"In some cases, she said, the tactics employed by school officials to convince parents and students even resemble bullying."

Schools use home visits, calls to convince parents to choose in-person classes in fall

 ...But Lakisha Young questions this orthodoxy. Young, who heads an Oakland-based nonprofit group that works to improve educational opportunities for families of color, thinks the conversation about the fall is centered too much on whether families will return in person. In some cases, she said, the tactics employed by school officials to convince parents and students even resemble bullying.

Instead, school districts should be exploring new and better ways to educate families, she said — including in an online format. She pointed to the model developed by her nonprofit, the Oakland REACH. Called the “Hub,” it is a parent-led initiative that offers families a wide range of free services, from after-school care to academic support to technology training and entrepreneurship classes for parents. Hub students’ reading scores went up dramatically during the pandemic, she said. Although the Hub started off independent from the school system, Oakland Public Schools has now partnered with the Oakland REACH to make it part of the district’s regular programming.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/schools-in-person-learning-outreach/2021/07/03/4cb7e512-c9f2-11eb-a11b-6c6191ccd599_story.html

2018 Article on Mohammed Choudhury (Next MD State Superintendent) Mohammed Choudhury: In America’s most economically divided city, a ‘diverse-by-design’ prophet is weeding out segregation, one equity audit at a time

By Beth Hawkins

September 25, 2018

San Antonio, Texas

Mohammed Choudhury grew up in Los Angeles, “a minority amongst minorities.” His parents emigrated from Bangladesh in the 1980s, a moment he sees in retrospect as an easier time for immigrants to establish themselves. His parents saved up, opened a restaurant in West Hollywood, and worked their way into the middle class.

They sent their kids to the neighborhood school, which had students from all over the world, something Choudhury loved. He knows now, as a rising star in education leadership, that it was academically lackluster. But from his parents’ perspective, the school was the gateway to the self-determination they came to the U.S. seeking...

...Fast-forward not so many years, and Choudhury, 34, is leading a closely watched effort by the San Antonio Independent School District to open dozens of innovative new, diverse-by-design schools. Because virtually all of the district’s 50,000 students are impoverished, to create that diversity he must both attract affluent families from outside the district and ensure that children from the most isolated, destitute families within it are represented in these exciting new schools...

...“One of the things that we told ourselves is we’re not going to do school choice … in a way that exacerbates segregation,” he says. “We’re not going to create a system [that has] our hands and fingerprints on it that allows a few winners and lots of losers.”..

...Three elements are indispensable in creating a system of schools that’s equitable and sustainable, in Choudhury’s view. The first is schools with attractive themes or instructional models, such as Montessori or dual language, in accessible locations. Then there’s transportation; without busing, the most desirable schools will fill up with families that can transport their own kids.

Finally, districts should create one unified enrollment system and use it to weight enrollment at each school for diversity. Families that don’t get their first choice in a computerized lottery should get help finding the next-best fit for their child, and the admissions process should include equity audits to ensure that the most isolated students are adequately represented...

...All of this means Choudhury will need not just to conduct an admissions lottery for each school where there are more applicants than seats, but also to control for other student socioeconomic factors, depending on each school’s desired makeup. Like other districts with centralized admissions systems, his office uses a computer algorithm to run lotteries...

https://www.the74million.org/article/the-architect-how-one-texas-innovation-officer-is-rethinking-school-integration/

Blair adds four new portables - 3,375 students for Fall 2019. Parents have to Buy Promethean Boards for Trailers.

In 2017, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) added four portables to Blair. Due to the school's increasing student population in the 2019-20 school year, the MCPS Department of Facilities Management is introducing more portables adjacent to the current portables.

According to Principal Renay Johnson, approximately 200 more students will be attending Blair next year compared to the 2018-19 school year when Blair enrolled over 3,200 students. "Right now in the scheduling system, there's 3,375 [students], but you know what happens when school opens: people enroll," Johnson said.

It is likely that the student body will continue to grow, because more people are choosing to come to Blair. "Blair is a choice school...

...Due to limited funds, the new portables may not be equipped with Promethean boards. "Unfortunately, high school portables don't come with [Promethean boards]," Johnson said. "The ones that do have them, I've had to purchase using school funds. I don't know if we'll have enough school funds to get enough Promethean boards, because we have other priorities."..

https://silverchips.mbhs.edu/content/blair-adds-four-new-portables-31958/

Cato Institute Discussion: Cloning Superman: What Other Countries Already Know

The Cato Institute is sponsoring a conversation about school choice.  For more information, and to register for this event, go here.

Cloning "Superman": What Other Countries Already Know about Scaling Up Good Schools

Friday, January 28, 2011

Noon

Featuring Peje Emilsson, Founder, Kunskapsskolan, Sweden; Humberto Santos, Researcher, Instituto de Políticas Públicas, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile; and Sarah Sparks, Journalist, Education Week; moderated by Andrew Coulson, Director, Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute.

The Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001

From their website:

Everyone agrees that we have too few good schools and too many lousy ones. What's missing is a mechanism for replicating what works. Competitive for-profit markets have served that function in other fields, from cell phones to coffee shops. Can the same thing work in education?

To find out, we've invited experts from both hemispheres to tell us what their nations have learned from decades of experience with private-school choice. Peje Emilsson founded the largest chain of for-profit private schools operating in Sweden's nationwide voucher program. Humberto Santos has studied the academic performance of public schools, independent private schools, and chains of private schools in Chile's voucher program. Responding to their findings and asking challenging questions will be Education Week journalist Sarah Sparks.

Please join us for a lively discussion of how we might finally be able to stop "Waiting for Superman."