Enrollment in the Cabrillo Unified School District (CUSD) may be about to increase for the first time in a decade if recent demographic trends continue, and the school population is about to become majority Hispanic.

Is the district, or the community, ready for these changes?

The total enrollment of CUSD grew at a fairly rapid pace until it peaked around 1997-98. It has been declining steadily ever since.

In 1996, the district forecast its enrollment of 3,900 would grow to 5,200 in 2008, and it planned for an aggressive expansion in its facilities. Today, the actual enrollment is 3,300. The steady fall in enrollment has taken a good deal of facilities pressure off the district.

The reasons behind the fall in enrollment are a subject of some debate, with flight to private schools and demographic changes being the most popular explanations.

But, the overall enrollment numbers don't tell the whole story.

White enrollment has dropped rapidly since its 1996-97 peak. Meanwhile, Hispanic enrollment has grown steadily. Other subgroups have held relatively steady, at least as a group.

In the last 15 years, district white enrollment has dropped from 73% to 46% of the student population, while Hispanic enrollment has grown from 23% to 45%.

Countywide, where black and Asian students are a larger share of enrollments, the trends are generally similar, but all the trends are much less pronounced.

If we assume that the total enrollment will continue its current trend, we'd expect the district's enrollment to continue to decline.

But if we project our three subgroups independently, we see a very different picture. White enrollment continues to decline, but the Hispanic enrollment is about to add more students than white enrollment is losing, reversing the decline in the very near future. Total enrollment may have bottomed out, having dropped by only seven students in 2008.

Hispanic enrollment is likely to overtake white enrollment by this fall, and it will be more than half of district enrollment in two years.

This analysis doesn't consider new changes in demographic trends, the bursting housing bubble, changes in local employment patterns, and the state of the economy generally. But the basic trends have been consistent for a decade now.

While the district generally seems to be well-intentioned, there is little indication they are equipped for a dramatic shift in their student population. There have been no Hispanic members (or even candidates) on the district's board in recent memory.

There are some encouraging signs, though. The new El Granada and high school principals have strong bilingual experience, and there have been impressive performance gains among El Granada Elementary's Hispanic students. We'll look at this in a future article.

Carrie Betti, who most recently served as Principal of the RISE (Raising Imaginative, Intuitive, Innovative Scholars and Explorers) Community School in Oakland Unified, was appointed by the Cabrillo Unified School District Board of Education Monday evening.

The selection process included a comprehensive file review and two rounds of interviews marked by strong school community involvement.  Betti was selected from a field of forty applicants.  Her past work experience includes service as a bilingual teacher at Turnbull Learning Academy in San Mateo and as a bilingual teacher, assessment coordinator, summer school director, and reform coordinator at Garfield Charter in Menlo Park.

Betti earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from San Francisco State University and her Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from California State-East Bay in collaboration with the Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools’ (BayCES) LEAD program.  The new El Granada Principal is also a fluent Spanish speaker.

More accurate tracking and counting methods have resulted in substantially higher reported dropout rates for California schools. CUSD’s reported dropouts rose from 10 in 2005-06 to 49 in 2006-07.

From the Sacramento Bee’s July 17 story:

A new high school dropout report released Wednesday shows significantly higher rates of students leaving public school in California than reported in previous years.

…

In the past, dropout counts were self-reported by schools and districts. In many places, the figures were considered serious undercounts, especially when compared with the rates of freshmen who actually graduated with their classes four years later.

…

[State Superintendent] O’Connell said the new system was designed to make better sense of transfers.

In the past, he said, when students left schools saying they were switching to another campus, their schools counted them as transfers, not dropouts, without checking if the students actually re-enrolled elsewhere. With the new student tracking system, the state was able to determine whether such transfers took place.

The newly released Half Moon Bay High School 2006-07 numbers show 313 seniors and 239 graduates, a loss of 74, with 49 reported dropouts, a 15.6% dropout rate (27% among Hispanic students).

By contrast, in 2005-06, the last school year under the old system, the preliminary report shows a senior class of 323 students, 272 graduates, and only 10 dropouts, a 3% dropout rate.

Not all the missing graduates dropped out; some simply failed to meet their graduation requirements, including the required exit exam, and some of those may yet graduate.

The accompanying graph shows reported dropout rates for the most recent six years (through 2006-07) for CUSD, San Mateo County, and California as a whole.

Enrollment, dropout and other school-related statistics are available at Ed-Data and CDE’s DataQuest site.

NOTE: Coastsider called CUSD Superintendent Rob Gaskill for comment, but he didn’t call us back before our 5pm deadline. We’ll post an update when we hear from him.

The San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury has issued a report saying that the school district needs to exercise tougher discipline at high school games, including a zero-tolerance policy, reports the County Times.

Half Moon Bay High has contended with questionable behavior at sporting events for many years but has no clear policy or procedure to handle offenders, the grand jury said in a new report.

The district should develop such a policy that features “zero tolerance of unacceptable behavior for student athletes and the student body,” the report said. “This could include forfeiting all games for that year in the sport in which the unacceptable behavior occurred.”

The game in November was marred by the actions of several Half Moon Bay players who allegedly made racist remarks to the visiting opponents from Sequoia High in Redwood City. The game also was disrupted by a handful of streakers storming the field and some people pelting visiting fans with eggs.

You can download the report from Coastsider.

Suppose you were a school board member required to make "fundamental reforms" at Cunha Middle school through "major restructuring" of the school's governance. What would you do? The Cabrillo Unified School District's board was faced with just that question at its June 26 meeting. It's answer: create a committee. The district might reasonably be presumed to already have a sufficiency of committees, but the board's decision to create one more has the virtue of not making a bad situation worse.

Last year was the sixth year that Cunha Middle School failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as defined by the No Child Left Behind Act. Consequently this item appeared on the school board agenda: 10.a. Review and approve plan for Alternative Governance of Cunha Intermediate School as a Year Four (Restructuring) Program Improvement Site. It begins:

Background Information

Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Cunha Intermediate School is in Year Four Program Improvement (has not met AYP [Adequate Yearly Progress] for six years). Year Four Program Improvement School Requirements dictate that the District and Cunha:

…prepare a plan for alternative governance of the school by selecting one of the following options:

1. Reopen the school as a charter,
2. replace all or most of the staff including the principal,
3. contract with an outside entity to manage the school,
4. state takeover (not available in California), or
5. any other major restructuring.

Cunha is the first of CUSD's school sites to reach the six-year NCLB milestone (Hatch is not far behind). The general idea is that a school that has failed to meet its academic performance goals for six straight years needs to be shaken up. The board was understandably reluctant to convert Cunha to a charter school, contract out its management, or replace the staff, and "other major restructuring" sounds nearly as ominous. What to do? Easy:

6. Create a committee.

Well, not quite; there is no Option 6. The board instead chose Option 5 ("any other major restructuring"), and simply defined "creation of a committee" to count as "major restructuring". The plan as presented:

A District Liaison/Leadership Team (DLST) comprised of Cunha staff, parents, District staff and community representatives selected Option 5: Implementing any other major restructuring of the school's governance arrangement that makes fundamental reforms and leads to improved student achievement. The DSLT determined that the formation of an Alternative Governance Board for the purpose of providing shared leadership, collaborative decision making, and a focus on strategies to improve student achievement would support this option. The Superintendent has reviewed and approved this option.

Create a committee, call it a board, appoint the usual suspects, and we're in business:

El Granada Principal Melinda Fore has accepted the position of Coordinator of Categorical Programs and Accountability for the San Mateo County Office of Education, effective July 1, 2008. Fore, who has held her current post since August, 2003, followed in the footsteps of now-Cunha Intermediate School Principal Mike Andrews. Prior to joining the Cabrillo USD management team, Fore served as Reading Recovery Specialist for the San Mateo-Foster City Elementary District.

“It’s a big loss for the District,” Cabrillo Unified School District Superintendent Rob Gaskill noted. “Melinda is a strong instructional leader and a very caring school principal. I never worried about programs and practices at El Granada under her watch.” During the past five years, El Granada has consistently met the Federal Average Yearly Progress (AYP) goals established by No Child Left Behind legislation. On the State of California’s Academic Performance Index, El Granada scores rose thirty points during that same period of time. Last year, the ocean-side school was one of only 461 out of 6,000 Title I schools in the state to receive the coveted Academic Achievement Award.

Mary Streshly, who currently serves as Assistant Principal, Curriculum and Instruction at Lowell High School in the San Francisco Unified School District, was appointed by the Cabrillo Unified School District Board of Education Thursday evening following a selection process that included a comprehensive file review and two rounds of interviews marked by strong school community involvement.

Three Half Moon Bay High School students were recently honored in two separate events. Nancy and Gissel Ronquillo each received a $2400 scholarship to attend a two-week summer science camp in Berkeley, Ca.

Ric Lohman arranged for the J. David Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco to expand its scholarship program this year to allow students from Half Moon Bay High to apply and compete for the 21 scholarships. Biology teachers Barbara Lohman and Leigh Detweiler each nominated one student from their respective classes.

The students had to write an essay about their career goals in science and go through competitive interviews at the Gladstone Institutes. A wide range of San Francisco schools were represented, but both HMB students were selected. Nancy and Gissel will live on the UC Berkeley campus for two weeks, attend classes, and visit local companies that work in the areas of medicine and health care.

The Gladstone Institutes continue to track all scholarship awardees and invite them back for alumni gatherings and even offer internships to those who decide to continue with careers in medical research. The Gladstone Institutes do advanced research in Alzheimer’s disease, AIDS, and cardiac studies.

On a much larger biological scale, Jennifer Steger will be doing glaciological research this summer through the Juneau Icefield Research Program (affectionately called JIRP by its participants). Begun in the 1940’s at the University of Idaho this program allows students to participate in research on the movements and composition of glaciers. The students will spend 2 months trekking between research sites on cross-country skis, carrying their belongings with them. Ice and glacier safety is an important part of the training. Only a few high school students are included in this program which accepts applicants from all over the United States. Jenny will be working with undergraduate students, graduate students and scientists to learn the rigors of scientific research while contributing to global databases on glacier data.

I am visiting a relative here and read the article about bad behavior at a football game. How can adult citizens of Half Moon Bay allow naked people and egg & rock throwers etc to exhibit unacceptable behavior at a football game?

Has the excessively ostentatious ball fields gone to the communities head? Are your sports youths overindulged?

Where is the communities conscience? No public outcry and no suspension of ball games for a season after such behavior!

And, how can grown adults cheer when naked children run around the field? Shame on you!

I can only hope the grand jury’s investigation and hopeful indictments will teach what parents haven’t.

I remain,

Michael Sherman
West Palm Beach, Florida

Dedicated opponents of a school district parcel tax must be rubbing their hands in anticipation of Thursday's school board meeting. On the agenda:

ACTION ITEMS

a. Approve Honors Geometry Course at Half Moon Bay High School

b. Approve selection of textbook adoption for honors geometry.

c. Direct the Superintendent, on behalf of the District, to write and submit a letter in support of Assembly Bill 1991.

I needn't go into the details of AB 1991, Half Moon Bay's attempt to void the Coastal Act within its city limits. The bill has been well covered in these pages, and has aroused strong opposition on the Coastside and around the state.

As District Superintendent Gaskill writes on the district website,

We are also entering a period of significant economic uncertainty. The Governor’s proposed 2008-2009 budget calls for massive cuts to K-12 education and the potential for mid-year cuts remains a strong possibility. We will need to work harder and more creatively, continue to seek out new partnerships and alliances, and identify new sources of revenue and financial support in the months and years to come if we are to retain our status as a high performing district… and we could use your help along the way.

Indeed they could.

As the state budget goes into the tank, our cash-strapped district will have little alternative but to ask the voters for a parcel tax. This will require that the middle school siting fiasco has faded sufficiently into the distance that the fifth attempt at passage will be the charm. We know from painful experience that parcel taxes are difficult to pass in the best of times, and these are not the best of times. Such a measure would require all the help it can get.

So, why is the board preparing to take this divisive vote on Thursday? I'm frankly at a loss. Superintendent Gaskill can be forgiven for not yet understanding recent district history, especially if we assume that most of his instruction is coming from his board. But the board itself has no such excuse.

If the school board is acting in response to a request from their friends on the Half Moon Bay City Council, then the council will share the responsibility for the school service cuts that will follow the failure of the next parcel tax attempt.

Of course, the district's endorsement of AB 1991 may simply be an acknowledgment that it has given up on passing a parcel tax in the foreseeable future. If it believes that aggressive development of the Coastside will turn around ten years of falling enrollment and save the district's finances, it would be would be wrong on at least two counts. First, the changing demographics of the Coastside have produced population growth without enrollment growth. Second, there is no evidence larger enrollment has improved the finances of any school district.

By statute, the district will pass next year's budget later this month. It won't be pretty then, and it won't be any prettier come November.