Palo Alto schools lottery process revamped

I agree with Parent. The new process may not address everyone’s concerns, but it is a very positive step in the right direction, providing much improved transparency and consistency across programs while protecting the privacy of PAUSD families and maintaining a dignified atmosphere.

I’m impressed that Skelly and the BoE heard people’s concerns and didn’t just blow them off.

Arden — Thank you for your reporting on this. I was also impressed with your piece on the Bond. It was great to see the history so thoroughly reported. Very educational. I appreciated it.

Kudos to Dr. Skelly for making these changes in the “random selection” process. I don’t know that any system would ever be perfect for everyone, but forward steps, good intentions and an open door go a long way toward engendering good will.

Arden (or any parent involved) – Did Ohlone or Ohlone MI do a waitlist? Are people being notified about their position on any of the schools’ waitlists? Or are they just being told if they made it through the first round?

Arden, Thank you for taking the time to answer people’s questions online. Do you know what was done if people entered more than one lott… uh, random selection (Ohlone MI and Ohlone, Hoover and Ohlone MI, SI and MI)? If someone got into two programs, does the district just wait for them to select one and reject the other?

To Mary:

Thanks for your support : ) This is, undeniably, the response I’ve gotten from teachers (parents results may vary), that an October/November child can have the potential to struggle.

To Parent of a Nov child:

Thanks for your positivity and constructive advice. : )
How old is your daughter now? From what I’ve discerned, the problems with girls tend to show up much later, i.e. in middle and high school, when they are so much younger than their peers. I know 6 months is a long time and we will keep our options open, however, it would take a huge shift in my perspective to put her in K in the fall. She is small for her age, frustrates easily, gravitates toward younger children…etc.

I feel so strongly about this that we will most likely pay for another year of the preschool she’s in (which is ok, but not ideal for her, it’s more of a daycare) rather than set her off on a track she may not be ready for.

Things could be worse than not getting into this program. Ultimately, I’m glad we have these “choices”.

However,…I feel some additional changes are in order to the selection process, at least for the Young Fives program.

I agree with the previous posters on hoping that the Young 5s program focuses on October/November birthdays in the future. Perhaps also it’s time for us to push for a third class. (Yes, I’m well aware of the budget issues.) That aside, as enrollment in the district increases it’s inevitable that we’ll have more Young 5s as well. Over 70 applicants and only room for 40. It just doesn’t make sense. We should have spots for all of those Young 5s. It’s not really the same kind of choice program as SI/MI or Ohlone/Hoover.

Another thought is that we could just try to push for the cutoff date to finally change to Sept like the rest of the country. :p

The young fives program issues begs the question as to why public resources go to this program. I see the benefit to the kids, but it also has an adverse outcome. Then, the May and June boys end up young, and failing in the shadows of all the young five boys. It seems that many do it so their kid has an “advantage” over everyone else (or that is the actual outcome). If someone really wants to hold back their kids, the parents should pay for it.

Sorry, I am sure I am going to get a lot of flack on this one! Either offer pre-k for all, or don’t offer it at all. Why must we have SO many lotteries? Maybe I am bitter having lost EVERY one. But if we have to cut something, that should be the first to go. It couldn’t be “cost neutral”.

I agree with Parent in making the cut-off August 31st, and make it a firm line. No redshirting, unless there is a TRUE issue the school district identifies. My son would still be the young one, but someone has to be it.

Get rid of young-fives all together then. There is always preschool.

I don’t have a dog in this hunt, but from what I’ve seen there are October kids who do just fine and July ones with developmental delays who really need an extra year before kindergarten. You see that with preemies, who are developmentally months younger than their chronological age.

The justification for a Young Fives program is that it avoids problems later–less holding back of kids in later years–and I’ve seen kids who were Young Fived and who really are just managing at grade level when they do get into school. And for those kids, I think Young Fives was the way to go.

So, I think kids where there are learning, development, behavior issues should have a shot at Young Fives even if they’re August or July.

Alternatively, we could quit pushing down the curriculum so much. If kids didn’t need to learn reading in kindergarten, we wouldn’t have the issue of kids not being developmentally ready to read.

I will add a couple of things to my earlier posts.

My daughter with a Nov. 22 birthdate was also a preemie and if she had been born on her due date would have been in the next grade level. As I have always said, she was in a hurry to be born and a hurry to grow up. At this stage in her preschool year I did wonder if she would be able to fit in with kindergarten as her readiness skills were doubtful. She was basically still scribbling with crayons rather than trying to draw, color in or even write and her playground skills, pumping on a swing, throwing a ball, hopping, were definitely poor. But, she loved books and spent hours happily looking at books on her own and enjoyed being read to. In fact, by the time she started kindergarten she was reading simple unseen books to herself.

My son with the July birthday, was and still is very interested in sport, but that would not have been my reason for holding him back as a means to do better with his grade peers. No, the only reason I may have held him back was because he wasn’t interested in books (except for a bedtime story) and anything to do with paper and pencil. He was unable to stay focused on anything for more than 5 minutes unless it was sport related. His co-operation and understanding of simple instructions were also poor. But, with him, although he is doing well at school, I still see the same lack of focus, taking instructions, and no interest in reading or writing unless he has to, so these things that I thought were problems of slow development for him in his preschool year, were in fact part of his character and just a precursor to his disorganizational skills that no matter how hard I try we still have problems with.

Mom of a very young 5,
-cutoff dates for K are different in different states. I have occasionally encountered criticism from misguided persons regarding my slightly older children. Anecdotally, I see a lot of “younger” children for their grades here in PAUSD and I have experience in other school areas so I have some comments. I sure wish I lived in Georgia when my kids were little so they would have been clearly in a particular school year/grade (friends at the time had August cutoff date)…
-I think there was been a move in California to move the cutoff date to August. I would support that so we have ALL kids at the same age – 5 – starting K and not a mix of 4,5,6. So the cutoff should be Aug 1 to turn 5 if we have some CA schools starting in Aug and some in Sept.
-As a parent of Nov and Dec kids (note the distinct situation: one w/bday just before the cutoff here, one just after the cutoff who are both almost completely grown up…they both started school at age 5 (August) way back when, in another area (not Palo Alto)and they have generally been among the more mature kids. I object to the idea that I “held” my child back — speaking of the Nov child–, that is not correct. Each started pre-school in the August timeframe for starting for preschools in the area where we lived, when they were still 3 years old. Each did two years of preschool then moved to K.
It does not confer any advantage to have an older child(we are not involved with sports). Over the years I am slightly surprised that I have encountered children with summer birthdays who are in the same grade as my children (turned 16 the summer before going into sophomore year of high school, for example). THOSE children seem quite mature! What we are ending up with is a very large range of ages in a particular grade.
-What I DID notice in the very early school years is numerous very young children who were not ready to be in a social setting of school, who took inordinate amounts of the teacher’s time for several grades. I am not really referring to academic readiness, by the way. My children received little personal attention.
-I have had mothers tell me they district shopped, that Cupertino would not take their young children for K (sometimes just turned 4 in Dec.!) so they came here to Palo Alto; some people want to stop paying for childcare and are not focused on whether their child is “ready” for kindergarten.
-in some cases parents are transfixed with “giftedness” of their young kids, I have noted that their pushing their kids ahead has necessitated extensive paid tutoring and support in order to make that happen.

Thanks ‘parent’, for your insight.

Here’s a link to an interesting NY Times Magazine article regarding this issue. Pretty much confirmed my thinking, especially the teacher sentiments of: if you can keep them back, do it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/magazine/03kindergarten-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5070&en=1a94ff254d272df3&ex=1182312000

I just think kids should be kids for as long as possible, I’m in no hurry for her to grow up so fast. But that’s just me.

I still feel that October & November kids, (+ a few earlier birthday kids who are clearly not ready), are just too young for the high pressure world of academics-based Kindergarten today. At least mine is.

Ok, now I have to get back to work so we can pay for that extra year of preschool… ; ) sigh.

Arden,

thanks for the numbers. This helps a lot.
Is there a reason Ohlone MI 1st graders accepted totals to 18 and not 20? Without siblings and greater than 20 applicants, I think the total should be 20.

If you take the Young 5s tour and fill out the application you’ll note that holding a child back for the program has very little, if anything, to do with academic readiness. Most of the issues are social and emotional.

My daughter would probably do fine with the academics in September if I had to send her. It’s the social part that she would be young for. I’m not holding her back for her to get an advantage over other kids. I’m holding her back to give her an equal footing when she does go to Kindergarten. Starting Kindergarten and repeating a grade can be very detrimental to the child.

OhlonePar,

I’m not sure the retention rate at Ohlone is due to the kids not being able, qualified, ready, whatever, to move to the next grade. It’s possible that the parents choose to keep them in kindergarten (or first grade, or whatever) because that was their plan all along… I’ve had that thought myself. My daughter was in the Ohlone lottery as a backup choice for next year, and I’ve thought about doing that, since the grades are bundled k-1, 2-3, etc. I just think it’s possible it’s less of a stigma there, and the structure is more loose, etc. She didn’t get into that lottery either, but upon further consideration I don’t think I’d ‘retain’ her in a grade at Ohlone anyway. Maybe some do though.

I love the Ohlone idea, but I do think that it’s not right for some families, and maybe some kids.

The thing that is kind of a bummer about that lottery is the number of actual parent’s I’ve heard with my own ears say they want to get in because it’s close to home. What??

We live 1/2 block from our own, cute, local elementary, and I still would schlep across town to have my kid at Ohlone when the time is right (next year) if we were lucky enough to actually get in.

Ok, now I’m sounding bitter ; ) I’m trying to take everything with a grain of salt, but my salt lick is wearing away : ) !

But seriously, did I mention how glad I am that we have these “choices” ; ) ?

PA Dad – the district was originally going to add space to Ohlone – but the MI program (aka charter threat) took the space.

My twins have a Sept birthday, but we sent them to Kindergarten because we thought they were ready. Of course we had no idea just how academic Kindergarten now is. I was led to believe that Kindergarten readiness meant mostly social skills and maturity. Boy was I wrong! All year long I kept hearing from my daughter’s teacher that she was doing ok, not great, but not badly enough to repeat next year than suddenly in mid-January we were called into a big meeting and told that she had fallen way behind her classmates and that repeating next year was an option we might start thinking about. And many of these classmates are young fives – younger than she is – and they came in reading chapter books and with the ability to write independently in their journals.

My son, on the other hand, started out badly. Right off the bat, his teacher warned us he may have to repeat because he was immature and didn’t seem to have a clue about how to behave in Kindergarten. I never would have predicted it because he was the more social twin. Less than two months into the year he miraculously improved and did excellent on the academic part of his first report card. His teacher said his behavior greatly improved too.

Would Young Fives have made a difference? Probably, but I’m sure if my daughter had been in the program I would have been hearing the same concerns about her lack of phonics skills from her Young Fives teacher and that in turn would have freaked me out about sending her to Kindergarten next year. But maybe a Young Fives program would have been better able to tell me if she was showing signs of a learning disability. So far the school has no clue, because she is too young to test. Also I suspect that what we are going through with my daughter might have more to do with her temperament, personality, and learning style than her age, but maybe not. Who knows? We took a gamble and sent them to Kindergarten, and so far one is thriving (the boy, amazingly enough) and one is not.

Because of all of this, one or both of my kids might be repeating next year, especially after I was told that by the end of their school’s first grade, the students are supposed to be academically two grades ahead of students at most other elementary schools, I guess meaning non-PAUSD schools. I have heard that it is not just Ohlone, but that it is also common at my kids’ school for kinders to repeat. I think it is encouraged if the student is at all borderline, because they want the students to really learn the skills and also after first grade students are no longer retained. Anyway, the point of my long treatise on Kindergarten is to say that Academics, Academics, and more Academics is what is really important and that many of the kids with the academic skills in both of my kids’classes are young fives.

I was also hoping to get my kids into Ohlone, but for the second year in a row, did not. I thought that maybe Ohlone’s more Montessori style would be a better fit for my daughter, who is a visual and hands-on learner. Oh well!

“Yet he was unsure whether a completely public lottery would work, he said. The mixed atmosphere of jubilant, celebrating parents and disappointed parents might be inappropriate, he said.”

Oh, Please!!!!!!

I live in a city with magnets, optional, immersion and design center schools with entry based on a lottery system. With a greater number of disappointed parents and it is not considered inappropriate.

The fact PAUSD has not moved to full disclosure is ludicrous. Upon receipt of an application it is stamped with a number – it becomes the lottery number.

The lottery is held at a central location and is open to the public. The results (the lottery #s only) are put onto the district website for families to access that evening so they don’t even have to go to that location.

By not offering full disclosure, the process has the appearance of possible collusion.

Parent,

It was interesting what came up when I did a search on attrition and immersion. I started pulling up studies on the 40 years of French-English programs in Canada and a more complex picture of immersion than the one we’ve been presented comes up.

Basically, with the long-term programs (elementary through high-school), the attrition rates are extremely high. What happened with the Potomac MI program isn’t extreme–almost predictable, in fact.

So, as you’ve noted before, when we look at those immersion-miracle test scores, we *are* looking at a group where there’s been a big issue of self-selection. One Canadian study showed that the main reason kids dropped out of immersion programs was academic difficulty.

When you’re looking at attrition rates of 50 percent–that’s a lot of kids who can’t hack an immersion program–and that’s with a relatively easy language.

The sad fact is that Cupertino’s shrinkage of 22 kids down to 6 isn’t bad for an immersion program.

Over on the informal side of things, a MV parent was telling me that MV’s Spanish-immersion program has a different issue. There are so many Spanish speakers at the school that the Spanish-speaking kids in the immersion program aren’t learning enough *English* by eighth grade. They’re not speaking English outside of school or on the playground, so they’re not getting enough practice in it. (I don’t see this problem with the Mandarin speakers at Ohlone, but it’s interesting.)

Fulldisclosure,

I really don’t think the district has any business offering numerous lottery programs where kids have only a 10 percent chance of getting in. Too many programs and too few spots. I think Hoover’s reasonably well-balanced and Young Fives, actually, seems to offer reasonable odds, but the other lottery programs are out of whack. The language programs both have serious imbalance issues–tons of English speakers and minimal numbers of the immersion-language speakers.

And, of course, people are pissed off.

I think with the language programs that FLES is the obvious answer–I think a lot of people would be happy with some language instruction instead of this all or none nonstrategy the district currently has.

Mr. Skelly has said that there would be a reporting of the outcome of the lottery process after the fact. (Particularly since he held this as a meeting closed to the public.)

There is nothing on the Feb 26th Board meeting agenda with regard to the reporting of process or outcomes for choice program lotteries (or ‘random selection processes’ or by any other name).

We expect to see a full reporting of the process and the numbers. While Arden’s information above is helpful and interesting, its not complete and its not official PAUSD. When will we get an official reporting?

Hi Fulldisclosure,

I didn’t mean to suggest that you were making a suggestion about PAUSD’s lottery options, just more an observation about the reactions people have and why.

In some ways, if this were a large city with lottery programs, I think people would be less disgruntled. Instead, we have a situation where a fair number of kids are in choice programs, but the choice programs have few openings. Basically, the sibling preference slots play a huge role. Two-thirds of Ohlone’s slots are taken up by sibling preference and nearly all of SI’s. So app. 20 percent of our kids are in lottery programs, but most of them didn’t actually have to go through the open lotteries to be there.

It’s sticky–the sibling preference is understandable, but it does create bad odds. Also, because enrollment’s increasing, it’s getting harder and harder to get those slots–it’s more applicants for fewer openings.

Parent,

When we applied to Ohlone we were told that usually half the spots went to Ohlone. Well, that actually hasn’t been true for a few years–we’re seeing few than 20 out of 70 spots go to non-siblings–though it sounds like they hold some spots for retentions, which is why those figures interested me. (Arden, if you see this, I’d like to see an article on retentions in PA at the kinder level, compared to the state in general, historically, etc. I just didn’t know it was that kind of an issue–I mean 10 percent of the kids repeat kindergarten here? In my lonnggg-distant youth, this was unknown.)

Parent, back to you–two things. Yes, there are a number of large families at Ohlone. I think the nuts-and-granola approach tends to appeal to very child-centered families.

The other factor is, I think, is that spots do open up at Ohlone and the people who take those transfer spots tend to have at least one younger child. I know of a couple of cases where the older child was transferred because the parent really wanted the school for the younger one. If it’s just one child or a youngeest child, I don’t think families are as inclined to uproot the child.

With the case of boys, parents of boys are more inclined to apply (they’re affraid their boys won’t sit still.) at the same time, girls are more likely to get in. Parents of girls with younger brothers are a little more likely to apply, again, to get the brother in.

So with boys, you have a case of more boys applying overall while simultaneously having more younger male siblings.

It’s substantially easier to get your child in at a higher grade–there’s always some attrition and at that point, most people won’t transfer their child–unless they’re trying to get a sibling spot for a younger child. With the case of the Hoover parent, her child may have gotten into kinder and then a 3rd-grade spot opened for the other child. At this point, too, Hoover’s substantially easier to get into than the other choice programs. I expect that if you cry and plead, at some point you’ll get in there.

There’s also simply a numbers game, the longer a program’s been in existence, the more chance it’s had to pile up younger-siblings-in-waiting. Ohlone’s crowd is partly the result, I think, of Susan Charles pulling together the school. And Hoover’s relatively low number of applicants I think, frankly, has to do with its fairly rapid change in demographics. Six years ago, it wasn’t a predominantly Asian school. While I don’t think families are leaving the school, it’s clear that it no longer gets the same percentage of Caucasian applicants. (The gung-ho white parents put their kids in Duveneck, Walter Hays and Nixon).