Law allows students to transfer from unsafe schools

By Emily Richmond

Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2002 | 11:10 a.m.

Students at Nevada schools where violent crimes or criminal offenses repeatedly occur may be able to demand transfers to safer campuses as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The massive reform of the nation's public education system, signed into law last January, calls for tougher academic standards with sanctions for schools that fail to show adequate yearly progress. The law also allows parents to demand transfers for their children from chronically failing or unsafe schools.

Schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years on proficiency exams will be tagged as failing, making students eligible for the transfer program.

But each state is allowed to set its own definition of an unsafe school for the purposes of the law, leaving significant leeway.

A draft of Nevada's unsafe school choice proprosal was pulled from the state education board's agenda Saturday at the request of representatives from the state's two largest school districts -- Clark and Washoe counties.

Charlene Green, associate superintendent of student support services for the Clark County School District, said her office wanted the opportunity to review and contribute to the draft proposal.

"We have more schools than any other district in the state, so this could have the biggest potential effect on us," Green said.

Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy in Washington, D.C., said he expects many states will wind up doing what states such as Louisiana and Kansas have done. They effectively freed schools from the requirement to provide the transfers by drafting definitions of unsafe schools that are practically impossible to meet while focusing on the option to opt out for academic reasons.

"They're swatting the unsafe schools choice option away the way an elephant swats away a flea," Jennings said. "They know they have bigger things to worry about."

Additionally, the number of violent crimes occurring at schools has been steadily declining nationally, Jennings said. And unlike test scores, it can be difficult to quantify what makes up a persistently dangerous campus, Jennings said.

"You do have bullying and kids getting suspended, but a lot of that doesn't come to the point of being considered a crime," Jennings said.

The draft policy for the Silver State, written by Nevada Education Department staff, calls for schools to be tagged as "persistently dangerous" if certain conditions exist for three consecutive academic years. In addition to having a violent crime or gun law violation occur on campus, the school would also have to had suspended or expelled a student for one of a variety of offenses. The list includes attacking an employee, selling drugs or guns on school property or being a habitual disciplinary case.

District officials said they haven't yet calculated how many of Clark County's 274 schools would qualify for the unsafe designation as it is currently written.

While students will be able to exercise the unsafe school option next year, transfers from low-performing schools became available this fall. Nevada had 12 schools on the "needs improvement" list last spring. That number is expected to soar when the results of this fall's new proficiency exam are tabulated.

About 100 families in Clark County chose to have their children bused from Clark County's four low-performing schools, district officials said. In Washoe County, which had two low-performing schools, 900 students were notified of the transfer option. Just four families opted to move their children, officials in that district said.