School board discusses racial demographics of magnet programs, increasing lottery to 50% of seats, possible IB Primary Years magnet school

School Board Member Tina Certain asks questions about the proposed IB Primary Years magnet school

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the November 8 workshop of the Alachua County School Board, Kim Neal presented information on magnet program policies for the 2024-25 school year, including an increase in the percentage of applications that will go into the lottery process, and the board discussed opening an IB Primary Years magnet school at Prairie View.

Neal told the board that magnet programs “offer a specialized curriculum to students outside the school’s normal attendance boundaries.” The programs may focus on areas such as mathematics, science, technology, communications, international affairs, business, or performing arts. 

Current magnet schools

The elementary school magnet programs (shown below) include the Center for Gifted and Talented Studies, starting at 3rd grade at Archer Elementary; a STEM magnet starting in 3rd grade at Stephen Foster Elementary; a STEAM magnet starting in Kindergarten at Metcalfe Elementary; a proposed International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years program starting in Kindergarten at Prairie View Elementary; a Center for Fine Arts starting in Kindergarten at Rawlings Elementary (although the number of out-of-zone seats is small, all students at the school have access to the program); a Dual Language Immersion program starting in Kindergarten at Terwilliger Elementary; and the Williams Magnet Program starting in 2nd grade at Williams Elementary. One class is 18 students, so these programs typically consist of one to three classes per grade. The slide below only shows the numbers for the entry grade levels; applications will also be accepted for subsequent grades in those programs, depending on seat availability.

Elementary school magnet programs

Middle school magnet programs (shown below) start in sixth grade and include the Academy of Technology and Advanced Studies at Howard Bishop, the Lyceum Program at Lincoln, the Biomedical Mustangs program at Mebane, and the Center for Advanced Academics and Technology at Oak View. The numbers on the slide, again, are only for the entry grade levels.

Middle school magnet programs

High school academic magnets include the IB program at Eastside and the Cambridge program at Gainesville High School. Neal said only ninth-graders are accepted unless the incoming student was in one of those programs in another district. 

High school academic magnet programs

High School Career and Technology Education (CTE) programs include the Academies of Entrepreneurship and Finance at Buchholz; the Institute of Culinary Arts at Eastside; the Academies of Future Teachers and Health Professions at Gainesville; the Academy of Agribusiness at Hawthorne; the Academy of Criminal Justice at Newberry; the Academies of Agriscience and Veterinary Assisting and the Institute of Biotechnology at Santa Fe; and Academies of Automotive Technology, Fire & Emergency Medical Services, Gaming & Mobile Apps, Media Production Technology, and Robotics & Engineering and the Institute of Graphic Art & Design at the Professional Academies Magnet at Lofton.

Racial participation in magnet programs: “Our magnet programs should look like our district”

Neal then compared racial participation in the magnet programs with the overall race distribution of the district because “our belief is truly that our magnet programs should look like our district.” She later repeated, “We do want our programs to look like the district.” The chart shown below gives the racial distribution of the district as a whole: 0.14% American Indian, 5.05% Asian, 32.75% Black/African American, 14.62% Hispanic/Latino, 7.34% Multi-racial, 0.11% Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and 40% White.

District race distribution

Neal also showed the district’s gender distribution, which is 51.18% male and 48.82% female; magnet programs are 52.13% female and 47.87% male.

Magnet enrollment in all district programs is shown in the chart below: 0.08% American Indian, 14.38% Asian, 15.50% Black/African American, 10.78% Hispanic/Latino, 7.36% Multi-racial, 0.11% Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and 51.79% White.

Neal said, “As you can see, this is not mirroring our district demographics in a number of ways in all of our racial groups.”

Overall magnet enrollment by race

The slide below compares the race distribution of the district overall, compared with the magnet programs overall.

District enrollment vs. magnet enrollment by race

Racial breakdowns of the individual magnet programs can be seen on slides 22-26 of the presentation here.  

Racial distribution in sports programs

Given the insistence that “We do want our programs to look like the district,” Alachua Chronicle made a public records request for the racial distribution of students who choose to play on school sports teams in the district. The district’s response was that “after checking with both the FTE & State Reporting Office and the Data Analytics, Accountability & Evaluation,” there was no way to pull this data, “as sports participation is not entered into Skyward in any way.” Another respondent said the district does “not collect information by race for sports.”

Policy changes for the magnet application process

For the 2024-25 school year, applicants for magnet programs will still need to satisfy attendance and discipline requirements, and the minimum grade point average (GPA) for CTE programs will be 2.5.

Changes for 2024-25 applications

Changes for the 2024-25 school year include removing a requirement that elementary applicants have no N, U, D, or F grades; Neal said, “The team and our district leadership feel that we don’t want to exclude a 6- or 7-year-old because they got a U in science in one quarter. That’s very exclusionary; we don’t want to do that to our students.” Neal added that some schools have accepted students with Ns, Us, Ds, and Fs, “so if we aren’t going to use our own rules, we might not need that rule, right?”

A second adjustment is changing the minimum middle school GPA from 3.0 to 2.5; Neal said the reasoning was similar to that for elementary programs: “They have such a short time to earn that GPA, and one grade can very easily pull down a GPA when you’re looking at a very short period of time.”

A third adjustment is changing the high school minimum GPA from 3.5 to 3.0. Neal said, “This past school year, in our school selection process alone, we had 51 students who were selected into academic programs who were below the 3.5 minimum–some of them in the high 2s, with a 2.8, 2.9. Those students are being successful in the programs. So we needed to as a district–we felt it was a strong belief to reduce that GPA level down.”

How the school selection process and lottery work

Neal clarified that in the “school selection process,” a school or program can select anyone from the applicant pool, regardless of minimum GPA standards, but the applications that are part of the lottery pool cannot violate the minimum GPA standards.

As of the next application cycle, applicants will only be able to apply to a maximum of three magnet programs, and 50% of seats in magnet programs will come from the lottery pool (this number was previously 25%). Neal added, “In 2018, our district Equity Plan stated that in year one of the lottery, there will be 25% lottery selection, followed by 50% in year two, 75% in year three, and 100% in year four… If we had followed that plan, we would be at 100% lottery selection already. So that’s part of the reason for that change, as well as equity and access to our programs.”

Other changes include allowing over-capacity schools to choose up to 50% of their school selection from out of zone, prohibiting acceptance of out-of-county students as part of school selection (all out-of-county applicants will go into the lottery pool), and locking in program acceptances on June 1. The lottery algorithm processes in-zone students, then out-of-zone students, then out-of-county students. Out-of-county students will only be accepted if all in-county students have been placed and there are still seats available. 

A District Magnet Review Committee will be created to develop processes for support, probation, and dismissal of students who are struggling in magnet programs. 

Retention and recruitment

Neal said board members have asked about the retention rate in magnet programs; she said, “We don’t really have that data.” She said the Magnet Review Committee will help gather that data and set policies around retention data.

Neal said the district is also focusing on recruitment because “we can’t change those demographic outcomes if we don’t get students to apply.”

Application timeline

Proposed timeline

The application period will open on January 16, 2024, and close on February 13. Notifications will go out by March 25, and parents will have one week to respond.

Abbitt: “I don’t think the answer is to water down magnet programs.”

Member Kay Abbitt asked Neal to explain the lottery process, and Neal said that after schools receive all of the applications, the school selects students for 50% of the seats along with a waiting list. After that, the lottery program is run using the preference ranking submitted by each student. 

Abbitt asked whether the lottery is weighted by race; Neal said it is not, but “I think as we increase our applicants, and our applicant pool becomes more–to look like the district demographics, then our lottery should also start to look more like our district demographics.”

Abbitt said, “I think it should not be any surprise there are a higher number of white students participating or applying for magnet programs. The struggling elementary schools where you get the foundation that sets you up for success in later grades are in east Gainesville and serve a large number of black and African American students. And how can they hope to participate in these programs when they don’t have the foundational skills that they need? I don’t think the answer is to water down magnet programs. It’s the one thing we have in the district that works really well, so I have an issue of lowering the GPA… I think the answer is to allow students in east Gainesville to be able to qualify for these magnet programs based on their own merit. And that will happen when they get a quality education, which by law they are entitled to have. So if you want a diverse magnet program then fix the problem, and I say this all the time. It’s not the magnet schools that are the problem; it’s the education that’s being provided to the minority students in East Gainesville. They’re set up to fail.”

Rockwell: “Excited” about the new IB Primary Years program at Prairie View Elementary

Member Sarah Rockwell said she was “excited” to see the IB Primary Years program and asked whether it will open next fall. Superintendent Shane Andrew said his staff his been working on “our vision of establishing a K-12 International Baccalaureate curriculum here in our school district. And that would be at Prairie View, Lincoln Middle School, and Eastside High School.” He said the Prairie View building can accommodate 420 seats to start with and that the IB Middle Years Program could possibly start at Lincoln in 2025. Andrew said the program could alleviate overcrowding in some other schools. 

Rockwell said, “That’s amazing… I’m really excited that it’s going to be next year.” Andrew confirmed that they would take applications from kindergarten through fourth grade.

Rockwell supported the reduction in GPA requirements because middle schoolers “don’t always make the best choices because they’re still learning.” She also supported moving to 50% lottery seats but wanted to “continuously evaluate” the programs for retention. 

In response to a question from Member Tina Certain, Neal said that to get Perkins funding for CTE programs, those programs have to show that they’re accessible, which includes comparing racial demographics of the program with district demographics. She said she worries about students with a low GPA, “but I think overall… my hope is that students see other people that look like them getting into programs” and decide they have a chance to get into that program and will decide to apply.

Certain: Budget questions about the IB Primary Years program

Certain also asked how the district will pay for the IB Primary Years program; she was particularly concerned with the expense of opening a whole-school magnet while also paying for external operators for Lake Forest and Idylwild Elementary Schools, and she wanted to focus on bringing those school grades up before opening a new school. She said, “There’s an under-representation in African-American students in special programs, and if we look at the [One Mill tax] and how it is being used, there is an abundance of funds [used for] programs that are for a certain demographic of students” while others are not seeing benefits from the tax. She continued, “We’re offering opportunities to students who are high-performing, but we’re not investing and putting resources into schools that are low-performing… My concern is opening up a new school site and the impact that it’s going to have on our budget.”

Andrew: “We see this as an opportunity that we can’t not try to accomplish”

Andrew said his staff is reviewing all the schools and programs, and “we certainly are budget-conscious… We see this as an opportunity that we can’t not try to accomplish, based on money.” He said there may be some funds for the magnet school and that the finance team is doing research and “checking some things out.”

Andrew mentioned that he thought Certain had mentioned closing Lake Forest at the previous night’s meeting, but she pointed out that the board had voted to hire external operators instead of other options like closure. McGraw warned everyone that they shouldn’t “jump out and make assumptions that we’re going to close.”

Andrew: Plan for IB Primary Years is “very aggressive, because we’re trying to move with urgency”

Rockwell was concerned about opening up the new IB Primary Years magnet school for applications in January when it hadn’t been approved by the IB organization and the district hadn’t decided whether they had the funds to operate it. 

Andrew said he wanted the public to be clear that “we are not closing Lake Forest Elementary School, or any school, at this moment in time.”

Andrew agreed that the plan for the IB Primary Years program was “very aggressive, because we’re trying to move with urgency… So I am passionate about [opening] up the door of opportunity for all of the children; let’s have a school set up that looks socioeconomically like Alachua County, that starts students off in a very rigorous program.” He said that could take kids from the east side of Gainesville to elite universities: “I just see that as an opportunity for first-generation students in a family to take the family to the next level… Let’s try to figure it out.” He said if it’s not approved this year, the school can open in 2025.

Certain: New magnet school is “almost irresponsible”

Certain said it was “almost irresponsible” to have a plan to open a school without knowing how to pay for it. She asked the finance department to bring the cost of operating the school to the board. McGraw said they could discuss that in their next workshop on December 6.

Abbitt said the district already has a remodeled school at Prairie View, and since the students will come from all over the county and “start on a fairly equal footing in kindergarten,” she thought it would be easy to get high-quality teachers into the school, “so for me, I’m looking at it as kind of a very innovative way to solve some of the problems that we’re having difficulty solving… I think there are many possibilities to it… Let’s see what we can do with it.”

Because the meeting was a workshop, no motions were made, and no votes were taken.

    • Joe, you are correct. And instead of focus on possibly guiding these students towards careers where they work with their hands.

  • Who are the highest academic achievers? I would expect those groups to be most strongly represented in the magnet programs.

    Learned helplessness and never-ending generational victimhood won’t help academic performance, unfortunately. Neither is thinking that doing well in school is “too white.” I’m surprised the numbers aren’t more skewed, frankly, given the rampant ignorance here.

  • In other words, “We need to lower magnet requirements to admit more black students who will underperform and ultimately lower the bar for all students, in the name of equity.”

  • Ms. Certain is educated. Why can’t she figure out the reason for under-representation? Maybe she just has a difficult time admitting what the problem is. I don’t see her complaining about the under-representation of white kids in basketball or football? If she’s going to imply racial bias/discrimination she should call it out across the board.

    I thought the kids, all of them, had the opportunity? They just have to get out of bed, (her fellow board member has already made note of the inability for some to do that), go to school, (called out as well), do well and submit an application and go through the screening/selection process. That’s what athletes have to do…be better than the competition, be screened and go through tryouts. Maybe she should go to UF and tell Coach Napier to give the skinny little white kid a full scholarship.

    Sad…these people who are supposed to be colorblind but insert color into every conversation at, and of, their choosing.

  • Not ALL children are cut out for this “gifted” program.
    Direct them towards learning a skill like electrical, mechanical, plumbing, etc.

  • Would someone who thinks a lottery or racial quotas, would help anyone, including the targeted demographic, become better students please join the conversation? IMO, dumbing down an already low educational standard helps nobody. Why not focus on showing the no shows, not interested in learning children, how an education will help them as adults? In other words, instead of pushing students into an environment they will fail at, come up with methods to encourage success.

  • They love grouping people, even when using a lottery system. Why not use a merit-based system? 🧐🤔

  • Just when you think this Bias and Prejudice School Board could not do any worse, they are hell bent on destroying Alachua County education and lowering the bar for the best students because of their failures. This plan is absurd and backwards .

  • Their discussion about test scores having too much importance is ironic given that AP, IB, and Cambridge classes require passing a difficult exam in a timed format in order to receive college credit.

  • It’s stunning that ppl in this county voted for this inept school board. There were other candidates who would have steered the school system in the right direction. Everyone who voted for the current board is to blame for this debacle. Voting matters. Remember that. Actions do have consequences.

  • Let’s see how about looking at the households of both groups. Simple questionnaire for parents, 1. Do you read books with YOUR children? 2. Do you help YOUR children with their homework? 3. Do you meet with the teachers and ask how YOUR children are doing?
    This is where everything starts in a child’s education. If the parents don’t care, the child does not have chance. Change the Culture but speaking the truth hurts.

    • How many of these students have 2 parent homes vs single parent homes would be an interesting graph as well …

    • College town natives have to graduate, we only respect diplomas here. Unless you are a lucrative YouTube influencer, which is another option (as likely as a sports scholarship).

  • I agree with Ms. Abbitt. We don’t need to water down the magnets, we need to foster an equitable elementary education across the entire county so all of these kids are competitive for the magnet spots. That also means the parents need to make sure their kids actually go to school. Making something easier to accomplish isn’t doing anyone any favors.

  • From the number of 👎🏻, there’s a large percentage of the readers here who believe students should be “propped up” rather than be provided a “proper” education.
    We’re getting closer to the school district in Oregon(?) than many of us would like.

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