A private to public transfer

[VolunteerGeneral]

You are right jumpshot. And a lot of this "recruiting" for magnet schools is done by parents in everyday normal conversation. If they like the school, then they naturally tell their friends about it. This is the same thing that happens at private schools, yet the "hipocrites" say this is unfair. They just want their vendetta against private schools and can`t see the similarities of magnet and open zone schools.

[rocole98]

volunteer general--

 

when report cards are sent home for after christmas, applications for all of the "open" schools, such as east literature and pearl-cohn are sent home as part of the big packet of papers we always get with report cards. when i say "open", i mean that currently there are no specific academic requirements, you and your student just want to attend, because of the type of specialized program offered at that school. people with the tcap/terranova or whatever the standardized test is currently called + the g.p.a. get applications specifically for hume-fogg and mlk. mlk is the science and math magnet, hume-fogg is for overall academic excellence. nashville school for the arts requires an audition. east lit, as the name implies, does more with literature and writing and pearl-cohn has the business magnet. each child must get the application turned in to the school board office either by snail mail or hand delivery, with signatures from principals (along with grades and test score info for mlk and hfa.) this is sometime in february. once your application is received, you are assigned a number and a postcard with the number is sent to your house. each number is put in a "fishbowl" for the specific drawing--if you applied to east lit, your number would be EL0001 and put in the east "bowl". you can apply for more than one school if you so desire and meet whatever requirements necessary. once you are in the "bowl", you wait to hear your number called. you can go watch the drawing in person or on local cable. they draw ALL numbers, even though there are a limited number of seats at each school--this establishes a waiting list. in past years, you stayed on that waiting list from year to year, hoping people would move or not go back so that you could move to a seat possibly. there is a new policy that abolishes waiting lists once the school year begins now (i think this is the first year), so if you didn't get in the first year, you can reapply and maybe get in the next year. but, for example, at hfa, if you weren't in as a freshman, you could reapply for one of 10-20 seats vacated by people who move or choose not to come back. those aren't really good odds. as far as i know, pearl-cohn only requires that you want to enter their specialized business program for the magnet school--i don't know of any current academic requirements--but you still have to go through the drawing from the fishbowl process.

 

as for mlk's girls' past successes, i can't really tell you much about that. those kids have to have test scores and grades to get in just like hfa. i know that right now, their softball program is pretty poor and that their soccer program is declining. one of my daughter's closest friends participates in those two sports and this info is from them. now i will present the fact that many people in nashville believe that the boys program at mlk is heavily into recruiting--just the constant rumor here, i can't speak from any experience. but i still find it hard to see how the procedure i outlined above can be seriously manipulated into getting the "right" kids into their school. i think any school, magnet, private, public, whatever, can luck into some motivated, good hard-working players from time to time. that doesn't mean they will stay that way or dominate the way some other schools do.

 

hope this further clarifies. my husband and i spend lots of time encouraging the people our daughters are already in school with and are on teams with to put their kids in additional activities to help our current teams out--ex. send your cheerleader to camp and gymnastics or send your softball player to hitting, pitching or fielding lessons. we have helped people find camps, instructors, summer league teams, etc. but these are girls who are already at our schools and on a team at the school. and no, we're not "helping" any of them financially--we can barely afford what our two do!