Santa Rosa board OKs sibling legacy policy for charter schools

The Santa Rosa City School Board approved Wednesday evening a charter school enrollment policy that gives lottery preference to siblings of current and some past charter students.

The vote came after a lengthy and complex discussion over how to boost the percentage of low-income students attending the district’s four dependent charter schools without alienating parents who have children attending or about to attend the school.

“We’re not just isolated in what we do. We build communities,” said Victor Lacombe, a parent of a child who recently graduated from Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School.

Lacombe, who has a son who will be applying to the charter school in the coming school year, asked the board not to erode the sense of community and loyalty parents feel for a school.

The language approved stated that after a lottery is triggered, all siblings of students enrolled at and attending the charter school at the time of the lottery shall be admitted.

Also, for schools with fewer than K-8 grades, all siblings of students who were matriculated at the school at any time during the seven school years prior to the school year for which the lottery is being conducted shall be admitted.

The last condition applies to SRACS, which has grades five and six only.

Laura Gonzalez, the only school board member who voted against the policy, said she did not support having an exception for “legacy students” who had siblings who attended the school years prior.

That concern was also voiced by longtime housing advocate David Grabill, who spoke on behalf of an education advocacy group called Quality Education for Every Student. Grabill blasted the lack of diversity at SRACS, whose enrollment of low-income students is only 2.3 percent. The district’s share of economically disadvantaged students is 60 percent.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to have any legacy policy,” Grabill said.

The issue of giving preference to charter school siblings appeared to be easier to swallow after the board considered that even after siblings are allowed to attend, there will still be many lottery slots available to non-sibling applicants.

As a way to balance the “legacy effect,” the new policy also increases the lottery draws for disadvantaged students from two to four.

“It looks like we can probably have a win-win,” board member Jenni Klose said.

Gonzalez said she didn’t think the new policy would result in significant changes to the lack of diversity at schools like SRACS. She said the district would need to take more aggressive steps to get low-?income students to apply to charter schools, since many families do not even consider it an option.

Other school board members agreed that district administrators needed to do more than simply change enrollment policy to reduce charter school segregation.

SRACS founding teacher Anna Williams said she was happy with the vote but that much needed to be done to improve diversity.

“The work has just begun, and I’m so excited,” Williams said.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @renofish.