of Choice program, several districts have accepted students informally, most under “Section 6” of the State Law, which states that if a student has been out of their resident district for at least 2 years attending a Public School Academy (Charter School) or a Private School, they could be accepted as a Non-Resident Student without having to obtain a release from their resident district. It is not clear under which program Kentwood has accepted Excel Students in the past, but as they published 0 openings for Freshmen last year, it appears to be Section 6.

During this school year, KISD hired an attorney to investigate the legality of giving Charter School students advantage over other public school students in the Schools of Choice program. The attorney determined that this preferential treatment was not legal, so the Kent County Superintendents decided to eliminate these informal programs that encourage Charter School Students to attend their districts. Ron Koehler from KISD stated that he expected the local districts to have more openings under Schools of Choice this year and encouraged Excel families to apply through Schools of Choice. The number of openings for 2007-2008 will be published April 9, but so far Forest Hills has said they will not have any openings at the high school level next year and EGR has said they will have 5 openings for 9th graders next year.

Ron Koehler said that our recourse as Excel families is to contact our elected officials (School Board Members or Lansing) to change the Schools of Choice laws. Our best resource may be Senator Bill Hardiman.

It is also time to renew a push on NHA to move forward with plans to open a High School.