PENNSYLVANIA Board members question safer-school transfer plan

Some said the standards for deeming a school violent were inconsistent.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Some members of the state board of education have questioned whether Pennsylvania can successfully implement a proposed policy that would allow pupils to transfer out of schools deemed unsafe.
The proposed policy on "persistently dangerous" schools also would allow pupils who are victims of violence at any public school to seek transfers. All states are required to adopt similar measures by July 1 under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which includes a mandate for improving school safety.
Schools would be defined as "persistently dangerous" based on the number of arrests stemming from violence or weapons-possession charges during two years of a three-year period, including the current school year.
The number of cases that would trigger the designation would vary, based on enrollment:
UAt least five dangerous situations in schools with 250 or fewer pupils;
UA number of instances that represents 2 percent of the enrollment in schools with 251 to 1,000 pupils; and
UTwenty or more instances in schools with enrollments exceeding 1,000 pupils.
Transfer provisions
Pupils in unsafe schools would have the option to transfer to another public school or a charter school within their school districts. Districts in which pupils could not transfer -- for example, a district with only one high school -- would be encouraged to work with neighboring school systems to provide safer options.
But Sen. James Rhoades, R-Schuylkill, questioned how districts would be able to accommodate transfers within a district, even if they had other schools the government considered safe.
"Let's say I have a neighborhood where all my schools could fall into this particular category because of some incidents. ... It's asinine," he said Wednesday.
Board member Wallace Nunn wondered whether large, urban schools were being held to inconsistent standards, based on the ratio of cases to a school's enrollment. He noted that 20 cases represented just half of 1 percent of the 4,000-student enrollment at Upper Darby High School in Delaware County, compared to the 2 percent standard that would apply to a school of 1,000.
Gerald Zahorchak, deputy secretary of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, said 20 cases in any school, no matter how large or small, was too high.
"There needs to be a threshold somewhere," he said.
'Trapped' by law
Board Chairman Karl Girton acknowledged the frustrations of trying to devise a policy that could truly improve pupils' safety but said the board was "trapped in a no-win situation" under the federal law. The board is expected to vote on the policy Wednesday.
"This probably is not going to do much to address crime," he said.
The education department will not know how many schools would be considered dangerous under the policy until July, when they receive school-violence statistics for the current year, said Myrna Delgado, director of the department's safe-schools office.