Roberto Clemente Principal Benjamin Edmondson speaks during a 2011 summer school class at the alternative high school.
Melanie Maxwell I AnnArbor.com file photo
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Ann Arbor Public Schools' newly created performance committee will discuss the future of the Roberto Clemente Student Development Center at Wednesday's meeting.
The Roberto Clemente alternative high school might be safe from elimination this budget cycle, but its sustainability is still dicey — with the district launching yet another review of the program's operations and academic outcomes.
The Ann Arbor Board of Education's performance committee will host Wednesday's 7 p.m. session at the school, located at 4377 Textile Road. The board voted in April to revamp its committee structure from a single, seven-member Committee of the Whole to three subcommittees: planning, performance and executive; and a governance committee that will meet quarterly to provide oversight.
Andy Thomas
At the meeting, trustees hope to have people close to the Roberto Clemente program attend and share their thoughts, opinions and ideas on how to continue to provide the alternative, credit-recovery program. Thomas said the committee decided to go to the school for the meeting to show its support of the program.
"(We wanted) to give them an opportunity to bring up some of the concerns they have, and hopefully we'll hear some solutions, as things are going to move forward next year and I'm sure Clemente will still be something the board is going to be concerned about," Thomas said.
Closing Roberto Clemente and moving the program into Pioneer High School was on an initial list of possible budget reductions for the 2013-14 academic year. It was estimated such a move would save AAPS $200,000 to $348,677.
The district is facing a budget shortfall of about $8.67 million for the upcoming school year. However, closing Roberto did not make the administration's final list of recommended cuts. Officials instead recommended waiting yet another year to make a decision on the school, so they could launch a comprehensive study of all of the district's alternative programs: Clemente, Ann Arbor Technological High School and Community High School.
The district will be looking at the effectiveness of each of these alternative programs throughout the next year. Officials also plan to discuss redistricting and school closures prior to the 2014-15 budget cycle. Thomas said the overall question the board wants to answer is: "In this era of shrinking budgets, can AAPS really continue to offer the diversity of choice programs that we currently offer our students?"
"We have a huge assortment of choices for students in this district. But how much longer can we continue that?" Thomas said. "Are we forced into the situation of ... saying to students, 'You're a square peg in a round hole? Well, too bad, you better get round.' I don't think any of us like that."
He added while it's not desirable, when looking at what other districts in the state of Michigan are dealing with, AAPS doesn't have it too bad. He referenced the Buena Vista School District that cannot pay its teachers and temporarily closed, as well as Albion Public Schools where the district has decided it no longer can afford to offer an education to ninth- through 12th-graders.
Ann Arbor has been able to maintain three comprehensive high schools, one with a magnet program; three alternative high schools; and programs like WiHi and WAY, Thomas said. He said it may be time for AAPS to face reality and make tough choices before the situation worsens.
The board has talked about trying to see if the Roberto Clemente program administrators could come up with $100,000 in reductions for fall, or some way to provide additional savings to the district, considering most of the other schools within AAPS will be impacted in some way by the proposed cuts for 2013-14. A final decision has not been made on this, however. It is still unclear whether the board will ask Roberto's leaders to find these savings.
The biggest concern among school board members is Roberto Clemente costs significantly more per student to operate than the other high schools. According to AAPS documents, it costs $18,941 per pupil to operate Clemente. A2 Tech costs $14,804 per pupil. Community costs $8,253 per pupil and Huron, Pioneer and Skyline cost around $5,000 per pupil, district information says.
If the board does not approve any cuts for Roberto when it passes the budget in June, this will be the second year in a row the school has escaped the chopping block in order for the central administration to study the program.
Last year, Board of Education members were not prepared to make a decision on moving or closing Roberto Clemente, so they directed district administrators to evaluate the program's effectiveness and report back to the board. The report was delivered in March, but it was a disappointment to many trustees, who were dissatisfied by the lack of adequate data and lack of parent involvement in the study.
The board is starting to take matters into its own hands by hosting the performance committee meeting at the school.
"I think that one thing that really was not highlighted as much a I would have liked ... is are kids really achieveing the results?" Thomas said. "... Test scores really aren't a good measure of that. Kids are already behind when they come to Clemente."
One of Thomas' unanswered questions is: are students returning to their home high schools or are they graduating from Clemente; and how many are doing that? The idea behind Clemente is to have students attend the school for a couple of years, "gain some skills, some confidence and maybe redirect their efforts a little bit, then return them to their home school and have them be able to succeed," he said.
"I'd like to know, how often is that happening? ... And how does their success compare to struggling students who are kept and helped at their comprehensive high schools?"
Learn more about the Roberto Clemente program in this 2011 video:
Danielle Arndt covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. Follow her on Twitter @DanielleArndt or email her at daniellearndt@annarbor.com.