Updated*: 05/25/2012 03:34:12 PM PDT :: Birmingham High officials have promised to rework admissions and disciplinary policies, enhance training and improve communication with LAUSD in an effort to prevent a revocation of the school's charter.
The proposed reforms are detailed in a 215-page action plan filed Wednesday, the deadline for Birmingham to respond to a notice of charter violations issued May 1 by the Los Angeles Unified board.
Birmingham Community Charter High school responds to Response to Notice of Violations issued by LAUSDWhile campus officials maintain that some of the violations result from misunderstandings with the district, "as a large and relatively new charter school, we acknowledge that we have made some mistakes and have not done the best job of communicating with the district," their response says.
Larry Schapiro, who chairs Birmingham's governing board, said Thursday the school is prepared to do whatever it takes to retain its charter. School officials worked closely with LAUSD board member Tamar Galatzan and with district staff members in crafting the response.
"We asked for honest and tough suggestions about where we went wrong, where we didn't do as good a job as we should have," Schapiro said.
Galatzan said she raised a number of issues with charter officials, including the high number of student expulsions, admissions irregularities and the lack of communication between Birmingham and the district.
"I was also concerned that, for whatever reason, their governing board claimed not to have known about the problems," said Galatzan, who graduated from Birmingham. "If a board is running the school, I hold them responsible for not knowing what's going on."
Schapiro has repeatedly said that Birmingham officials were stunned to receive a letter last month from Superintendent John Deasy, advising that the school's charter was in jeopardy.
That letter outlined complaints from parents who said the school had illegally denied admission to special-education children and other youths from outside the neighborhood.
There were also concerns about an inordinate number of expulsions and allegations that the school's basketball coach had discriminated against African-American players on the team. In its response, Birmingham officials denied that special-needs students had been denied admission because of their status. However, staffers were unaware that a charter must accept any student in the district and instead had been using the school's former attendance boundaries to determine enrollment.
The school has already begun training sessions to avoid a recurrence of the problem, Schapiro said.
The school has also overhauled its suspension and expulsion policy to bring it into alignment with LAUSD. The previous policy included a longer list of offenses that resulted in students being expelled.
However, Birmingham rebutted the district's criticism over its handling of a racial bias complaint filed by a parent. Officials detailed their own investigation of the complaint, which is now the subject of a probe by the federal Office of Civil Rights. They argued that an allegation of discrimination by itself is not enough to conclude there is indeed discrimination, as a basis for revoking the charter.
To help make improvements, the school has hired Doris Lasiter - who was principal before Birmingham went charter - as its interim executive director. It also plans to add four people with charter or other educational experience to its 11-member governing board.
The action plan will now be reviewed by Deasy and the district's Charter Division, which may recommend additional changes before taking it to the school board.
* An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that allegations of racial discrimination had been filed against the Birmingham athletic director. The story has been corrected to reflect that the allegations were made against the basketball coach.
No comments:
Post a Comment