If I was one of these school districts that are sending a few kids each year to SOTA, I would offer to transfer funds to the SF School district, at whatever is the going rate/cost per student (plus a little extra, think of it as an “out of district” charge), if they keep accepting our students. Lets call it a “transfer” agreement. That’s a lot more cost effective than building our own version of SOTA, especially if we didn’t have the demographics to support it.
The SF district gets their money for each kid no matter where they come from, so why should other districts pay them?
Such payments do happen for special needs student who require specialized services not available in every district. For example, our elementary district receives $30,000 per spot for kids from out-of-district in a very specialized program. But, special needs students are legally mandated to receive appropriate services. Artistic kids enjoy no such mandate.
Gator88NE, the schools cannot just offer to pay another school to take their kids. There are many restrictions on how they use the money they receive from all the sources. They could make reciprocity agreements like some states do to residents of neighboring states, but that would require an approved agreement. Approved by school board? state? What would be the benefit to SFUSD? Does this neighboring district (is there only one sending students to SOTA?) have a special school some SFUSD students want to attend? Reciprocity usually involves give and take by both parties.
If really doesn’t matter if the best ballerina lives in the neighboring district or in LA or in Canada. It’s a public school for residents of the SFUSD. The board decided it can no longer serve those outside the district and meet its mission to those in the district.
Why should the school’s in-district taxpayers bear the cost of educating out-of-district students? If there were room, I could understand looking out-of-district to fill seats. But there doesn’t seem to be a lack of in-district applicants. If a poorer district wanted to take spots at your school and bump your kid to a school with fewer resources, would that be okay with you? That’s what you’re suggesting those in-district parents do. Neighboring districts’ lack of resources is an unfortunate situation, but it’s not one that this district has the responsibility to solve.
I do understand the inequity in education in our country. Free and appropriate doesn’t mean equal. In NYS, we pay lots of taxes. If another district has a wider variety of classes and better facilities there are several things I can do: move (and pay the higher taxes to have access to the better district), get involved in my district and see what challenges are preventing us from adding to our resources, and/or contact state and federal representatives to encourage more equitable funding for education. What I shouldn’t be allowed to do is bump some other kid from a school in his/her home district.
When you contact your state representatives be aware that while you’re looking around to see who has more, they have a responsibilty to also consider those who have less. They have to weigh your desire for a dance studio (or whatever) against other districts’ need for basic core classes and safe, working facilities. I think a bottom-up approach is better than a top-down one in this case. We need to find out what our poorest districts need and bring them up to a respectable level of resources before we worry about what the more well-to-do districts want.
Exactly. Let’s keep out ~100 San Francisco residents because their talent, based on a quick review, doesn’t measure up to the neighbors’. In other words, this program is soooooo special, it should be the only restricted program in the County that accepts out of district kids. Every other program will just have to make do with local residents (and the decrement to "excellence’).
btw: does the use of the word “all” above include those ~100 San Fran residents who are precluded from SOTA???