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Saturday, August 31, 2002

By Eleanor Chute, Post-Gazette Education Writer

This year, parents whose children are stuck in failing schools can choose to send their students to better public schools.

	The Series: Day One: A late bloomer learns to read Day Two: Word is out on how schools can get funding for reading Day Three: A kinder, gentler phys ed Day Four: Law allows businesses to rack up tax breaks through gifts to schools Day Five: Troubled schools struggle with new transfer law Day Six: When students go wireless, colleges lose money Today: In 2003, students in danger can request school transfer

Next year, parents whose children are stuck in violent schools will be able to do the same.

Under the federal "No Child Left Behind Act," Pennsylvania and other states are developing plans to prepare for the "unsafe school choice option" that takes effect in fall 2003.

The federal law lists two situations in which school districts must offer transfers to students. The first is to all students in a school considered "persistently dangerous." The other is to individual students who are victims of violent crime at school.

The transfer offer only applies if there's a safe public school choice, including a public charter school, in the district.

If there isn't, then school district officials at the persistently dangerous school can try to make a transfer arrangement with officials at a "safe" school district, but that's not required. Many parents in so-called "failing schools" have found there isn't another choice available.

Also, the law doesn't require districts to pay for transportation.

What is a persistently dangerous school?

That definition will vary from state to state. Federal guidance, issued late last month, simply requires states, in concert with a representative sample of school districts, to "develop objective criteria."

The states generally are supposed to consider a pattern of offenses or incidents within the current or most recent school year and reassess schools each year.

While the definitions will need federal review, Melinda Malico, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education, said the law provides flexibility for states.

She said she expects "significant variations," meaning that what's considered dangerous in one state may not be in another state.

In Pennsylvania, those standards haven't yet been developed.

Jeff McCloud, spokesman for the state Department of Education, said the policy must first come before the state Board of Education and will be the subject of public hearings.

Among the states, North Carolina appears to be among the furthest along in the process.

In June, its state board decided a persistently dangerous school is one that's had five or more violent criminal offenses per 1,000 students during the two most recent school years and "in which the conditions that contributed to the commission of those offenses are likely to continue into another school year."

Marguerite Peebles, state alternative and safe schools and instructional support section chief in North Carolina, said the state board studied a list of criminal offenses it records and concluded that these would count toward the definition:

Homicide, assault resulting in serious bodily injury, assault involving a weapon, rape, sexual offense, sexual assault, kidnapping, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and taking indecent liberties with a minor.

Under that standard, about 21 of the 3,400 public and charter schools in North Carolina would meet or exceed the number of offenses, she said. Five of those schools are alternative schools or "uniquely graded" schools while the rest are middle or high schools.

North Carolina officials haven't examined whether those schools would meet the second part of the definition that requires the crimes would be expected to continue. It also plans to use two years of trend data.

"I wouldn't want to unfairly identify a school as being persistently dangerous when that school may have had a difficult year," Peebles said.

Many states, including Pennsylvania and North Carolina, already have a system to collect data on violent incidents at schools. Pennsylvania has six years of data, but the validity of the data has been questioned because of inaccuracies and inconsistent reporting.

The federal law requires states to ensure that school districts are trained in how to collect the data.

For the most part, the unsafe school choice option has taken a backseat to other parts of No Child Left Behind, such as standardized testing and transfers for students in failing schools.

Patty Sullivan, deputy executive director for advocacy and strategic alliances for the Council of Chief State School Officers, said "there's just so much else" in the federal law, and that most attention has gone to requirements that kick in sooner.

The unsafe school choice option "is the one area of the law that I've heard the least about," Sullivan said.

Eleanor Chute can be reached at echute@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1955.