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FeedColumbus Alternative High School: Is bigger better?
COLUMBUS ALTERNATIVE HIGH SCHOOL
Is bigger better?
This fall, Columbus Alternative High School will undergo an experiment that might pique the curiosity of its high-achieving students—that is, if they weren’t the guinea pigs in the cage. Columbus school officials will find out if CAHS, consistently rated among the best schools in the state, can maintain its excellence with a new, larger student population. Administrators predict success, but others aren’t so sure. “I think this pretty much is going to be the death knell for CAHS,” says one parent.
The school’s vigilant parent community has been upset since the district first floated the idea of adding students a few months ago. Early reports indicated an additional 175 students were in the works—a 29 percent increase in the current enrollment and a change parents feared would upset the delicate balance that has allowed CAHS (pronounced “cause”) to succeed where so many other urban schools have not.
On closer inspection, however, the increase probably will be less dramatic. A lottery school that draws kids from all over the district, CAHS started with a student enrollment of 693 last June. Through attrition, the figure dropped to its current count of 607. For the coming school year, officials want to put the initial enrollment at 750, expecting a large number of students eventually will go elsewhere (return to their neighborhood school, choose another lottery option or move out of the district). “The goal is to ensure that we’ve got the appropriate number of students in that building for the staff that is there,” said Kim Norris before leaving her job in April as Columbus schools spokeswoman for a position at the Ohio Board of Regents.
Indeed, if attrition continued at the school unabated, the district might have been forced to make staffing changes. “You don’t want to be in the position of having to place teachers elsewhere,” said Norris.
In February, superintendent Gene Harris met with concerned CAHS supporters, explaining what was driving the increase and how she plans to maintain the school’s academic foundation. As part of the plan, the district will boost from 50 to 90 the number of students drawn from the selective lottery—a pool of high-achieving students who get first dibs on getting into the school. “To some degree, it allows more students who really want to pursue college and college readiness to have an opportunity to come here,” says principal Sharee Wells.
The session with Harris helped appease some concerns. “I came away from that meeting with a sense that they would do what they could to staff the building appropriately and maintain the program,” says Mary Ellen Sinclair, president of the Friends of CAHS parent organization.
Still, not everyone reacted the same way. Others wonder what might happen if the attrition doesn’t materialize. Will the additional students overtax CAHS’s Linden-area building (a converted elementary school) and weaken the close personal relationships between teachers and students (a key to the academic success of the program)? “I think it changes the mission of the school as a small urban academic school,” says former Friends of CAHS president Penny Winkle.
—Dave Ghose
