My public comment to the Portland Public Schools Board, 11/25/14, is at 27 minutes and 30 seconds of the above video. The written text follows:
Portland Public Schools recently posted online its data from the 2014-15 transfer lottery held last Spring. Let me now report to you on the kindergarten applicants for the dual language immersion programs. Note two nuances; First, there are three dual language immersion programs (James John, Rigler, and Sitton) that fill their classes only from their neighborhoods so their data is not available with lottery data. And second, the "applicant" data includes first, second and third choices, when made.
As for the data:
(1) There is substantial and increasing demand for dual language immersion programs. There were 397 applicants turned away, enough to fill kindergarten classes at seven additional two strand immersion programs.
(2) The 397 turned away represents 9.4% of the 2014-15 kindergarten enrollment. Almost 10% of the parents of kindergarteners are not getting the immersion programs that they want from PPS.
(3) Most, 91.7%, of the kindergarten applicants turned away are English native students
(4) Spanish is by far the foreign language most in demand for additional immersion programs.
(5) The 397 turned away for 2014-15 are an increase from the 370 turned away in 2013-14.
(6) 72 English native applicants from the neighborhoods of dual language immersion program were turned down by the dual language immersion program at their neighborhood school. If neighborhood applicants had been given priority over out-of-neighborhood applicants, then 46 of those neighborhood applicants could have been admitted.
(7) Four dual language immersion did not fill all their slots and could have admitted more English native students.
(a) Bridger could have admitted seven more English native transfer students by filling unfilled Spanish native slots.
(b) Cesar Chavez could have filled 14 unfilled neighborhood English native and 7 unfilled neighborhood Spanish native slots with 21 out-of-neighborhood English native applicants.
(c) King could have filled 7 unfilled "Albina" slots and 5 "Chinese" slots with either neighborhood or transfer applicants.
(d) Lent had 4 unfilled English native neighborhood and 6 unfilled Spanish native neighborhood slots. 7 of those slots could have been filled by out-of-neighborhood English native applicants.
(8) Kelly appears to have had too few kindergarten applicants.
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