Close to Home: Don’t diminish this successful Santa Rosa charter school

One of Santa Rosa’s most effective schools is at a critical turning point. After 11 years of outstanding results serving fifth- and sixth-graders, Santa Rosa City Schools District wants to remove the sibling priority from the charter of the Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School to open up more spots to increase diversity among the student population. Diversity is a laudable goal but significantly limiting the sibling priority is the wrong way to achieve it. It is imperative that students who seek academic challenge be offered that opportunity. This particular way of increasing diversity is not fixing the systemic problem that exists in our city or nation: a lack of equity in curriculum and programming from one school to the next.

Since the school’s beginning, siblings have had enrollment priority that provided for growth of community within the school. As a two-year school, family involvement is critical. Returning families carry an understanding and continuity of the school’s culture and philosophy and are typically the parents who take leadership roles.

Parents, in part, want to be involved because they know their relationships, projects and goals will also benefit their younger children. If the district changes the model and parents have no guarantee that a younger sibling will be allowed to come, one of the core values of SRACS won’t exist. Keeping the sibling priority is best for all SRACS students, no matter their socio-economic status. The continuation of this policy benefits all of the students, families and the school overall, not just those who attend now.

Why is SRACS so popular? At SRACS students are taught critical thinking and in-depth analysis in differentiated classrooms. The curriculum provides the academic rigor with which students thrive and without which high-level learners disengage and stagnate. We have students from all over this city, in every socio-economic category, every race and every ethnic group, who need the accelerated, differentiated curriculum provided at SRACS. It is our job to serve these kids at the level they need, to make sure that each student is challenged every day.

This program could be implemented in every school and in every class if the district had a mandate to do that. Since at least 2009, SRACS has asked the school board to look at how other districts, such as Long Beach Unified School District, have implemented this differentiated curriculum. What we are asking now is an opportunity to see how this model can be moved and/or spread.

We should keep the sibling priority in order to provide continuity of the school’s culture and philosophy. The school board should keep a sibling priority at SRACS and grow the program throughout the district to better serve all children.

It is time for a paradigm shift in how we can best serve the students of our city. Let’s not take away a policy that helps support a school in the name of providing diversity.

Let’s work to make a thoughtful plan that gives any student who wants this program the ability to have it. That is a goal that deserves effort and energy.

Evelyn Anderson is a member of the Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School Advisory Committee. Anna Williams is a founding teacher and an English and history teacher at SRACS.