Social Activism 101: High Student Transiency Rates in North Carolina’s Title 1 Elementary Schools

I researched high student transiency rates, developed potential solutions, and proposed them to school and district stakeholders. Here's how some of my solutions got passed.

Over the past twelve years, Guilford County has seen astronomically high student transiency rates. Student transiency is defined as rapid and frequent movement between schools. Some school children are following their parents in search of better economic opportunity, better living conditions, and better educations. Other school children are forced to relocate due to economic hardships or other external factors, such as not having proper transportation to school each and every day. Situations like this happen more often than not in cities like High Point, North Carolina, where a majority of people live below the federal poverty line.

Recent studies have shown that when students switch schools, they lose two to three months of education on their overall academic achievement. When these students enter their new school, they're forced to learn at a faster rate than students that remain in the same school for their education. However, transient students lose much of their education between moves not because of their time out of school, but rather due to missing paperwork. The teachers and staff at their new school have little to no knowledge of the progress they made in other schools. Inconsistency, the loss of information, and hastily taught educational content causes student test scores in areas with high rates of student transiency to be lower on a statewide level. This ultimately leads to school test scores and school "report cards" being lower than they should be. However, by solving the transiency issue, it would address the issues that plague all of Guilford County’s students and staff.

Students moving in and out of schools often make it difficult for schools to establish unified environment and maintain consistency in the classroom. As a result, this inconsistency translates into the curriculum, which impacts students’ social growth, development, and discipline. Transient students are also forced to cope with losing friends and finding new ones on top of adjusting to a new teacher and other strange faces. Added social stress and worrying about whether or not they will fit in takes students' focus off of their education. These are the same students that appear closed off and non-participatory in class; they are often afraid of judgement or ridicule as the "new kid" in class.

Recent studies have shown that when students switch schools, they lose two to three months of education on their overall academic achievement.

The students are not the only ones affected, however. There is also frustration from teachers who must work overtime to ensure their new students are caught up and proficient in all subject areas. This additional responsibility and expectation of teachers and staff leads to additional stress and creates a taxing and unwelcoming environment for students. Poor school environments contribute to disapproval ratings and heightens the risk of more students switching to other (re: better) schools. Teacher turnover rates may also increase as a result of this stress and their own dissatisfaction.

By addressing and reducing student transiency rates, hopefully the quality of student education, academic and social development, and school environment will all improve.

Transportation and Bus Routes

This slideshow contains the mapped bus routes for two elementary school transportation zones in the city of High Point, NC.

The location of the elementary schools are indicated by the blue dots. I gathered the data on the walking zones, which is the red zone in the first picture and the blue zone in the second pictures, the transportation zones, which are the larger blue and red zones respectively, and the location of each bus stop for each individual bus route. I hand-mapped each bus route before transferring the data onto these maps. I used the online Geographic Information System (GIS) software Maptive to create the maps!

The first elementary school has five morning busses that run for varying lengths of time. The shortest running time clocks in at three minutes whereas the longest running time is as long as nineteen minutes. The bus that runs for only three minutes has an estimated six stops at the maximum around one block, and the busses that run for nineteen minutes have anywhere from six to fourteen stops. The average number of students on each bus ranges from a minimum of 21.4 students to a maximum of 62.6 students. The second elementary school has seven busses with running times ranging from fourteen minutes to twenty-eight minutes.

After investigating and analyzing each school's bus routes, it appears as though some of the bus routes are inefficient in terms of the order in which they pick up students. One noticeable factor of the second school's bus routes, for example, is that one of its busses picks up students who are closer to the first school than they are to the second. This is counterintuitive and extremely inefficient, wasting the already limited resources of the city.

Here are the three proposed solutions in terms of bus routes:

1. Neighborhood bussing

Neighborhood bussing would have one central bus stop location and pick up several students at this one location. This reduces bus running times by eliminating the need to stop at every house. While it appears that neighborhood bussing may already be in action for some of the bus routes, it might be worth conducting further research into how it could be implemented in more parts of the county to accommodate as many students as possible in the limited time that busses have to make their rounds.

2. Doubling up

The process of doubling up occurs when one bus picks up students from multiple schools and drops them off at their respective locations. Several middle schools and high schools throughout Guilford County already use the “doubling up” technique with little to no issues. However, when taking the difference in elementary school start times into consideration, further research would have to be done in order to put this plan into effect. In another form of “doubling up,” there are busses that already transport students across attendance zones under the JBCC Policy, which will be discussed later. Students from one area who move within another school’s attendance zone and request transportation to their home school are accommodated for by the county. The current success of this cross-school transportation proves this solution to be manageable.

3. Rerouting to a "central hub"

One potential method of rerouting the busses utilizes the idea of a shuttle point system, similar to the bussing systems currently employed at magnet schools, for a more long-term solution to transiency. A public-school shuttle point system would likely require all busses of a certain elementary school to be assigned a section of the school’s attendance zone. From there, each bus will pick up students in their assigned sector regardless of where they live in relation to an elementary school and drop them off at a central “hub,” where the students will then get on a bus destined for their assigned home school. The goal of the shuttle system is to reduce transiency rates by making it easier for students to stay at their home schools even if they move to a new location outside of their home school’s attendance zone.

The addition of a shuttle point system would not add any excess time to the current routes. Only an additional 15 minutes would have to be added to the total route time. By doing this, the transportation routes would improve the county’s efficiency formula that I discussed with Guilford County's Director of Transportation.  Transportation in Guilford County is based on efficiency, and the county’s efficiency rate is 86%. This means that for every dollar the state provides the district for busses, the state gives Guilford County 86 cents. Therefore, implementing a shuttle system would accommodate for more students in a more efficient manner. This may not only improve transiency rates, but it may also improve Guilford County’s efficiency rate and yield more money for the county.

Non-Transport Zones

Walk zones, also known as “non-transport areas,” encompass a one-and-a-half-mile radius around a school in Guilford County. These zones are not explicitly called walk zones because even though the state doesn’t provide transportation within these boundaries, students are not expected to walk to school. Many factors such as major highways, railroad crossings, crosswalks, and the availability of crossing guards are taken into account when establishing “non-transport areas.” All of these factors make parents uneasy about allowing their children to walk to school, and these concerns are sometimes strong enough to convince families to move. The students are then moved to a new school, thereby increasing the overall transiency rating between schools.

Not only are the non-transport zones large, but some are also unsafe in areas where crime rates are significantly higher than others. High crime rates encourage parents to walk their children to school, often forcing parents to walk an upwards of about six miles per day simply to be certain that their child makes it safely to and from school. Aside from this, complications with poor housing for low-income families in High Point cause various health issues for children. While I could not obtain health data from the elementary schools due to privacy rights, one staff member mentioned that many students have asthma and are often sick because of mold, asbestos, water damage, and the lack of proper heat and insulation in their homes. Sicknesses and health complications from poor housing cause student absences to increase, especially with the challenge of long morning walks to school. Families often move out of their poor housing as soon as they can in an effort to have better living conditions, but at the expense of transferring in and out of schools.

Eliminate "Walk Zones"

Eliminating the walk zones altogether will reduce rates of student transiency. According to the data above, it is possible to absorb the walk zones for these elementary schools into the bus routes. Each school bus can fit 72 elementary school students. At the first school, a total of 360 students can be accommodated for between the five busses they use. Currently, there are approximately 214 kids riding the busses to the first school, and that number also accounts for homeless students who are bussed in from areas such as Greensboro, NC under the McKinney-Vento Act. This leaves plenty of extra space to add additional students. Adding the additional 100 students who live within the non-transport zone still does not max out the capacity of students who can fit on the busses. Since the busses all travel through the non-transport zones for drop-off at the elementary schools, stopping to pick up and accommodate for the non-transport kids along the route would pose no additional cost to the county.

The shuttle system also poses a solution around eliminating walk zones. Because busses would pick up students regardless of their relative proximity to an elementary school, a “non-transport” area, or a walk zone, would cease to exist simply because all students would be bussed to the central “hub” location. This system can eliminate student transiency in both the bus routes and in the walk zones by bussing everyone to school at no additional cost to the district.

Absolving the walk zones in High Point would prevent parents from having to walk such far distances to get their children to and from school every day. It would also make the commute to school much safer for elementary school students who could avoid crime-filled areas. Furthermore, new standards for transportation in Guilford County would reduce the number of absences that the district's elementary schools see from varying weather conditions that cause walking children to stay home. The correlation between attendance in schools and student transiency is evident. Students with high absence rates and tardies are more likely to transfer than students who are in school on time every day. With a new mode of transportation to school, students can arrive to school on time and stay up to date with their schoolwork, thus increasing satisfaction of students and staff. A simple change in transportation opens doors for students to improve their attendance and the overall morale within the school.

JBCC Policy Form

As per the Guilford County website, the guidelines for school reassignment are listed as the JBCC Policy, which is an unclear title to most parents. After doing some research, the JBCC Policy stands for the Judicial Branch Certification Commission, which is the national organization for legal proceedings.

Using this acronym, rather than a clear and transparent title for the form, presents a problem to families with no legal background or knowledge of education policies. It also poses a great challenge for families who are not native English speakers.

To reduce student transiency, this form should be easily identifiable because it contains pertinent information about school reassignment. In Section IB, the form clearly states that the district will accommodate transportation to a student’s home school if the move is in “the best interests of the child.” Additionally, Section 1B clearly states that if a child moves during the middle of the school year, this form can be filled out to keep them in their respective school until the end of the year. We already know that keeping a student in their "home" school for the longest amount of time helps them retain the education they are learning. So why is it so difficult for parents to be more aware of how to do so?

To improve parental access and overall awareness to the form, Guilford County would have to make a simple change to the website: change the name, change the game. The form was hidden behind legal and nearly incomprehensible jargon, which makes one think the district was attempting to hide it from parents. A simpler title would encourage parents to learn about the policies that govern their children's education. Schools can also leave copies of the form in the main office of the school for parents to take if necessary. Raising awareness of this form would provide students with the chance to stay in their home school and reduce the stress and negative impacts of moving.

Outcome

I was fortunate enough to be able to present my gathered data and potential solutions to school and district stakeholders in April 2018. I didn't expect much to come from it because I know the policy process is designed to be slow and often unchanging, so it came as a huge surprise when my professor emailed me a picture of a newspaper article in September 2018 stating that some of the changes I suggested (albeit the easier ones) were going to be implemented throughout the district!

Overall, the experience triggered my love for data, storytelling, and policy-based change. Since then, I have attended the North Carolina Summer Policy Institute and presented on topics such as environmental racism, affordable housing and gentrification, and inequality in the criminal justice system. I hope to continue working in policy as a policy analyst or a consultant in some shape or form during my career!

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