“School Choice” Questioned

Cara McDonough has been trying to get her son into John C. Daniels School to join his sister for three years, but each year he was put on the magnet school’s wait list.

McDonough addressed Board of Education members this week to question whether the controversial ​“school choice” process is working for individual families and for the district as a whole, two weeks after placement started April 12.

District officials said they have improved the system over the past couple of years and that standalone stories could not accurately represent the full process.

Currently, a choice and enrollment committee is working to revisit the idea of redistricting New Haven schools and to determine whether the process could be further improved, Superintendent Garth Harries said at Monday night’s board meeting.

Students who live in the neighborhood of their school of choice and have a sibling already enrolled have the highest preference in the lottery system. Those with just neighborhood preference have the second highest change of getting in. And students with just sibling preference have a better chance than those without any preference.

Sibling preference ​“links the siblings, applying to the same schools, together. The system then works to place them together, based on seat availability at the selected schools,” stated Sherri Davis-Googe, district director of choice and enrollment, in an email to the Independent.

Last year, Davis-Googe allowed families with siblings at different schools to request a transfer to put them together — if there were seats available at the requested school. ​“If no seats are available, there’s not much we can do,” she said.

“How do we let folks know that they have those options?” board member Darnell Goldson asked her Monday night.

Most families who have a problem with the lottery process go to her office and talk to her, Davis-Googe said.

Cara McDonough did register her problem with Davis-Googe in past years, she said. She does not know where her son will go to kindergarten in the fall.

But how do parents who are not ​“politically inclined” know to contact the district to get their kids put in the same school? Goldson pressed.

Davis-Googe said the policy had not yet been formally communicated to the public.

Goldson said he met a constituent who has four kids in four different schools. The term ​“lottery” versus ​“choice” is misleading, he said. ​“It makes them think there’s a choice when there really isn’t.”

Daisy Gonzalez, the board member who unofficially represents parents, agreed with Goldson. Parents with students at different schools cannot be active participants in any of the schools, she said. ​“When they have report card night, they have to run from one school to the next. It’s not fair to our parents. It’s not fair to our students.”

Board member Carlos Torre suggested adding a preference for students who have applied to a school in past years, who continue to list it as first choice. A joint ed board committee could ​“come up with some really creative ways of looking into it,” he said.

“It’s concerning to find out that we have a sibling preference program that isn’t a preference program,” Mayor Toni Harp said.

Davis-Googe and Harries said the lottery system’s preferences have helped to keep many siblings together and close to home, if their parents want that. ​“I truly have done a lot of work to unite our siblings,” Davis-Googe said.

The number of available seats fluctuate during the placement period ​“due to attrition and retention,” so the total number of open seats at New Haven schools has not yet been finalized, she said.

To date, 75 percent of seats at John C. Daniels, a regional magnet school, were filled with New Haven students, the rest with suburban students. Of those seats, besides the 25 percent suburban students, 42 percent of students had both neighborhood and sibling preference, 25 percent had neighborhood preference, and 8 percent had just sibling preference.

McDonough had neighborhood preference at Nathan Hale School, which is a neighborhood school, not a magnet school. She listed Daniels as her first choice and Nathan Hale as her second choice. Her son is 16th on the waitlist for Nathan Hale. ​“He’s definitely not getting in,” she said.

She said she was shocked not to get into her neighborhood school. Her son is seventh on the waitlist for Daniels with sibling preference.

Of students placed in Nathan Hale this year, all were New Haven residents. About 28 percent had neighborhood and sibling preference, and 72 percent had neighborhood preference.

Davis-Googe said kindergarten families who put the neighborhood school as their first choice can stay on the waitlist even if they are placed at a different choice. If a family does not put the neighborhood school as first choice and is placed at another school, the student is removed from all waitlists. This policy was put in place this school year, she said.

With two kids in different schools and a 20-month-old at home, McDonough and her husband have to navigate how to get their kids to and from their buildings on time. McDonough works from her home in Morris Cove. Her daughter takes the bus at 7:39 a.m. to Daniels in the Hill. Either McDonough or her husband drive their son to Neighborhood Music School on Audubon Street, which he has attended for the past two years.

The afternoons are more complicated. Her son gets out at 3:30 p.m. and her daughter at 2:50 p.m., with afterschool programs two evenings a week. On the days with no afterschool program, McDonough picks up her daughter and then drives to Neighborhood Music School, to wait for her son to get out of school, before driving home.

“A lot of moms and dad have to do that,” or something even more complex, she said.

The system is too complicated for most parents to know how to navigate, she said. ​“It leaves parents no choice but to strategize.”