Midyear
moves can leave kids behind
Students who switch school districts face
special challenges
Tuesday, November 09, 2004 • BY BEN FELLER •
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Schools are under orders to make sure no
child is left behind, but that can be tough to do when so
many children are moving.
At least four in 10 students change schools one or more
times by the time they are 17, on top of their normal
progression from elementary and middle schools to high
school.
Students typically switch locations for reasons
involving their parents -- from job changes and marital
breakups to military assignments and seasonal work for
migrants.
The moves mean millions of children must adjust not just
socially but academically, particularly when they switch
midyear and cross state lines. Each state chooses its own
curriculum, testing and definition of success.
When Jenna Gosser's family moved from San Diego to
Saginaw, Texas, on Oct. 1, she was studying the colonies.
Her new class was past that already, and had moved on to the
Bill of Rights.
Jenna, 13, also wound up in the middle of a lesson about
a writer she barely knew, Edgar Allan Poe. And she had no
preparation for proportions, the topic in her math
class.
"I'm trying to catch up, and it's getting easier," said
Jenna, an eighth-grader at Highland Middle School in
Saginaw, a Fort Worth suburb. "I'm hoping that it gets way
easier. It's really hard."
The Gossers made the choice many families do: They moved
for a better life, even if it meant short-term struggles at
school for Jenna and her younger sister, Taylor. They bought
a house in suburban Fort Worth, and now Jenna and Taylor see
much more of their father, a truck driver who switched from
a night shift to a day shift.
Both girls say their teachers have given them extra
support, delighting their parents.
"If we didn't make this move now, it would have been
even tougher as Jenna approached high school," said Monica
Gosser, the girls' mother. "I'm sure it's hard now, but I
think they're going to get more out of it in the long
run."
At Fort Belvoir Elementary, a public school on an Army
post in Fairfax County, Va., hundreds of its 1,300 children
come and go during the year. As military dependents, they
arrive from far-flung places -- including Panama, Germany
and Alaska -- that have varying academic standards.
So the Virginia school has afterschool programs,
Saturday classes and volunteer help from the military to aid
students. "It's built into the system to not even be
surprised. You just make it happen," said counselor Peggy
Moore.
Children in military families often have more support
than others who move often, said Russell Rumberger, a
professor of education at the University of California,
Santa Barbara.
His research in California found students who changed
high schools even once were less than half as likely to
graduate than other students, even when controlling for
other factors. They also were more likely to have trouble
making friends and less likely to participate in afterschool
activities, Rumberger found.
Even students who didn't move were influenced, as the
turnover around them affected classroom instruction and
teacher morale.
"Transferring is disruptive," he said. "It can end up
better or worse, but there are costs -- costs to the family,
costs to the school, costs to the kid."
In Houston, homeless children may move four or five
times each school year as their families shuttle between
shelters. The school district identified more than 1,000
such children last year and provided transportation so each
could stay enrolled at one school.
Along the Hudson River north of New York City, many
Hispanic migrant families move in during the year to make a
living by harvesting apples, corn, onions and other crops.
State workers seek out children in these families, direct
them toward school and tutoring and ensure parents know
their rights. Most school districts respond well, said David
Sokolove, coordinator of the Mid-Hudson Migrant Education
Outreach Program.
"We don't want a school to see these kids as invisible,
to think that their job is just to house them," Sokolove
said. "We want them to get the same priority the year-round
children get."
Schools, under pressure to make yearly progress under
the No Child Left Behind law, have a cushion when it comes
to student mobility. They only count the test scores of
students who have been with them for a full academic
year.
The same is true for school districts and states. The
idea is that schools should not be judged on the progress of
children they have had little time to teach.
But such flexibility also means no one is really
accountable for many students who move during the year, said
Katrina Kelley, director of the Council of Urban Boards of
Education for the National School Boards Association.
The federal law does require schools to issue report
cards showing how migrant students are doing, said Doug
Mesecar, deputy chief of staff for policy at the Education
Department. The law also pushes schools to align their tests
to state standards, which should lead to more consistent
education for students who move within their state, he
said.
© 2004 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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