North Eugene High’s future may rest with decisions about school choice
From the front office, follow the long, locker-lined hallway toward the box office for several hundred feet. Walk through the doorway, turn right. Walk a little farther, turn left, then left again, to find the South Eugene High School Little Theater.
On a recent Monday afternoon, Patrick Avery’s junior and senior drama students gather for class as scheduled. But instead of reading lines for an upcoming performance, they are asked to offer opinions about their school.
Sitting in the second row of the theater is 17-year-old Rose Heising, whose neighborhood school is North Eugene High across town. She lays out the reasons why South Eugene was her first choice for high school.
“It has better opportunities and an excellent drama department,” Heising said. “We have more interesting classes, really, and we’re better funded, too, so that’s really helpful.”
Heising said the contrast between where she lives and where she attends school has a lot to do with why she enrolled at South.
“This is a rich neighborhood, so parents can donate money and volunteer, and there’s just more access to more,” she said.
Heising’s sentiment is shared by many classmates who live in the South Eugene High area.
“I’ve never actually been to North, but I’ve heard about the neighborhood, and it’s a relatively poor neighborhood. And because of that obviously it makes me feel less inclined to go there,” said 17-year-old Hannah Montgomery, a junior. “It doesn’t seem like it’s worth my time.”
If such assessments seem harsh, consider the statistics that back them up.
Since 2003, North Eugene High has the highest number of neighborhood students who have opted to enroll at another high school, Eugene School District data show. Additionally, the school has had the lowest student enrollment of the district’s four traditional high schools every year but once since 2003.
Continued low enrollment projections at North are expected to result in cutting three full-time-equivalent teaching positions for the 2016-17 school year, district spokeswoman Kerry Delf has confirmed.
The announcement of the planned staff cuts at North has prompted teachers, students, parents and others to speak out on the district’s school choice policies. At issue, some say, is whether the district can continue to operate four distinct high schools in the face of declining enrollments.
Several Eugene School Board members have said they’re open to having a new discussion about the pros and cons of school choice at the high school level — although any changes probably wouldn’t materialize until the 2017-18 school year at the earliest.
The North Eugene High area has the highest level of poverty and lowest income and education levels in town, which prompts some parents to send their children to school elsewhere. The notion that North has less to offer because of those demographics plays a role in perpetuating the downward spiral that the school faces each year with fewer students, fewer per-pupil state dollars, and fewer teachers to provide robust academic programs.
The relative freedom in the district for students to transfer from one school to another tends, by its nature, to favor more financially stable families that have the time, money and transportation to drive their child to another school outside of their given boundary. That further exacerbates the divide between North and the other high schools.
But fixes to the complex problem are elusive.
Simply banning the school choice policy strikes many as unfair: Taxpayers pay for schools throughout the district, so why shouldn’t they be able to choose which school their student attends?
Also, each school offers slightly different programs, so those who want to continue with their French or Japanese immersion classes, in theory, would not be able to do so without school choice.
Others assert that a marketplace approach to school choice is appropriate: Each school needs to improve its academic product so as to attract more “consumers” — or die.
In the Eugene district, students are allowed to transfer in or out of any school, as space allows, throughout the entirety of their student career. Eugene’s policy differs dramatically from other districts, such as Portland and Salem-Keizer, which generally require all students to attend their neighborhood school, with few exceptions.
Portland schools effectively ended their school choice program this school year, deciding it was too difficult to maintain equity, and academic programs, when some schools were overcrowded while others were losing students.
The state of Oregon does not have a school choice policy. But it does have an open enrollment policy that allows students to request a transfer to any school outside of their resident district between March 1 and April 1.
During that monthlong period, students only need the approval of the district they’re wishing to attend, instead of both the sending and receiving districts, which is the case the rest of the year.
Districts also can decide not to accept any out-of-district transfers based on current enrollment, future enrollment projections, budget, staffing, district goals or other reasons.
In Eugene, school choice — which the district has offered in one form or another for more than 40 years — seems to leave North Eugene High suffering from a myriad of problems. Some North teachers and parents say it’s not fair and they’ve had enough.
Clair Wiles, a 43-year-old social studies teacher at North, is among those who assert that the district’s school choice policy perpetuates inequities — and thus is essentially discriminatory. In a three-minute speech at a school board meeting last month, Wiles said the current policy unfairly results in fewer resources for North each year.
Wiles, who’s taught at North for 16 years, believes one reason students choose to enroll elsewhere in the district is because of stereotypes that insinuate North is somehow “worse” than others.
“The main problem I’m trying to understand right now is where are these perceptions of my school coming from?” Wiles said, sitting at a table in her classroom one day after school. “It’s a great school with wonderful kids — every school in 4J can say that — but this negative perception of North is coming from somewhere.”
North Eugene is perceived as “chaotic,” “poor,” “tumultuous” and “educationally unstable,” with “low-quality education” and “low-achieving” students, according to some of those South Eugene students who recently discussed the issue with The Register-Guard.
During the 2014-15 school year, North had the lowest graduation rate of the four comprehensive high schools, with about 78 percent of students graduating on time.
Additionally, North had the highest dropout rate — more than double the percentage found at each of the other high schools.
Of the four comprehensive high schools, North Eugene had the lowest percentage of students who continue their education after high school.
Each high school offers a slew of Advanced Placement, or AP, and International Baccalaureate, or IB, classes ranging from global health and global geography to literature of the Americas and the theory of knowledge. But North is the only one of the four that requires all students to take IB preparatory classes.
Freshmen, juniors and seniors also are required to enroll in IB Language and Literature and IB History of the Americas. All seniors in the International Baccalaureate World School must take a second year of IB Language and Literature. North Eugene also offers IB classes in math, science, social studies, world language, music and drama.
School officials then allow each North student to decide whether to take the IB tests to potentially receive college credit for their classes.
The perceptions of many students and parents notwithstanding, North actually has the second highest percentage of students taking advanced courses — more than the percentage of students at South or Churchill. Districtwide, advanced courses include AP, IB and College Now classes, as well as classes taken at the University of Oregon and Lane Community College.
Churchill, Sheldon and South Eugene all offer IB and AP programs as part of Eugene International High School, or IHS, which operates within each of the schools but maintains completely separate curriculum and teachers.
Academically, North has tried to reinvent itself on one or more occasions.
In 2006, the school implemented a “small schools” program after receiving a planning grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Meyer Memorial Trust.
The grant split North into three academies, each with its own identity, principal, teachers and section of the building: the School of Invention, Design, Engineering, Art & Science, or IDEAS; North Eugene International High School; and the Academy of the Arts.
The small-schools program sought to prevent students from slipping through the cracks and to prepare every student for college. Wiles said the program allowed students to be better known to individual teachers, with whom they spent more time of the school day.
“It was really very powerful,” Wiles said. “All of the teachers had a sense of ownership with their students.”
North Eugene was one of 11 Oregon high schools to receive a small-schools grant. But the program fizzled out by the end of the 2013-14 school year, when the five-year grant came to an end.
By then, IDEAS and IHS were both at capacity during the small-schools years. The Academy of the Arts struggled to maintain enrollment levels.
“Everyone wanted the ‘best’ one,” Wiles said. “So we ended up with three small schools with very different populations. It makes us pretty sensitive to the school choice issue.”
Students transfer out of their neighborhood school for a variety of reasons, including sports, language immersion programs, drama classes, choir — or a particular group of friends. But perceptions also seem to play a large role in how students, and their parents, arrive at their decision to transfer or not transfer.
“The biggest reason (people don’t come here) are stereotypes,” said Lily Kilbane, a 16-year-old junior at North. “The stereotype that we have a bad reputation just stunts our growth as a school.”
Kilbane and about 15 other North students recently dissected the district’s school choice policy and what it means to them. The conversation took place in an 11th-grade Advancement Via Individual Determination, or AVID, class taught by Wiles.
AVID classes are like a home room, a class that lasts for the duration of students’ high school attendance and aims to help them maintain their grades and apply for college, among other things. About half of the conversation took place online, in a Twitter-like chat room, accessible only by Wiles and her class, with students expressing their thoughts in 140 characters at a time. A similar exchange happened the same day in another AVID class led by social studies teacher Michael Churchill.
Wiles asked the students what they like about North, what they would change, what they think about school choice, and whether they would transfer, among other questions.
“I would stay at NEHS, of course,” 17-year-old Jazmyne Malone wrote. “I’ve had plenty of opportunities to go elsewhere, but this is the place I’ve built my family (of friends).”
Others said they would consider transferring for the opportunity to be on a different sports team, or to attend school in a more modern building.
Some parents in the North region say their decision to enroll their children at other high schools has nothing to do with North’s reputation, for good or bad.
Vanessa Hennessy, 44, said she enrolled her son Keegan, 15, at Churchill High and her other son, 13-year-old Salem, at Arts and Technology Academy to ensure they would continue to attend school with a group of friends they’ve known since preschool at Eugene Family School, which is in the Churchill region.
“They kind of all stuck together, and most of them went to Arts and Technology Academy and then Churchill, and I couldn’t see breaking up such a good group,” she said.
Hennessy said she’s a stay-at-home mom who has the ability to drive her children to and from school each day.
“If that wasn’t the case I think it would be different. But to me, community is important, and these kids really support each other,” she said, adding that it takes about 15 minutes to get to Churchill each morning and 20 to 25 minutes to get her students back home in the afternoon.
Some students at North have sampled other schools, and found them wanting.
Lilly Day, an 18-year-old senior who lives in the North area, attended South Eugene High for her freshman and sophomore years. She since has transferred back to North, a decision she says has “changed my life.”
“Because of information I’d gotten from my friends and other students, I wanted to go to a different high school because I thought I’d get a deeper education,” Day said.
She said her parents did not agree with her decision to transfer to a school outside of their neighborhood. She said she spent four hours a day on public buses getting to and from school.
“It was huge, and I was lost,” Day said about South Eugene High. “I felt like I had no support, like I didn’t have a place to go when I was struggling or upset ... my counselor didn’t know my name.”
Day said everything changed when she came to North. “My grades soared,” she said. “I felt comfortable with the staff, and I even got into college because of the help the teachers gave me. This place and these teachers saved me.”
Maya Treder, a 14-year-old freshman at North, said that without school choice, she wouldn’t be able to continue her Japanese language immersion program, which she began at Kelly Middle School.
“I actually live in the Churchill area, but I had to come to North if I wanted to continue the program,” Treder said. “I definitely love it here and feel like my Japanese has gotten a lot better.”
Treder said North’s academic programs are what prompted her to enroll.
“I feel like finding the best fit for interests is very important,” Treder said. “The IB is great for more specific choices, especially at North.
“The programs I’m interested in aren’t expanded in my (Churchill) area, and I would have to uproot my entire education, which is impractical.
“If I didn’t get to choose which high school I want to go to, I wouldn’t get the education that’s important for me to have,” Treder said.
Projected student enrollment at North Eugene for the 2015-16 school year was 971 students, which pencils out to 43 full-time teacher positions, based on assigned, budget-driven student-teacher ratios. Only 923 students actually enrolled at North at the beginning of the school year, however.
The 2016-17 enrollment calculations project 890 students will attend North next year, which would result in 40.4 FTE positions.
A difference of 81 students — between last year’s projected and next year’s projected student body size at North — translates to about $575,424 less in state support. Because state funding follows a student, schools with lower enrollment receive less per-pupil funding, which is estimated to be about $7,104 per student in 2016-17.
Based on the district’s projected enrollment numbers and the state Department of Education’s projected state funding numbers, North will receive about $6.3 million from the state in 2016-17. By comparison, South Eugene High will receive about $10.6 million, Sheldon will receive about $10.4 million, and Churchill will get about $8.6 million.
Wiles, the social studies teacher at North, said completely doing away with school choice isn’t what she wants. But she does argue in favor of lowering enrollment caps at the high schools.
The district has a cap of 1,500 students per high school. Both South and Sheldon high schools are near the cap; in fact, the projected enrollment at South next fall is just two students shy of 1,500.
“I just want us, as a district, to look at: What was the original intent of the policy, whether that’s still the intent, and how we’re looking at enrollment caps at each school,” Wiles said.
Regardless of enrollment caps, Wiles said perceptions about North play a huge role in the declining number of students there.
“For us at North in general, we’re at a critical mass — a place where this is really impacting our economy of scale. We have to ask why people are making these decisions and what they mean.”
Bob Anderson, who served as North Eugene High’s principal from 1984 to 1996, said the school long has suffered from low enrollment, and he believes school choice is one reason why. He says other high schools also have seen enrollment downturns — notably Sheldon and Churchill — but have managed to recover.
Rapid upscale housing gains in the Sheldon area solved their problem, Anderson said.
Several years later, Churchill had enrollment problems primarily because of the large number of Churchill area students headed to South Eugene High’s IHS program. Churchill rebounded when IHS was added to the Churchill curriculum, Anderson said.
But North, according to Anderson, never bounced back from the funding conditions imposed by the Measure 5 property tax limits approved by Oregon voters in 1990, when the state rather than local taxpayers took the lead in public school financing.
He said North tried to maintain a comprehensive academic program — from music and art to construction and metals technology — to satisfy the interests of a diverse student body.
Anderson said he believes the staff at North has done a remarkable job under the weight of fewer students and thus fewer teachers, and with limited state funding and fewer class offerings. He said be believes the school board, and the district, are at an important crossroads.
“I see it as a major concern to the school board if they want to maintain four high schools in very different communities,” Anderson said. “I don’t know what the board will do in dealing with North’s low enrollment problem. I only know that it is at a crucial juncture.
“I do know that North is the best school for the diverse community it serves, and it needs to be assisted at this time,” he said. “You want students to be able to attend different schools, but you want it to be for the right reasons.”
School board Chairwoman Anne Marie Levis said that last month’s school board meeting has spurred a helpful discussion about community sentiments on school choice, funding issues and the particular challenges facing North. She and other board members expressed willingness to take a fresh look at school choice, without embracing any point of view.
Levis, in a phone interview, did not address specific suggestions, such as a lowered high school enrollment cap.
“We need to look at what we need to do for the future, so this is not going to be a quick process; we’re not going to have a magic solution,” she said.
“We just started the conversation about how to facilitate the conversation,” Levis added. “The process, and any changes that may come after, are still very much undecided.
“Any changes we make won’t affect next year — it will affect the next one, so we need to be thinking about it now.”