Durham schools rethink transfers

Flexible policy may be tightened

DURHAM -- The school district that has long allowed students to choose their own schools took steps Thursday to narrow its broad student-transfer policy.

The Durham school board is revisiting its practice of allowing any student to apply for a spot at any school, provided there is room available at that school.

A proposal would grant transfers only to students seeking certain academic programs or those who have extenuating circumstances, such as a sibling or parent at another school, or child-care arrangements in another school's attendance zone.

Families who simply prefer one traditional school over another would not be granted transfers.

Board members and other school officials say there are several reasons to revisit the policy now, including uneven distributions of students by income, ability or race, and overcrowding.

The school board's permissive policy -- one of the most flexible in the state -- was a contributing factor to overcrowding at Creekside Elementary School. The school was built just four years ago for 630 students, but this year housed over 900. An expansion will begin next year, two years earlier than anticipated.

The district should alter the policy to avoid a Creekside repeat, particularly with a new elementary school opening in January on Northern Durham Parkway, said Bill Bartholomay, the schools' growth and planning analyst.

"We discovered that the unintended consequences [of the policy] were that schools at which you initially have space available fill up quickly with transfers," Bartholomay said.

The freedom to transfer could also lead to "pockets of excellence," instead of a more equal distribution of students from all backgrounds across the district, said Minnie Forte-Brown, chairwoman of the Durham school board.

"We have said we will have schools that are based on equity and racial and socioeconomic balance, where achievable," Forte-Brown said.

School choice has long been a selling point in Durham, featuring magnet schools, year-round calendars and specialized high-school pathways such as the International Baccalaureate program.

The school district handles about 1,400 transfer requests each spring, based on reports over the past two years. Relatively few applications fall under the "general transfer" category, the catch-all category that the new policy would eliminate.

Bartholomay acknowledged that there were some unintended consequences of the transfer policy, but he said there also were advantages.

"If you look at the data, I think you'd be surprised how it balances out," he said. "If you have 40 people coming out of a school and 40 people taking their spots, we basically made 80 people happy without having to negatively impact either school."

Grouping together

But beyond the straight numbers, easy transfers could affect diversity, said Eddie Davis, president of the N.C. Association of Educators. The open policy could allow for voluntary resegregation by people from all groups.

"I favor some kind of review of the current policy to make sure it's not so loose that people end up leaving some schools with a one-race population," Davis said.

The district -- in which 77 percent of the roughly 33,000 students are of a racial or ethnic minority -- has outlying schools that reflect the racial and socioeconomic imbalances that existed before Durham's mostly black city schools and mostly white county schools merged in the 1990s.

About 76 percent of the students at Mangum Elementary School, in Bahama, are white, and only 13 percent qualify for free or reduced lunch, a federal measure of poverty.

By contrast, 99 percent of the students at Y.E. Smith Elementary, in the heart of one of the city's most impoverished neighborhoods, are minorities. Nearly 91 percent qualify for a free or reduced lunch.

Board on guard

The school board has been watchful to avoid resegregation, Forte-Brown said.

The revisions received the general support of the board Thursday night. Members voted to forego additional discussion and vote on the policy change next month. The policy would go into effect July 1. In addition to eliminating general transfers as an option, the schools will begin the transfer request period early next year, on March 1.

The school board policy does not override transfer requirements built into the federal No Child Left Behind Law. Under that mandate, students at high-poverty schools that fail to meet federal testing standards for two consecutive years must be allowed to transfer to other schools that are succeeding.