Dan Genz, The Examiner
2007-08-27 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

Fairfax -

A new change in the enforcement of the No Child Left Behind Act in Virginia is allowing some schools to delay the provision allowing parents to pick a better-performing school for their children for another year.

After back-to-back years of below-standard test performance, Hybla Valley and Riverside elementary schools in Fairfax County will offer extra tutoring to low-income students this year instead of transfers to neighboring schools. If student performance does not meet required levels next year, then the transfers will occur.

“It makes much more sense,” Fairfax Public Schools spokesman Paul Regnier said, because the transfer option is more disruptive and often encourages more successful students to switch campuses. “The tutoring will help the kids that really need the help.”

But as 15 schools across Northern Virginia met the standard at which transfers are required, other school districts are following the old model of alerting parents of their options and inventing elaborate bus routes to ferry children to another school.

Because letters went out to the parents of Catoctin Elementary School students Wednesday, it is too early to gauge interest in transfers, Loudoun County spokesman Wayde Byard said.

The rating should be seen as a call to action to improve instruction for Hispanic students who need more assistance with English, said Jeffrey Widon, the school’s PTA president.

“I want to see the parents rally around the kids and make sure it doesn’t happen next year,” he said, adding that with one child in second grade and another in fifth grade, “I have nothing but good things to say about the school.”

Hassles remain, but as education officials become more familiar with executing the transfers, “it has gotten smoother with each year,” said Charles Pyle, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Education.

Because many schools already have existing transfer policies, parents have often already settled on the campus of choice, Prince William County spokesman Ken Blackstone said.

dgenz@dcexaminer.com