After months of speculation, public meetings and confusion, school districts and parents got a better idea Friday of just how the transfer of 2,600 students from unaccredited districts to higher performing schools will play out across the region.
Using a lottery system, officials placed more than 1,300 students from the Normandy and Riverview Gardens school districts in their first-choice school district. The complicated and lengthy process, delayed briefly Friday morning by a computer crash, continues today as administrators work to find schools for applicants in their second- and third-choice districts.
Parents began getting calls Friday informing them of their child’s new school.
“I had my niece by the phone waiting because I didn’t want to miss it,” said Lorrine Goodloe, whose 11-year-old daughter will transfer from Normandy schools to Saeger Middle School in the Francis Howell School District. “They introduced themselves and were very kind, very polite. It’s been a very smooth transfer process so far.”
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Naomi Goodloe will be one of 28 transfer students at Saeger when classes begin Thursday. Like the Goodloes, all 475 students who identified Francis Howell as their first choice districts were placed in schools there on Friday. Today and Sunday, administrators have asked parents to come out to schools and complete the enrollment process.
“We’re going to have a few more kids in our schools, but overall, I don’t see it impacting our daily operations,” Francis Howell Superintendent Pam Sloan said. The district has estimated it might have room for as many as 600 students.
Middle school students made up the most popular requests at 164, with each of Francis Howell’s five middle schools getting anywhere from 29 to 46 children. At the three high schools, totals were 46, 37 and 38, with Francis Howell Central getting the most.
In other districts, administrators were still determining the consequences for their schools as the placement process moved along.
As of Friday afternoon, Clayton had filled 50 of the 72 spaces it had identified for Normandy or Riverview Gardens students. District officials said they will be working with Cooperating School Districts of Greater St. Louis to fill the remaining 22 spaces as the enrollment process continues during the weekend.
Kirkwood, one of the districts Riverview Gardens selected to send buses to, had 140 seats filled from those who had selected it as their first choice. Staff still was working through the requests for Mehlville, the other district selected by Riverview, on Friday evening.
Parkway will enroll 47 students that listed the district as their first or second choice. More students could be added later if the district was a third choice.
But the process is only about halfway complete, said Sherrie Wehner, an official with the Cooperating School Districts, late Friday. Work is continuing on placing students in Mehlville and Kirkwood, and districts students chose as their second or third choice.
“We can’t afford to make a mistake. We’re talking about the school year for 2,600 kids,” she said. “Everyone will have a spot somewhere.”
After Thursday’s application deadline, staff at the Cooperating School Districts worked through the night on placements. The computer glitch early Friday morning delayed the process.
The total number of students who completed transfer applications from the unaccredited Normandy and Riverview Gardens school districts is 2,589.
The placements are part of an unprecedented undertaking that will send students from the region’s two unaccredited districts to a host of districts in the area, as educators work to comply with a recent Missouri Supreme Court ruling upholding the school transfer statute.
Normandy chose to pay for transportation to Francis Howell, and there, Sloan says, the next big hurdle is transportation for the students. Normandy is supposed to arrange for buses for the students to the St. Charles County district with some schools more than 20 miles away. Administrators were still determining whether activity buses would be provided for the students, and how long students would be on the bus each day.
“We’ll work with the sending school districts and their parents and get them here and get them on time,” Sloan said. “It’s one of the challenges.”
Many parents were anxiously awaiting a call on Friday night. Normandy parent Earlene Campbell said she was still hoping to hear whether her daughter would be able to go to Ritenour to start eighth grade this month.
“I’m staying positive, hoping and praying that she does get into Ritenour,” Campbell said.
