Saturday, September 29, 2007

Survey for Families Opting-Out of Year-Round Schools

All families who had opted out should have received a form, even if you opted out before Judge Manning’s ruling.  If you opted out and have not received a form, you can request one by calling 850-1863.  The forms are due back by October 12.

One point that was mentioned is that the survey results will be broken down across subgroups of parents. An example that was given is that they’re going to evaluate the results to find out if English-speaking parents and Spanish-speaking parents opted out for different reasons.  Apparently they want to be able to encourage specific “subgroups” to choose YR instead of traditional, since the traditional schools are so incredibly overcrowded.  Breaking the survey results down will allow them to target certain subgroups, but some people I’ve heard from feel this is a form of “stereotyping”.

While I do feel that this is a step in the right direction by attempting to gather information, I am also going to encourage the School System to survey ALL parents in the system.  By asking people their opinions and feelings BEFORE formulating an assignment plan, they’ll have a TRUE understanding of what the families want.

I also believe that what the public really needs to see is a list of those who stayed at their converted school, but wrote “under duress” and similar comments on their consent forms.  (I am one of those)  So many of us decided not to “opt-out” even though we preferred a traditional calendar because we were not told what our traditional option was. In the Spring when the consent forms were turned in,  I was told that “most” of the forms coming back to the school did have those types of comments hand-written on them.  I wonder if there is a way to see those results?

Have you received a form?  What have you heard about this latest action?

Attention:  Families who “chose” their current MYR school even though they preferred a traditional schedule. 

NBC-17 has an online survey that you can fill out.  They will be passing along the results to WCPSS. 

They indicated that this was done for parents who stayed at their converted year-round school - against their better judgment.  NOW you have a place to have your reasons be known.

Skip down to the “COMMENT” section on the survey and type away. This survey is for you!!

Access the survey at the following link and go to “CLICK HERE”.

http://www.nbc17.com/midatlantic/ncn/news/Education___School_News/wake_calendar_survey.html 

or use this short one which goes to the same page
http://tinyurl.com/2rso97

I just called wcpss research and evaluation dept.  They are not including families that opted out in Feb. That was never their intention.  That was told to me directly over the phone.  They said I could provide comments, which I have done over and over again, to no avail.  This survey will really mean nothing if they don’t include those families that opted out in Feb nor others that had no choice but to choose the YR school that was converted.

WOW, Tricia, that’s a change from what I was told.  I’m sorry to hear it.  I believe that if you opted out, there was a reason and they should include you in the mix.  I agree—the survey won’t be complete without including ALL who opted out.

I guess they look at those opting out in February as those who “truly” felt they had no choice, and those who opted out later are the ones they’d like to convince to come back to YR??

There will be more people opting out next year after giving YR a try for a year.  If you choose YR, it is usually because it fits with your lifestyle, work schedule, family’s activities and you LOVE it.  When it’s forced on you and you encounter situations you didn’t anticipate, it just might be easier to have your children further from home but on the schedule that works best for you.

I’ll continue to encourage the school system to survey ALL families while they still have time to get accurate data to work with.  Simple supply/demand relationship.  Figure out your calendar demand, and then provide the supply of seats to fill that demand.

I do believe there is still hope that they will do it.

Lisa,

I just found out that WCPSS will be treating the two groups that opted-out of YR differently in reassignment for next year. I believe that is the reason the survey only went out to those who opted-out after the ruling.

Group 1 opted out in February. They will be considered “calendar application” families, similar to magnet applicants. As with magnet and year-round applications, traditional calendar applications are considered permanent applications.

Group 2 opted out in May after the ruling. This group has a one-year assignment at their traditional option and are not considered “applicants”.

While I don’t know the reason the survey was done in the first place, I don’t think WCPSS cares about the supply and demand…just how to better coerce families into year-round.

Just my take.

We received our intent form this week, 12/3.  It looks like those families that opted out of yr for a traditional calendar school in Feb. are guaranteed there traditional calendar school that they are in now for the remainder of there schools configuration.  Those that opted out of yr after the lawsuit will not have that same guarantee.  I don’t think that this is really fair.  If the system gets flooded with traditional calendar requests, they are in a world of trouble.

A common abbreviation is mph or MPH, although mi/h is sometimes used in technical publications.

Why can’t we see how many parents put “under duress” or similar comments on their form when they opted to stay at their same school (that was converted)?

Faster browsing speeds have led to shorter attention spans and more demanding online visitors and this has resulted in less use of Splash Pages, particularly where commercial web sites are concerned.

Why can’t we see how many parents put “under duress” or similar comments on their form when they opted to stay at their same school (that was converted)?
——
If the district isn’t letting you view that information, maybe there is some freedom of information act type of statute that will force them to disclose the info.  I’m not completely sure of the local law, if any, that would force them to give up the info.  If you want to do some preliminary research, you can check out these government legal questions or ask a question yourself.  There’s really no reason why this whole process should be shrouded in secrecy.

I also believe that what the public really needs to see is a list of those who stayed at their converted school
This is the same point with me!

WCPSS LOVES to take the numbers of people who stayed at their MYR school instead of taking the “unappealing/unknown” traditional school and then they say “XX % chose YR”....“we were happy that we could accommodate xx% of families..”

The huge majority of families who stayed at the MYR schools did NOT “choose YR”.....they chose to stay at the school they didn’t want to leave anyway instead of subjecting their children to an unappealing traditional option.

Once again, this year there is NO REAL CHOICE.

The spin that comes out of WCPSS in regards to MYR never ceases to amaze me.  They KNOW the truth, but they make sure that the media gets the “spin version” so the public is kept in the dark.

Great post and comments

Nice article. well written

What i believe is converted schools has been given much importance.

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I guess Lisa B has a good point and I agree with her.

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“I also believe that what the public really needs to see is a list of those who stayed at their converted school, but wrote “under duress” and similar comments on their consent forms.”  i fail to understand as to why people do that(including you.

No offense intended to anyone. Just my 2 cents.

Glad to see that lots of people share my same interests and thoughts.
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I came looking for information about opting out of schools in England, but still found the piece to be interesting. Thanks for the info.

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Some fantastic information, thanks for sharing.  Will definitely be back more often….

who would even want to goto school year round?

I dont know who would want to go year round.