Suburban school districts in particular are the source of an exodus of vulnerable students

Districts are obligated to provide transport for enrolled students even if they move out of district

At-risk students change schools and districts at higher rates than their peers

The disparity is even more evident among homeless children

For several years the percentage of special education, English language learner and homeless students in the Rochester City School District has been rising at a worrying rate. And while district officials have spoken at length about those effects, there has been less analysis of the cause.

A first-of-its-kind review of RCSD enrollment data offers one theory and confirms what local experts in homelessness and special education have long observed: Students leaving charter and suburban schools for RCSD are much more likely to have disabilities or unstable housing than those staying put, increasing the city district's already disproportionate share of such children.

Through a Freedom of Information request, the Democrat and Chronicle obtained data on every child who enrolled in RCSD from January 2016 to June 2019, a total of 12,382 students. It included where they came from and whether they qualified for any special services.

That data — which suburban and charter school leaders uniformly declined to address — shows that suburban school districts in particular are the source of an exodus of vulnerable students moving into the city.

Across Monroe County and Victor, Ontario County, 11% of suburban students have disabilities. Among the nearly 1,400 students in grades 1-12 who left those districts for RCSD over three years, though, 22% had disabilities.

The disparity is even more evident among homeless children. Less than 1% of suburban children are recorded as being homeless in Rochester's suburbs in the annual October head count — but of those leaving the suburbs for RCSD, 18% are homeless.

That is despite the federal McKinney-Vento law, which specifically allows children to stay in their school when they become homeless, even if they move across a district line to find shelter.

"Our experience with suburban schools is that it’s challenging," Valerie Douglas, director of Counseling and Runaway and Homeless Youth Services at the Center for Youth, said. "I don’t think many of the suburban districts do a huge push to really find out who is McKinney-Vento."

The data for charter schools is less stark but still shows major disparities, especially for secondary students.

Overall, about 1,150 students left charter schools for RCSD over three years, including a disproportionate number with significant academic challenges.

The resulting demographic challenges serve to exacerbate an already intense burden at RCSD, where the rates of special education and homeless students have been spiking.

School Board President Van White noted the phenomenon in the context of the district's budget woes earlier this month.

"(Our) costs are significantly increased by charter schools who take special education students, then promptly return them," he said. "These students represent significant challenges, and those challenges cannot just be met by the Rochester City School District."

Unwanted

RCSD Special Education Director Kisha Morgan said she had observed an increase in the number of special education students coming from charter schools over the last few years, and the data bears her observation out. There were 40 such students in 2016, 17% of all entrants from charters, versus 96 in 2018, 21% of entrants.

The trend is the same among suburban districts: 52 students with disabilities, 18% of all entrants, in 2016, versus 125, representing 34% of entrants, in 2018.

"The whole charter piece is a problem," Morgan said. "Even this year, the rate of new students with disabilities has already spiked. ... I don't want to say it's a problem, but it's a reality."

One such student is Dominique Holmes' son, who until this year attended Vertus Charter School.

She had transferred him there from RCSD in hopes of a better special education experience.

Instead, she said, he was suspended repeatedly for "the stupidest stuff," like throwing a pencil or not wearing the proper uniform. She didn't believe he was learning anything in class.

"From the time he started with Vertus, I don’t think they wanted him there because he has a (disability)," she said.

Then Holmes' son was arrested and sent to juvenile detention. Holmes fought for his release so he could return to school — but when she succeeded in doing so earlier this year, she said, she found that Vertus had unenrolled him without her knowledge.

Now 16 years old, her son is back in RCSD. In Holmes' mind, the charter school achieved its goal.

"He didn’t want to go (back) to Vertus anymore because they were just singling him out," she said. "I really didn't want him to go back to the district, but I didn't have a choice."

Vertus could not comment on Holmes' son in particular but said it serves "students with a broad range of special education needs" — nearly 30% of its current enrollment, Head of School Julie Locey said — and is compliant with the law regarding suspending students with disabilities.

Morgan, though, said the story of Holmes' son was far from unique.

"I've been in multiple mediations with parents where these babies have been suspended for an entire year," she said. "The parents have not had a pleasant experience. That's why they're coming here."

Another part of the reason, Morgan said, is that suburban and charter schools do not offer as full a continuum of services as RCSD. For students with uncommon needs, they must then pay a great deal of money for placement at BOCES or another agency — unless the student happens to unenroll.

"Either parents are choosing, or the (former) school is encouraging them — I'm not sure," Morgan said. "But they're definitely coming into our district."

The data shows another troubling trend as it relates to students with disabilities coming from the suburbs: namely, that they begin to leave at a much higher rate as they come nearer to graduation.

Through the primary school years, suburban and charter schools, as well as other sources of students, are roughly equitable in terms of the percentage of students with disabilities leaving for the city. Starting in sixth grade, however, the rate of flight from the suburbs increases greatly while the other two decrease slightly.

Most dramatically, there is a spike in the disability rate among suburban students leaving in 12th grade, just before they count toward official state graduation rates. More than one in three 12th graders leaving the suburbs have a disability, about triple the rate of students coming from anywhere else.

'Strongly encouraged to leave'

The RCSD placement data set is novel and not without flaws. Some students' previous school cannot be identified, for instance, because they are listed as coming from "Chili" or "Irondequoit" without greater specificity.

The Democrat and Chronicle shared the data with all 18 local suburban school districts and 11 charter schools, asking for comment or interpretation. Not a single one responded to address the data.

The charter schools sent a joint statement from New York Charter Schools Association CEO Anna Hall: "Very unfortunately, what these numbers highlight is a national trend. Statistically speaking — regardless of what kind of school a student attends — the most at-risk students change schools and districts at higher rates than their peers. It is an issue that charter schools grapple with as well as district schools. I know I speak for the charter schools in Rochester when I say that they are working every day to support all students and their families, as I know RCSD and other districts do as well."

Sixteen suburban school districts didn't respond at all, even to decline to comment. Fairport declined to comment on the grade-level issue and did not respond at all on the rest.

A Rush-Henrietta representative said the "data didn't seem accurate to me, but I can't really verify it properly." Three other suburban representatives said off the record they did not believe the data was correct, but none would elaborate, on or off the record.

There is reason to believe that the data is at least broadly accurate for both suburban and charter schools.

For one thing, incoming students from other places — from outside the Rochester area, or from private and parochial schools, or from unknown sources — did not show the same demographic trends as ex-charter or suburban students, according to the same data set.

Charter schools tend to offer a narrower array of services to students with disabilities, and the sector nationally has faced accusations of "pushing out" students who aren't succeeding.

"I have lots of anecdotal stories of kids who are strongly encouraged to leave (charter schools) prior to state testing," said Dan DeMarle, a local independent special education consultant. "Something happens, there’s a discipline issue, and parents are told: 'Either we can go to the police or you can unenroll.' So parents choose to unenroll."

Knowles, the national consultant, said struggling students repeatedly hear one of two messages: "This isn't a good fit, or we can't provide the services you need."

"That’s sometimes true — but more often than not, that language is a euphemism for, 'We don’t know how to deal with this and this young person doesn’t have a place in our institution,'" he said. "And that’s an excuse, not a viable educational argument."

In the Rochester-area suburbs, DeMarle said, it is often a matter of suburban districts "mak(ing) life miserable" for families, particularly low-income families. Among other things, that can mean denying access to BOCES programs even when an appropriate in-district program is lacking.

"They think: 'My kid is special needs; I’m not really wealthy; I’m getting guff not just from the school district but also from my neighbors that my kid is doing stuff,'" DeMarle said. "'So why not move?'"

Urban-Suburban is unique

While changing residence would seemingly be a drastic measure, there is one subset of suburban students who can be made to leave at will: Rochester residents participating in Urban-Suburban.

Historically, districts have been careful in choosing Urban-Suburban students to avoid costly special education cases and have faced accusations of forcing them out if they need services, including in a 2004 federal lawsuit against the Pittsford Central School District.

One suburban administrator admitted, when granted anonymity, to ejecting students when disabilities are diagnosed.

"Sometimes you take (city students) in the younger grades, and if they end up ... needing special education, they can't receive it here, they have to go back to their home district," the administrator told University of Rochester researcher Kara Finnigan for a book she co-authored, "Striving in Common."

Thomas Putnam, the superintendent in Penfield and co-chair of the Urban-Suburban governance committee, said earlier this year that schools are being urged to select children in younger grades, before most students are classified with a disability, to avoid those unpleasant decisions.

"It's hard to say we're getting the cream of the crop when it comes to first graders," Putnam said.

Easier not to fight

The data around homelessness is more complicated but perhaps more troubling.

It makes intuitive sense that students with unstable housing would be more likely to change school districts. But a great deal of research has shown such mobility to be a major detriment to students' success; partly for that reason, the federal McKinney-Vento law provides clear protections for homeless children.

Most important, they have an absolute right to remain in their school even if their families' search for temporary housing takes them elsewhere. The original district is obligated to provide transportation up to 50 miles.

It is noteworthy, then, that those students would be voluntarily unenrolling from suburban districts at such a disproportionate rate.

"Some of it might be explained by choice, but most parents would want that continuity," Connie Sanderson, executive director of the local organization Partners Ending Homelessness, said. "I really can't explain it."

One factor, Sanderson and others noted, is that shelters and other services for homeless families are concentrated almost exclusively in the city. Even if transportation back to the suburbs is lined up, it serves as a logistical deterrent.

"They gravitate toward those services," Douglas said. "Maybe the youth says, 'I don’t want to schlep all the way out to Greece.' ... It's just easier (for families) to send their kid to a city school than to fight a suburban or rural district."

In some cases, Douglas said, suburban districts have accused the Center for Youth of "trying to smuggle a city kid into their district."

Furthermore, homelessness in the suburbs is more likely to fly under schools' radar, in part because of the lack of services there that might serve to tip district officials off.

Center for Youth is working on efforts to increase visibility as well as strengthen responses outside the city: for instance, an upcoming head count of homeless youths throughout the county, and expanding its host family program for families lacking stability.

"Folks that are struggling with housing out in the county don’t even know there’s support in the schools — nor do I think the schools understand they have a problem with it," Douglas said. "And schools aren’t clamoring to figure it out."

That lack of visibility is applicable to the situation more broadly.

State law prohibits schools from expelling students in nearly all cases and, in the case of charter schools, sets clear rules about how students are admitted.

The accumulation of individual family choices to move from one district to another, or to change enrollment within the city, is harder to track. Trends within those choices have been almost entirely concealed, until now.

Knowles, the national expert, noted the intense scrutiny over charter schools' admittance practices, for instance, and whether some informal screening mechanism exists.

"There may be some truth to that," he said. "But it’s the question of who is exiting systematically that isn’t asked as often."

As Russell Rumberger, a University of California-Santa Barbara emeritus professor who has studied student mobility for years, said: "Either there's a selection process or a self-selection process, where the parents and kids just decide they don't want to be at that school anymore. ...

"You can try to sue or something, but you might also say: 'Let's just move.'"

Not the only one

Dominique Holmes' son is diagnosed with emotional disturbance, a broad category in special education. She knows the law well enough to recognize that her son wasn't receiving the services to which he was entitled while he was in RCSD earlier in his school career.

Nonetheless, she has enrolled him back in the district — not because she has particular confidence in it but because she saw no other choice after the treatment at Vertus that she described.

"To be honest, they were trying to do everything to get my son out of the school," she said.

She knows about her own child. What she did not know, until a reporter told her, was that he was among 2,915 students to leave local charter and suburban schools for RCSD over three years, including 323 who were homeless and 556 with a disability.

"So I'm not the only one in this situation?" Holmes asked. "Are you serious?"

JMURPHY7@Gannett.com

Solutions:Anything goes for fixing Rochester schools — except including county districts