Schools

Alternative Governance

Three schools in the San Lorenzo Unified School District—Hillside Elementary School, Colonial Acres Elementary School and Edendale Middle School—are now in Alternative Governance, an overhaul for failing schools. We walk you through the process.

Last week, as students across California were taking the battery of exams that determine how schools are ranked by the state and federal government, Hillside Elementary School office manager Cynthia Flemister received a very peculiar call. 

On the other end of the line, a frantic parent was negotiating with an even more frantic grade-schooler, locked in the bathroom and refusing to come out for fear of the tests. 

Flemister, an institution in herself, asked who the student was. When she didn't recognize the name, she asked the parent whether they were certain they'd dialed the right number. 

Find out what's happening in Castro Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"This is Hillside Elementary School, in Los Angeles, right?"

Flemister politely informed the parent they'd got the wrong school.

Find out what's happening in Castro Valleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Despite the fact that its test scores have landed it among the state's "persistently lowest achieving schools", the Hillside Elementary School in the San Lorenzo Unfied School District does everything it can to shield students from the immense pressure to perform.

"It’s important to me, because that’s how the school is graded in the the public eye, but it’s not important to that child. It’s really a snapshot of what they do on this day," said Principal Pam VandeKamp of the tests. "I tell the kids, you’re going to show what you know, and that’s what they do during testing. I never put that on them, that we have to raise our score." 

Still, the story is instructive. The pressure to do well on the standardized tests that determine a school's performance (and in some places, whether it will stay open) has grown exponentially since the introduction of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001.

California is not alone in its quest for ever-higher scores. A struggling school in South Brooklyn reported routinely seeing children in the office during testing, literally vomiting from nerves. And under the leadership of reformer Michelle Rhee, some Washington D.C. schools have been accused of tampering with tests to boost performance. 

Those who fail to find their way out of Program Improvement land where Hillside and two of its peers in the district now find themselves: Alternative Governance. 

As we explained in "" last week, Alternative Governance is a process of dramatic reforms imposed on "failing schools" by the state in year four of Program Improvement. Three district schools—Edendale Middle School, Hillside, and Colonial Acres Elementary School—are currently in it. 

The options include firing most or all of the staff—a process Hillside undergoes every year anyway, as a result of layoffs—turning the school over to a private management company or converting the school into a charter. The fourth, and locally the most popular option, grafts a bit of each onto the existing school. 

"I think it's fresh air," said Alberto Nodal, a third grade teacher at Colonial Acres and one of the authors of its Alternative Governance plan, up for ratification by the School Board at "This is a chance for us to take over our school and do what we want to do, not what the district wants us to do."

Many of the educators we spoke to said Alternative Governance had been a boon for their schools, an opportunity to take whole chapters from the charter school playbook:

Hillside's plan helped it bring in . Colonial Acres' will build a parent center. Edendale's got a new principal. 

As part of Alternative Governance, Edendale and Hillside have both introduced uniforms. (Colonial Acres already had them). 

Discipline got an overhaul. Instruction alligned between classrooms and grade levels. And everyone drilled down into data. 

Though it predates Alternative Governance, one entire wall of Hillside's teacher's lounge is occupied by a chart tracking the progress of each of the school's 465 students, their most recent reading and math scores, and whether they belong to one of a half dozen federally identified subgroups—Economically Disadvantaged or Latino, African American or Special Ed.

The wall helps Hillside triage services to the neediest students, while ensuring the strongest stay ahead and those making progress don't backslide, VandeKamp said.  

But for her school, the biggest advantage has been cash.

After falling in among the state's persistently lowest achieving schools, the administration applied for and received a $1.6 million School Improvement Grant, to be disbursed over three years. 

That money has flooded the school with extra support staff, outside interventions like the Palo Alto-based non-profit Reading Partners (full disclosure: I'm a Reading Partners volunteer—!), and six after school programs in addition to the Boys and Girls Club, meaning half the student population stays on campus well after classes end. 

Next year, teachers will make two visits to each of their students' homes, and a classroom in the newly constructed library will be converted into a parents' center. 

"We have the personnel, the money, the space—let’s combine those and have a really good program," VandeKamp said.

For Colonial Acres Principal Linda Santillan, just at the beginning of Alternative Governance, that's not an option. 

"We don't have and we're not going to have the kind of money that Hillside has," Santillan said. "Although we are in the persistantly low performing schools group, we are at the high end." 


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here