TO: Kevin McClellan, Board President

CC: Dr. Matthew Outlaw, Superintendent

FROM: Constance Sliger and Matthew Dailey
DATE: Monday, April 11, 2016
SUBJECT: The Next Generation of Brandon Schools Policy
Recommendation
In the 2014-2015 school year, 462 students selected Brandon School District (BSD) as their
School of Choice, representing 16 percent of your overall student population across the district.
While you all have worked to establish positive qualities in your district, many non-district
families have sought the academic offerings, extracurricular opportunities, consummate and
highly regarded staff, and safe learning environment you, as the Board of Education, have
worked to establish in BSD. However, families of 339 students choose to speak with their feet by
selecting neighboring school districts to send their student. Due to the abundance of School of
Choice students in your district, the growing concern of your school community losing its
identity is a perspective we cannot allow to go unaddressed. Therefore, it is our
recommendation to the Board to adopt the following School of Choice policy:
Brandon Schools will be an open enrollment School of Choice district for grades
Kindergarten through eighth grade and a limited enrollment School of Choice district
for grades nine through twelve based on the available space within the STEM
Academy.
This policy proposal comes at a curricular confluence within our state and for BSD. Science
education is undergoing a large transition with the states adoption of the Next Generation
Science Standards (NGSS) for all K-12 science curriculum. In order to retain your top tier
students and attract students to BSD that will enhance the academic experience and school
community, growing our high school STEM Academy would benefit your district. By growing
the STEM Academy, you would consolidate your efforts in two facets of your district: (1) by
showcasing BSD as a venue where challenging students academically is at the forefront of your
district mission, values and culture to a collection of families in Brandon who are seeing greater
academic challenges elsewhere, and by (2) equipping BSD graduates to meet the demands of an
evolving economy predicated on problem-solving skills in fields reliant on mathematics and
science.
The perception of your district attracting students through School of Choice who have an effect
on changing the culture of BSD is not ill-founded. In the 2014-2015 school year, of the School of
Choice students in your district, nearly 50 percent were on Free or Reduced Lunch, 46 percent
received academic support, and only twelve percent were proficient on state testing. Of the 462
School of Choice Students in Brandon, only 21 students (three percent overall) are not identified
as being At Risk, do not receive any academic supports, and are proficient on state testing.
Moreover, with a School of Choice population that is attracted to BDS for the quality services
you offer, we must not neglect the concerns of our district residents. In many cases, we did not
previously offer intervention programs mandated by Individualized Education Plans (IEPs)

until School of Choice students enrolled at BSD, resulted in costing your district more financially
than was captured by the per pupil allocation by the State School Aid Fund. This money, and
the use of district resources, would, in our view, be best spent through becoming immersed in
the academic opportunities afforded by NGSS and the expansion of the STEM Academy.
As the Board of Education, you have been presented with an opportunity to expand the high
schools STEM Academy to becoming a district-wide priority while ensuring the maintenance of
our communitys expectations for learning are kept at the forefront of your decision-making.
By limiting enrollment of School of Choice students in our 9-12 STEM Academy, we are well
within our right to establish such parameters. According to the State School Aid Act, Section
105 and 105C, local school districts are permitted to enroll students who reside in other local
school districts within the same intermediate school district (Sect. 105) and may allow
enrollment of students who reside in school districts located in contiguous intermediate school
districts (Sect. 105C). However, a district may not grant or may refuse enrollment based on age,
except in the case of an applicant for a program not appropriate for his/her age within a
building, grade level, or particular academic program. Due to the timing of this transition, BSD
will not experience any additional costs beyond what will be occurring naturally to meet NGSS
requirements.
Timing and opportunities rarely align so naturally. Our proposal is for district leaders to
respond to the concerns of your community while using NGSS as a means to enhance STEM
learning across the district through expanding the high schools STEM Academy to your middle
and elementary schools. These steps will elevate the learning opportunities for students in the
Brandon School District, equipping students for the evolving opportunities beyond your school
district.