Everything went smoothly Monday at Hillcrest High School (well, except for the lack of air conditioning in the band hall and six other classrooms while temps reached 105 degrees outside).
Despite some first-day hiccups, one of the major topics of discussion at the Site-Based Decision Making Committee meeting was how to restore the school’s academically unacceptable TEA rating. It resulted from the poor completion rate – students who withdraw from school without giving any records of where they’re going.
Principal Ronald Jones said it works like this: A student enrolls at Hillcrest but doesn’t show up for class because he or she moved to another school. That school fails to retrieve the student’s records from Hillcrest. Until those records are transferred, Hillcrest is still responsible for that student, as far as the state is concerned. And when contact information changes, the student virtually disappears from the system. Pretty crappy, huh?
But there’s also the undeniable scenario of students who simply don’t show up, and that’s where Operation Comeback mobilizes. It’s a district-wide event on Sept. 11 where school officials do everything possible to locate these no-shows – that means knocking on doors, reaching out to the community for help. “That’s when it becomes the bloodhound hunt,” Jones said. And they’ve only got a short time to do it. The records must be given to the TEA by Sept. 24, which will be attributed to next year’s rating.
Dallas public schools need some help, but Hillcrest’s unacceptable rating is kind of a shame when you see so many great things come out of there like recent recognition for the cheerleading squad, Interact Club and science professor Ward Coats just to name a few.
