School transfer deadline leaves families waiting

BELLEFONTAINE NEIGHBORS • A deadline for participating in an unprecedented student transfer effort came and went Thursday, but not without leaving some parents in tears outside a Riverview Gardens School District community center.

Latonya Dethrow walked away distraught as she clutched the paperwork needed to transfer her daughters, 14 and 16, to higher-performing public schools. She had narrowly missed a 1 p.m. deadline.

“I asked, ‘Are my kids basically stuck in Riverview then?’” she said, tears in her eyes, after being turned away. “This is sad.”

Today, the disappointment could continue for some parents as Cooperating School Districts of Greater St. Louis finalizes enrollment slots for more than 2,300 students in the failing Riverview Gardens and Normandy districts who are seeking a better education.

It’s an unprecedented undertaking that will send students in the region’s two unaccredited districts to a host of districts in the area, most notably Mehlville, Francis Howell and Kirkwood, as educators work to comply with a recent Missouri Supreme Court ruling upholding the school transfer statute.

By Thursday evening, with all the applications submitted, Cooperating School Districts launched what promised to be an all-night process of matching students to schools and classrooms. Staff members were still collecting the numbers from school districts. Lotteries will be held to get into districts where there are more applicants than available slots, such as Mehlville and Kirkwood.

A computer glitch early this morning delayed the process. But by this afternoon, officials hope to be informing parents where their children will attend school this fall.

“What we’re telling people is to pick up your phone when it rings,” said Sherrie Wehner, chief marketing and development officer with Cooperating School Districts.

For some, the process has the potential to leave some students with no other option but to return to Riverview or Normandy schools.

On Thursday, superintendents from Kirkwood and Mehlville increased the number of children they expect to accept into their schools — to 175 and 218 students, respectively. Both districts were chosen by Riverview Gardens as the schools to which it would provide transportation for transferring students.

All 453 Normandy students who selected Francis Howell as a first enrollment choice are expected to get in, as of Thursday.

Bethanie Pollard, who applied to transfer her daughters from Riverview Gardens to Parkway schools, said having to stay in the district would be traumatic for her family.

“It would be very devastating due to the fact we’ve waited so long to put our children in better schools,” she said.

At a Normandy elementary school Thursday afternoon, Normandy Superintendent Ty McNichols presented an optimistic front in light of the 1,151 students who have elected to leave his district of about 4,100 students. Some of the transferring students have begun to change their minds and stay, he said.

He told a crowd of about 200 school district staff and community members at Lucas Crossing Elementary School that there is good reason to remain in the district. Students will have access to tablet computers, and there will be a greater emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math.

But for the district to turn around, McNichols said, students first must show up at school, and on time. They must start doing better on Missouri Assessment Program testing. And they ultimately must earn a high school diploma.

Other civic and religious leaders who spoke urged parents and the rest of the community to get involved in pushing the district back toward accreditation. But the financial impact that the transferring students will have on those efforts was not overlooked.

The cost to the Normandy district is an estimated $15 million in tuition and transportation costs — roughly 25 percent the budget, McNichols said. The district has just under $8 million in reserves.

“You lose students, you lose money,” McNichols said. “You have to adjust.” He added that he couldn’t promise what won’t get cut.

By law, Normandy has no choice but to pay. Higher-performing school districts are obligated to accept the transfer students, but they do have some latitude from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to turn away children when classrooms are full.

For a few moments, other superintendents and assistant superintendents from the Jennings, Ferguson-Florissant, Hazelwood and Riverview Gardens districts stood at the front of the cafeteria beside McNichols. They joined hands and raised their arms as a show of solidarity. The collective effort, McNichols said, would need involve all of them.

“It’s not just about Normandy,” he said. “What happens to Normandy has the potential to happen throughout the whole area.”

Riverview Gardens lost accreditation in 2007. Normandy received the state’s worst rating in January. The St. Louis Public Schools district is now provisionally accredited. Several school districts in north St. Louis County are struggling, with Jennings being provisionally accredited.

Like Normandy, Riverview Gardens will face its own challenges for the approximately 4,800 students who have elected to stay in its schools. The estimated costs of tuition and transportation for more than 1,200 of its students to transfer exceed $17 million.

At Riverview Gardens, a district spokeswoman at 1 p.m. said the transfer application process had ended, according to the guidelines set by the state. Thirty minutes earlier, it ended in Normandy.

“For those parents (who were turned away), we understand their frustration,” Melanie Powell-Robinson said.

Ashley Collins wasn’t interested in sending her 6-year-old to Mehlville, but when Riverview Gardens selected Kirkwood as the second district on Tuesday night, she decided to go through the transfer process.

When she arrived just after 1 p.m., a district official stopped her at the door and said that it was no longer processing new requests. Collins was upset because she checked the district website and saw the hours to fill out the paperwork on Thursdays were until 3 p.m. On the final day, the district changed it to 1 p.m., but that wasn’t noted on its website.

“If they did that to those parents, that is — oh, my God — that is despicable,” said Adolphus Pruitt, president of the St. Louis chapter of the NAACP.

Collins said it was confusing.

“Why are you turning away people? That’s not right,” she said.

Lalita Paine left the building unable to transfer her son, who will be a sixth-grader. They live with family members, and so she said she didn’t have the right documents to register to leave.

“We’ll be in Riverview Gardens,” she said with disappointment. “He wants better. They’re just making it real hard.”