School Trustees OK Plan to Avert $1.1-Million Cut

Six local schools averted a financial crisis when the San Diego city schools trustees approved a proposal Tuesday to postpone the impending cutoff of $1.1 million in federal funds.

The proposal will give the school district the opportunity to bring its eligibility criteria into line with federal requirements so the schools can requalify this fall for the Chapter 1 funds.

“There’s a good likelihood that these schools will requalify next year,” said Noble Shade, director of the district’s external funding department. “We were trying to find ways to bring back this money, and we’re satisfied with this proposal.”

The board approved the measure unanimously.

Chapter 1 funding is supplemental money earmarked for schools that predominantly serve low-income students.

San Diego school officials developed the proposal during the past three weeks with the California Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Education.

An increase in the district’s Chapter 1 allocation also means that 16 more schools--10 elementary, five middle and one senior high--will receive the special federal funds in the 1990-91 academic year.

A federal audit in February revealed that San Diego used improper criteria to distribute some of the $23 million that the school district receives under the Chapter 1 program.

In late April, federal auditors sent notice that the school district must redistribute the $1.1 million to its other schools that meet federal poverty guidelines in order to continue receiving all of the federal money.

The federal audit originally said the district must rank schools for eligibility based on poverty levels--as measured by the number of students who qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches--rather than by combining poverty data with academic achievement,

The district has used the combination of data for years but was audited on the procedure only this year.

Under the new proposal, the school district can keep its criteria but must consider students in all grades. Because the district cannot include secondary-level test scores--not all those students take the necessary state exams--the district will assess the number of middle school students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.

The Chapter 1 cutback would have had an especially harsh impact because the school district was not afforded the traditional one-year funding phase-out period.

The schools facing financial cutbacks were Bell Junior High School and Boone, Field, Lee, Penn and Paradise Hills elementary schools. All but Field are in the Paradise Hills area and have predominantly Filipino enrollments.

The funding losses would have meant cutbacks in many educational support programs at the schools, including computer labs, library time and classroom aides.

The newly eligible schools are Adams, Barnard, Bayview, Terrace, Carver, Franklin, Freese, Jefferson, Johnson, Ocean Beach and McKinley elementary schools; Farb, Marston, Correia, O’Farrell and Pacific Beach middle schools; and Clairemont High School.