What is a neighborhood school?

That is the question raised by Aspire Public Schools, the state-run Achievement School District (ASD), and the case of Coleman Elementary School.

As reported by the Commercial Appeal, parents tried unsuccessfully to enroll their children in September at Coleman, an elementary school in the Raleigh area in northeast Memphis that is now run by Aspire as part of the ASD. The school, they were told, was at capacity, and parents were directed elsewhere. Many are being bused nine miles away to Aspire’s other school, Hanley Elementary, which had much lower scores than Coleman last year (5% vs 10% in Math, 8% vs 18% in Reading).

Aspire’s actions at Coleman invite a closer examination of what exactly a neighborhood school is, how we assign students to schools, and the relationship between the state-run ASD and the local districts within whose boundaries they operate.

(For transparency, it should be noted that I worked for the ASD from 2012 to 2013.)

Aspire & The ASD: Some Context

First, some background.

The ASD was created with federal funding from the Race to the Top grant. The purpose of the district, which opened its first schools in August of 2012, is to turn around the lowest-performing of schools in Tennessee. The vast majority of these schools, defined as the bottom-5% in the state and inclusion on the state’s Priority List, are in Memphis. The ASD’s mission is to move these schools, over the course of five years, into the top-25% in the state.

With a few exceptions (e.g., GRAD Academy, an open-enrolment school that can only enroll students zoned to schools on the Priority List), the ASD takes over existing neighborhood schools, attendance zone and all. This means that ASD schools can’t pick or choose their students, nor can they turn anyone in the neighborhood away. Everyone zoned to the school has a right to attend the school, just like they did before the ASD arrived.

Most of the schools in the ASD have been converted into charter schools. The district first tapped local charter schools, but have been recruiting many of the nation’s top charter management organizations (CMOs) to expand to Memphis. California’s Green Dot, for example, opened its first school this year, and Houston’s YES Prep opens its first school next year.

With their impressive results in California, the ASD granted Aspire the right to open ten schools in Memphis. This is their second year in Memphis and as part of the ASD. Unlike most ASD charters, Aspire is taking over entire schools, rather than phasing into a school one grade at a time.

Moreover, not only is Aspire taking over entire schools, they also inherit the attendance zone of the schools they take over. Everyone in the neighborhood who was zoned to attend the school under SCS is now zoned to attend the same school, only now Aspire runs the school under the ASD.

Truancy: A Familiar Problem in Memphis

Aspire just opened its second ASD school at Coleman. And they’ve run into an all-too-familiar local problem: truancy.

Each year, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of students don’t show up when school starts back in August. This has a tremendous impact on staffing, as education funding is tied to attendance. It’s a big problem for Shelby County Schools (and for Memphis City Schools before the merger).

Here’s the dilemma: If you staff for August attendance, many schools will have to add new staff once enrollment settles in September, but schools can’t afford to pay for staff in August if kids aren’t there.

This brings us back to Aspire.

They were aggressive with their enrollment plan, which started back in the Spring. I’m not sure what they did for Coleman, but they went door-to-door, held block parties, and more when opening their first Memphis school at Hanley Elementary in the Orange Mound community. They budgeted $100,000 to connecting with families and enrolling kids at their school.

I mention that to say that Aspire does a tremendous job recruiting families. I’m not sure anyone does, or could do, a better job with enrollment.

And yet, a month into the school-year, there were still many families in the Coleman area who had not enrolled their children in and were not sending their kids to school.

When these students did finally arrive at Coleman, Aspire would not admit them.

Families were given options: enroll at other schools in the area with space, enroll at any ASD school with space, or enroll at Aspire’s other Memphis school, Hanley, nine miles away in the Orange Mound community.

Transportation is always an issue in Memphis, especially as housing projects have been replaced by housing vouchers and poverty has moved into suburban areas like Raleigh that lack regular access to city bus routes. And the downside of the first two options was that parents would have to provide transportation. Understanding this, Aspire offered to provide a school bus (a cost of nearly $45,000) to transport kids from Coleman to Hanley.

The Issue: Attendance Zones

But why, if ASD schools are neighborhood schools, was Aspire allowed to turn away students who live within the Coleman attendance zone?

Aspire claims that their contract with the ASD allows them to cap enrollment, but I’m not sure how that’s possible. According to the Commercial Appeal, Aspire says that it can limit total enrollment to 560, but that K-5 enrollment is limited to 380 so that Coleman has room to grow into a K-8 campus over the next few years. Aspire is also using class size caps as justification for limiting total enrollment.

Things don’t quite add up.

Class size caps are set by state law, and every school in Tennessee has to abide by them, although my understanding is that Aspire’s contract with the ASD allows them to ensure smaller class sizes than state law requires.

What would SCS do in this situation? When a class gets too big, SCS schools can’t just send new students elsewhere. In this situation, the school has to add a new class. That’s what every other school in Memphis has to do – and many have to do so in September when truant students show up.

Yes, it’s expensive, and it doesn’t make for a wise business practice to open up, say, a new 2^nd grade homeroom when you have 30 students, just a few over the classroom cap of 24. But that’s how things work. Some schools will get creative with their scheduling, arranging intervention blocks and electives to eliminate the need for adding an extra homeroom. No matter what, it causes great disruption to the school mid-year.

At any rate, for the $45,000 it costs for a bus, Aspire could have hired an addition teacher. It seems strange that they would choose a bus over an extra teacher.

Why, if SCS would simply add another teacher, is Aspire allowed to send kids to another school?

Personally, I think that Aspire simply made what they considered a smart business decision about how to best allocate limited resources. I also think that they are concerned about disrupting the culture they’ve built at Coleman. A new teacher would have to be trained and, having missed their extensive onboarding this summer, that would be difficult mid-year. It would also take new students some time to learn the rules and systems of Aspire, which are considerably different than their previous schools; this is usually done during the first few weeks of schools, and it would be tough to learn them mid-year. Then there’s the students already at Coleman, whose schedules would likely be changed.

In short, I don’t think Aspire is trying to do anything wrong here. Thus, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here.

But the question Aspire forces us to ask is this: What is best practice? It’s a question we should ask in every situation. Whatever current practice is in SCS, is it what we should be doing? Does it make sense to shift teachers around and add new staff to a school in September? Some districts in California handle the situation exactly how Aspire has done so there’s precedent for doing things differently.

Reasonable people can come down on either side of this issue.

The other question Aspire forces us to ask is this: What are neighborhood schools? Does it mean that all kids within certain boundaries have the right to attend an assigned school, no matter when they show up? Or can the idea allow for the right of districts and schools to limit enrollment, especially when parents fail to send their kids to school on time? Do parents forfeit their right for their kids to attend their zoned school by keeping their kids home during August?

Limiting Enrollment?

What about caps for total enrollment? When can a school say that it is full and can accept no more students?

In the eastern half of Shelby County, many schools are bursting at the seams and have had to add portable classrooms because turning neighborhood kids away just isn’t an option. And if a truly overcrowded school can’t cap enrollment, why does Aspire think it can? Is this something that they, as a neighborhood school, should be allowed to do?

There is a way to limit enrollment, and that’s the zoning process. School districts routinely adjust zoning boundaries in response to enrollment data. So, is it possible for Aspire and the ASD to simply redraw the attendance zone for Coleman to limit enrollment?

Probably not. What makes this case tricky is that two districts are involved. I’m not sure what the state law that created the ASD says about zoning – my guess is nothing – but I’m fairly certain that there is no local precedent here.

It seems simple enough, though. Shelby County Schools, the local district, is responsible for setting school zoning boundaries. Thus, to adjust the Coleman zone, the ASD would have to take the issue to SCS. But, absent serious overcrowding, which is doesn’t appear to currently be an issue at Coleman, SCS would be under no obligation to cooperate. And there’s the rub.

SCS & The ASD: Collaboration or Competition?

In fact, the ASD has some reason to avoid the zoning process. In year-one of the new district, back in 2012, SCS (actually, it was Memphis City Schools at the time) unilaterally changed the attendance zone for Westside Middle School, causing the ASD to miss its enrollment projections by over 100 students.

Westside had nearly 550 students during the 2011-12 school year. (Note of transparency: I taught at Westside from 2009-2012.) When it was announced that the ASD would be taking over the school, one of only two middle schools in the Frayser community, Memphis City Schools (MCS) decided to convert the failing elementary Grandview Heights into a middle school.

There was a twofold effect of this decision: It prevented the ASD from taking over Grandview because it was now considered a new school, and it allowed MCS to redraw the zoning boundaries to retain enrollment (and funding).

In years past, under MCS, seven elementary schools fed into Westside. Under the ASD, after MCS converted Grandview and redrew the zones, the number of feeder schools dropped to four. MCS redrew the attendance zones such that the other elementary schools fed into the new middle school at Grandview, which made the ASD fall about 100 students short of its enrollment projections for Westside. Along with those 100 kids went close to $100,000 in funding. And it meant that the ASD had overstaffed its school.

All this to say that the ASD has a legitimate reason to not engage SCS around the issue of attendance zones.

However, unless there is something in the law that created the state district allowing for them to skirt local zoning issues, I don’t see how the ASD can legally avoid the rezoning process.

Yes, SCS and the ASD are in competition – for student outcomes, for student enrollment, and for funding. But parents don’t care about their competition; parents care about their children’s education. And it’s clear that the two districts need to collaborate more around policy issues, especially those that directly affect students and families.

Next Steps

So, what should happen next?

First, it seems obvious that there should be some determination as to whether Aspire acted properly here. This is an issue for the SCS school board, but the state department of education and board of education need to be involved as well.

If Aspire is obligated to educate these late-arriving students at their Coleman, then they and the ASD should make sure this happens. SCS should hold the ASD accountable here as well; otherwise, the ASD and their CMOs may start pushing students, especially those with greater needs, out of their schools.

However, if Aspire’s actions are acceptable, then SCS should reconsider its policies and practices. Doing so may help with staffing stability and also encourage parents to enroll their kids on time.

Secondly, the state legislature needs to establish clear legal guidelines for zoning, especially when the ASD is involved. It would not be a bad idea for the ASD to engage SCS around some ideas here, to draft a joint proposal, but lawmakers need to get involved and make it official.

As the ASD expands, unprecedented issues like this will continue to arise. Therefore, the state should appoint a task force to predict and analyze potential issues that may develop. It would be smart to start with general issues and those specific to Memphis, with SCS and the ASD working together with state officials to draft an interdistrict agreement or compact that defines how the two districts interact. Next, the state task force should look at issues specific to Nashville, then finally potential issues in Chattanooga and rural areas.

When it comes to educating our children, especially those in the lowest-performing schools in the state, we can’t afford to be reactionary. The ASD was rushed into existence, but it’s time to start thinking ahead, to get out in front of problems before they arise instead of responding to them after the fact.

Fix the current problem first, but start anticipating the next one – and the one after that.

James Aycock is currently the Director of Scholar Support at Grizzlies Prep, an all-boys public charter middle school located in downtown Memphis. He previously served as the founding Special Education Coordinator with Tennessee’s Achievement School District, after several years as a special educator and baseball coach for Memphis City Schools.