Modesto City Schools moving forward with split to voting areas

Modesto City Schools trustees will consider moving forward on plans to split the district into voting areas at its Tuesday meeting. The board will also get a progress report on community-driven budget planning, and community activists whose 10-point plan was only partially addressed in this year’s budget plan will return with a longer list for 2017-18.

District voters in June approved changes to the Modesto city charter allowing Modesto City Schools to split its territory into voting areas to conform with the California Voting Rights Act. On Tuesday, the board will be asked to approve a resolution laying out 10 criteria to guide how those areas are shaped and hear a presentation on the transition process.

The areas, under the resolution presented in the agenda, must be roughly equal in population, keeping together so-called communities of interest such as feeder districts, geographic divisions or high school attendance boundaries. The splits should be contiguous, however, which means Downey High’s two-part attendance area would not qualify. The Coffee Road campus takes surrounding students from its own neighborhood and a chunk of south Modesto.

The overarching rules are to avoid gerrymandered areas that could disenfranchise neighborhoods or racial groups. One provision would allow tweaking boundaries to keep from putting two trustees in the same area, though this would be difficult because two trustees are only blocks apart in the Enochs High area, and three live close together in the Davis High area. No trustees live in west or south Modesto, where the majority of their elementary students reside.

Maps of possible dividing lines will be the subject of two public hearings before a vote is taken to create the areas. Before the maps can be drawn, a second public hearing will be held, set for Feb. 6. The entire process will take a number of months.

Budget planning

Community input is required for each year’s Local Control Accountability Plan, better known as the LCAP (pronounced L-cap). Trustees will get an overview of goals reached and missed in this year’s plan as they head into the final stretch in planning for next year.

The agenda report lists last year’s graduation rates, with an impressive 92 percent of the Class of 2015 receiving diplomas on time. The figure includes an 8.5 percent year-over-year improvement for English learners, the district’s lowest-performing group, with 83 percent graduating in 2015. Some 90 percent of Latinos overall graduated in four years.

Slightly more African Americans also graduated on time, 89 percent. It was historically low graduation rates and higher-than-average discipline rates for these students that spurred community activists to action in recent years.

Community concerns

Last year, Advocates For Justice presented a 10-point plan to better support African American and disadvantaged youths. The group is planning to present a revised 13-point plan to the board Tuesday. Point 8 is to use supplemental funds designated for high-needs populations for those groups rather than spreading it districtwide, as is technically allowed.

Their focus has broadened to champion at-risk students overall, seeking an end to transfers to other schools or independent study in lieu of expulsion for kids with discipline problems. Another point asks that there be efforts to reduce high numbers of foster children sent to continuation high school.

The list includes requests for quarterly board updates on suspension and discipline numbers by race and for students with disabilities, hiring more diverse staff and looking at the racial balance of all schools.

It also asks the district to require implicit-bias training for employees, something it has done for administrators and yard duties but has not required of teachers – the group that generates the most referrals for discipline.

The group’s presentation is not listed specifically on the agenda, precluding trustees from discussion on it.

Health videos

In a small item on the consent agenda, trustees will vote on buying DVD versions of family life and sex education videos for fourth through sixth grades. Fourth and fifth grades will get boys and girls versions of the standard health information. Sixth-graders will get a physical-changes video, one on emotional health and, though no sixth-grade health standard addresses it, a video on fetal development.

The materials will replace the same basic information found on 2008 VHS tapes now used in Modesto classrooms, each adhering to the Sex Can Wait program adopted in 1975, said Marla Mack, senior director in educational services. As with all such materials, parents can preview the videos and sign opt-out forms if desired.

This story was originally published January 16, 2017 at 6:39 PM with the headline "Modesto City Schools moving forward with split to voting areas."