While many point to universal enrollment as the source of overcrowding, a quick, easy fix is unlikely
NEWARK -- At least one Newark high school has been inundated with overcrowded classrooms and inadequate resources this year as a result of the district's universal enrollment plan, according to the school's parent teacher association.
But district officials, in an interview with NJ Advance Media, said the notion that universal enrollment is responsible for overcrowding is "absolutely, categorically false."
Standing in front of Central High School Tuesday morning, Wilhelmina Holder, president of the Secondary Parent Council, along with members of Newark's School Advisory Board and several advocacy groups, demanded district officials meet with school administrators to "immediately chart a self-correction path" for the institution.
The school is currently serving 949 students, yet for the 2016-2017 school year, it has only been budgeted for 850, according to a report issued by Central's PTA president, Shonda Holme.
Some teachers, the report said, have upwards of 40 students per class, but the district wasn't immediately able to verify any of those numbers.
According to district officials, there are 80 classroom teachers at Central, making the student-teacher ratio 12-1, up from 10-1 last school year. If two additional teachers are hired, as is needed, officials said, the ratio would come down to about 11-1.
"The problem has to do with the algorithm that's being used to place students in schools," said Leah Owens, a member of the city's School Advisory Board. "It's not clear how students are being placed (into each school). Families, different siblings are still getting split up, children are being placed in schools that don't actually have the resources that they need."
Christopher Cerf, superintendent of Newark Public Schools, said in a phone interview that Central High School is one of the schools in the district "that is modestly oversubscribed...there are more people who want to go there than there are seats."
While Cerf said the district has become more accurate in their projected student budgets, this year, projections for Central High School were "a little bit lower" than the number of children who actually applied and were assigned.
"Since we had more kids who wanted to go there than our original projections, we assigned extra kids to that school," Cerf said. "When that happens, we true up the budgets over time."
Cerf acknowledged that there may be classroom sections with higher numbers, due to small special education classes and electives, but said, ultimately, there is both sufficient space and staff to serve students at Central.
Additional resources and teachers will be sent to the school during the fall semester, Cerf said. And if there's more students than initially budgeted for, more money comes with it.
Owens, a former teacher at Central, said the issues at the high school are a "district-wide problem," and that the board is looking into enrollment numbers to see how many students each school was budgeted for, and how many students are actually enrolled.
In the meantime, she said, it's the students the district is letting down when schools, such as Central, go understaffed.
"(There's) a lot less one-on-one time with the teacher," Owens said. "It's very difficult to really assess where the students are and give them quality feedback when you have to grade so many papers."
During a recent school board meeting, the board voted on and passed a resolution to strike down universal enrollment, a decision which Superintendent Cerf said didn't offer any alternative to the current plan.
After consulting with a "number of board members" after the meeting, Cerf said he reached out to the state for advice on what to do next.
"The state preserved the status quo to enable further conversation to take place between me and the board," Cerf said. "That's kind of where we are on this."
Many opponents of the universal enrollment plan would like to see the district harken back to the way things were before former superintendent, Cami Anderson, introduced universal enrollment, but those days, said Antoinette Baskerville-Richardson, president of the advisory board, are long gone.
"We can't just say go back to (having) neighborhood schools, because some neighborhoods don't have schools," Baskerville-Richardson said, referring to a time when kids would register and attend schools closest to them. "We have to really take a scientific look at what exists now, look at the data, collect the data that we need, and figure out the best way to move forward in terms of enrollment issues in Newark."
Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf is pictured in Newark last year. (John Munson/The Star-Ledger)Universal enrollment eliminated the need for parents to go from school to school filling out applications and participating in separate lotteries in the hopes of getting a spot in a particular school.
Baskerville-Richardson said it also eliminated the ability for parents to decide if their kids will end up at a school close to home.
"In this community, we have grandparents and great-grandparents who are raising their children and they may not have access to a car, they may not drive, they rely on public transportation" to get their kids to school, even if the child is enrolled in a school across town, Baskerville-Richardson said.
"Many people with lower income," she continued, "they don't have the ability to spend money to escort their child to school, or to come to the school after school for school events...so there's a real need, and a real cry in this community for neighborhood schools."
On Oct. 15, the district, said Brad Haggerty, Newark's chief academic officer, will be able to get a better picture of how many students are not only enrolled, but physically in each school.
"The beginning of the school year is marked by a fair amount of influx and outflux of students who are newly arriving to a city or a state, as well as students who may have been matched to that school who have no intention to enroll there because they've left (the district)," Haggerty said.
Once the district is able to assess "numbers with real meaning," Haggerty said, it'll be easier to allocate the appropriate resources.
"In the past, it's basically been solved I guess the way it'll have to be, hopefully, solved at Central High School this year," said Baskerville-Richardson. "Where there are students, teachers must be hired. And if there's not enough space, then creativity is used."
Michael Anthony Adams may be reached at madams@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MichaelAdams317. Find NJ.com on Facebook.