United States District Court, D. Arizona
ORDER
HONORABLE DEVID C. BURY, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.
Magnet
Status: Approved for Drachman Montessori K-8 School, Roskruge
Elementary School, Borton Elementary School, and
Booth-Fickett K-8 School.
Pursuant
to the directives of this Court, the Special Master makes his
final recommendations for whether five schools which
previously were designated magnet schools should retain that
designation. He now reports on four, with the only remaining
prior magnet designation outstanding being Holladay
Elementary School.
The
Special Master recommends that Drachman Montessori K-8
School, Roskruge Elementary School, Borton Elementary School,
and Booth-Fickett K-8 School retain the magnet school
designation. He recommends that magnet status for Roskruge
Elementary School be terminated but that the school retain
its Magnet Coordinator for one more year and that she be
allowed to undertake recruitment efforts which if improving
integration at the school will afford the District, the
Special Master and this Court to revisit the issue of
Roskruge's magnet designation.
Before
discussing the magnet designation for Roskruge K-8 School,
the Court adopts the recommendations of the Special Master
for the other schools.
First,
Drachman Montessori K-8 School, a C school, is moving
decisively towards restoring its stellar academic standing
with the State and offers concrete reasons why it fell in its
standing. It has taken concrete measures to improve the
school by adding a computer component to its curriculum and
an admission criterion to ensure for grades 6 to 8 to ensure
those students are able to manage the self-directed nature of
the learning experiences offered at Drachman Montessori.
Second,
Borton Elementary School, a C school, shall add an
instructional coach in mathematics, and has such an
instructor for reading, as a means to narrow the achievement
gap which exists between its magnet students and neighborhood
students. This instructor/coach will also work with teachers,
especially newer teachers, in smaller classes in the early
grades, to promote teacher-growth and improve teacher
quality.
Third,
the District has provided Booth-Fickett 8-K School, with
substantial academic support to improve its “D”
academic state rating and has developed a partnership with a
leading technology-rich curriculum provider, Amplify, whereby
the District will contribute its expertise in culturally
responsive pedagogy and in return receive from Amplify its
curriculum. This partnership should enrich
Booth-Fickett's Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematic (STEM) magnet theme.
This
brings the Court to Roskruge K-8 School, a C school, which is
not integrated. Roskruge K-8 is a special magnet school with
a magnet theme as a dual language program, trying to meet two
USP goals: 1) Integration by Magnet Programs and 2) Improving
Quality of Education by Dual Language Programs. As the
Special Master explains these two USP goals can be odds with
each other. The Special Master reports that the recommended
most effective dual language program is Two Way Dual Language
(TWDL), which to be academically successful requires Spanish
fluency by no later than the second grade. This complicates
efforts to integrate the school because it primarily attracts
Spanish-speaking Hispanic/Latino students. The Special Master
recommends that Roskruge K-8 School should not be designated
a magnet school but it should receive the same level of
support through its designation as a dual language school and
be allowed to retain the Magnet Program Coordinator for one
more year.[1]
The
Mendoza Plaintiffs filed an objection to this recommendation,
accusing the District of lacking commitment to ensure
Roskruge's magnet status. (Doc. 2189.) The Mendoza
Plaintiffs supplemented the objection to bring new evidence
to the Court's attention which they believe reflects the
District's lack of support for Roskruge's magnet
status because it believes that if Roskruge cannot be
integrated within the next year, the District will not attain
unitary status. The Court notes that the USP goals and
programs are designed to remain in place long after this
Court's jurisdiction ends, and USP programs, especially
the magnet programs and dual language programs, will only
remain viable in the future if they are maintained through
appropriate ongoing review and revision. The Court
anticipates that there might well be schools, perhaps
Roskruge, that are in the process of attaining magnet status
at the time this Court ends its jurisdiction.
The
District replies that the allegedly new evidence referenced
in the Mendoza Plaintiffs' Supplemental Objection is a
document provided to the Special Master on July 30, 2018 and
the proposal described in the document was reported in detail
in the District's annual report at Appendix II-18 (ECF
2126-1 at 354-364).
More
importantly, the District clarifies that it has not reached a
conclusion as to whether magnet status should be ended for
Roskruge K-8 School. It reports that this month it has
initiated the NARA process related to a proposal to
strengthen Roskruge, and that the “outcome may be a
recommendation to propose retaining magnet status at
Roskruge. (Reply (Doc. 2201) at 3.) The District asks the
Court to allow it to complete the process of consideration
and development of the proposed plan to enhance academic
quality, promote integration, and strengthen the TWDL model
at Roskruge.
The
Court declines to address the issues raised in the
Plaintiff's Objections at this time. Enrollment is
underway in the District and will be concluded within this
month. There can be no disagreement that uncertainty
regarding program status at Roskruge will at the very least
confuse and at worst may deter enrollment there. The Court
addresses the question answered by the Special Master: Why
not simply retain Roskruge's magnet status? His answer,
is as follows:
Because doing so would continue the uncertainty among,
students, staff and families that comes with the probability
of losing magnet status based on the failure to integrate the
school.” Since dual language is a priority in the USP
and the district is willing to commit to adequate funding
during and after the transition to the TWDL model, nothing is
lost to the school by eliminating the school's
...