Photograph by Nina Smith
Due to issues of under-enrollment at the Berkeley Technology Academy (BTA), the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) school board considered two proposals from the Associate Superintendent of Ed Services for BUSD, Pascal Scuderi, regarding the future of the school.
Multiyear data has shown that enrollment has steadily declined over a ten year period from a high of 115 students in 2011 to approximately 50 students currently enrolled. Despite the downward trend of enrollment, the amount of resources allocated to the school has remained constant.
According to the proposal, there are one hundred students enrolled at Berkeley High School (BHS) who have similar academic profiles to the students at BTA.
The proposal states that while many of the students are being helped, they are not receiving the benefits provided by the resources available at BTA. “We must … consider that the resources we are currently allocating to what many would consider some of the most vulnerable students in our district are simply not getting to them because they are not enrolling at BTA, and a rerouting of those resources to kids with comparable challenges, in high school and also earlier on the K-12 continuum, might very well serve our equity goals better than current allocations and may also be a fiscally responsible move,” it reads. Many of the students with high school credit deficiencies are staying at BHS and accessing before and after school credit recovery, or choosing not to transfer.
According to Scuderi’s proposal, the BTA staff believes that significant changes in the structure and goals of BTA must be given deeper consideration for the 2018-19 school year. There are two options being considered in order to have BTA move forward.
The first option is an “Involuntary Transfer Policy.” Scuderi’s proposal states, “If the desire is to keep BTA running and staffed with its current level of resources, staff believes voluntary transfers and active recruiting (something we have done much more of in the last year) have not made a significant difference.” The policy would require students who do not meet behavioral standards and/or have attendance issues to switch from BHS to BTA. Credit deficiency may also be added as a criteria for involuntary transfer. Scuderi’s proposal explains how creating this system to increase enrollment at BTA would require a clear, fair, and uniformly applied system and process.
The second option presented by the proposal is the “Reorganization of BTA and Independent Study.” The proposal states that staff has been looking into the possible reorganization of the Independent Study (IS) and BTA programs due to forthcoming budget cuts. This option, according to Scuderi’s proposal, would bring down BTA staffing to proportionate levels, and allow them to redirect significant resources in a way that could possibly better serve the students most in need of increased support. BTA staff is currently considering the idea of having a single administration run both IS and BTA on the same campus that serves both programs. In order to make this option work, BTA would have to be redefined as a continuation school/high school diploma program. Continuation school, as defined by the proposal, is “an alternative high school diploma program. It is for students who … have not graduated from high school, are still required to attend school, and who are at risk of not graduating.” Scuderi has stated that the staff of BTA is currently in favor of the second option, but are open to input from the school board and community.
Christina Balch, a teacher in the IS program, stated that she does not see any benefits in the combination of BTA and IS. Balch stated concerns of administrators not knowing students, their life situations, names, or challenges, and not being able to respond to their needs as a result. She also stated her concern that the combination of IS and BTA will direct IS’s benefit towards more privileged students who can access enrollment procedures and other aspects of the program more easily, making IS less accessible to more vulnerable students who, potentially, can be helped more by the IS program. “There should be a working focus group of students to address why there is this stigma connected to B-Tech made up of BHS students who declined to transfer to B-Tech. Involuntary transfers are quite controversial and rightly so, as students in the past were transferred involuntarily and it created a lot of stigma around going to B-Tech. There needs to be more outreach to students who could benefit from BTA, and they could propose attending for one semester and trying it out this year, with the option to go back to BHS in the Fall, as a way to recruit students,” Balch said.
In the proposal, Scuderi states an intention to make a decision regarding the options before winter break in order to implement changes for the upcoming school year.