Big Changes Will Ensure Survival of New School
Posted on: Friday, 25 July 2008, 09:01 CDT
By ANDREA EGER
The controversial TAC will see a cap on enrollment, new guidelines and more student assessment.
Fallout over failings at the Tulsa Academic Center may have cost Superintendent Michael Zolkoski his job, but the program he brought to town will endure with some modifications.
District administrators and legal advisers have developed a new review process for students who are referred to TAC, placed new restrictions on enrollment to prevent the overcrowding and chaotic rate of student turnover that occurred last year, and written new guidelines for both students and faculty.
"There has been a lot of conversation about it. There have been a lot of controls proposed that weren't necessarily in place last year, so it's a whole different process," said School Board President Gary Percefull. "Our code of (student) conduct is different. There's choice. No one is going to have an administrative reassignment (to TAC) without approval of parents and students."
Among the notable changes officials said are being implemented for the 2008-09 academic year are:
Enrollment will be capped at 120 students.
Twelve teachers on staff should keep the student-teacher ratio at TAC to no more than 10 to 1.
Students will be placed in their home school's In-School Intervention, or ISI, program while their referral is reviewed, unless they pose a danger to other people.
Students will undergo a psychological interview and academic assessment to be considered for enrollment at TAC or other alternative education programs.
A district review committee, not school administrators, will ultimately decide whether students should enroll in an alternative school, be placed on long-term, out-of-school suspension, or return to their home school.
Parents will be able to refuse their child's assignment to an alternative school or to appeal their child's out-of-school suspension.
Board members had an opportunity last week to question TPS attorney Andrea Kunkel, with the law firm of Rosenstein, Fist and Ringold, about new, written procedures to ensure that students' special education needs are considered.
"If the (new) procedures are followed in good faith and people are making reasonable decisions the district will certainly be in procedural compliance with the law," Kunkel told board member Matt Livingood at a July 14 meeting.
The law firm's investigation of failings at TAC in 2007-08 not only confirmed student, parent and employee accounts of overcrowding and frequent violence, but also found repeated violations of federal and state laws, as well as district policies, for the treatment of special education students who were sent to the school.
The investigation concluded that the response from responsible TPS personnel was "completely inadequate."
Zolkoski, who introduced the Tulsa Academic Center based on similar programs in his previous districts, is set to leave Tulsa Public Schools on Oct. 10 as part of early contract termination agreement.
The fact that he is overseeing the changes at TAC and ushering in the school's second year of operation after such a dismal first year troubles officials at the Tulsa chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which had called for Zolkoski's job.
Twan Jones, the chairman of the Tulsa NAACP's legal redress committee, said this week, "If you gave me your wallet, and I lost it, would you trust me? I think there has been a breach of trust. Our organization doesn't feel comfortable with him at the helm of fixing the problem. We feel that an outside organization that has more knowledge of how to treat alternative education should come in and make a recommendation to the school board."
When asked whether Zolkoski and the same team of district administrators should be entrusted with making changes at TAC, Percefull, the school board president, said he had no comment.
Andrea Eger 581-8470
andrea.eger@tulsaworld.com
Originally published by ANDREA EGER World Staff Writer.
(c) 2008 Tulsa World. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Tulsa World
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