Private, homeschool students make up 13 percent at GTECHS - The Commercial Dispatch

Between 2017 and 2019, about 13 percent of area eighth graders who applied to the Golden Triangle Early College High School on East Mississippi Community College's Mayhew campus did not come from public schools.

Those students -- who included 14 from private schools and 15 from homeschool situations in Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay or Noxubee counties -- were accepted to the school at roughly the same rate as public school students, making up just over 12 percent of rejections from the program. 

But the fact that private school students are accepted at all has caused superintendents in some school districts to end their relationships with GTECHS, which allows high school students to take college level courses and graduate with an associate's degree. Both Columbus Municipal and Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated school districts' boards voted earlier this month not to renew a memorandum of understanding with GTECHS and EMCC to send students -- and the accompanying Mississippi Department of Education funding -- to the early college high school. 

Founded in 2015, GTECHS accepts between 50 and 70 students per year -- mostly from CMSD, SOCSD, Lowndes County, West Point Consolidated and Noxubee County school districts -- and particularly students who struggled socially or academically in their home schools. Though students and their families fill out applications and go through an interview, the final selection is made by a random lottery through a program at the University of North Carolina.

The school has been funded over the last five years by Mississippi Adequate Education Plan funds. MDE allocated funds to LCSD, which had been the school's fiscal agent, based on the number of GTECHS students. That amount is different every year based on MAEP's formula, said LCSD Superintendent Sam Allison, but last year it was about $5,100 per student. 

Next year, fiscal management is slated to switch from LCSD to EMCC. CMSD Superintendent Cherie Labat said MDE would have allocated about $130,000 in CMSD's MAEP funds just for GTECHS' freshmen class from Columbus -- an amount she called a "conservative estimate." The cost is especially high given those public funds would have gone to pay for some students from private schools, she argued.

GTECHS Principal Jill Savely said the intent behind forming GTECHS was that it would be available to all students.

"From the beginning we wanted to make sure that all students had access, whether they were coming from a public school or a private school or homeschool," she said. "So from the beginning we have had students from homeschool and private school to apply."

However, CMSD Board President Jason Spears said he has always understood that GTECHS is supposed to recruit only public and some homeschool students who needed extra help to graduate.

"The biggest thing was to help (the students) stay in school," he said. "It was never anything to where we're trying to create this incubator for children from all areas to come to school."

The numbers

Between 2017 and 2019, 225 students applied to GTECHS. Of those, 196 -- or about 87 percent of the applicant pool -- were from public middle schools. 

Of the 225, 33 students were not accepted, either because the lottery didn't select them or they were eliminated before then. About 88 percent -- 29 of those students -- were from public schools.

A larger discrepancy existed between private and homeschool students. While 15 homeschool students applied, only one did not make it through the lottery. Private school students, on the other hand, made up about 6 percent of the applicant pool but 9 percent of students who were not selected in the lottery.

Savely said it is not common for students to be eliminated before the lottery, because the application and interview processes are more to ensure potential students understand what GTECHS is than to find reasons to accept or reject applicants. However, there have been times in the application process when it became clear GTECHS wasn't for certain students.

"That would lead to a conversation with the family to see if it really was the best placement," Savely said. "If kids are really connected to the schools that they're in, then that may very well be the best placement for them or where they'll be more successful."

Some of the things that attract students to GTECHS -- such as smaller class sizes and no formal extra-curriculars, such as athletics -- might appeal more to students who have been in small private schools or homeschools who want to try "something different" but don't want to jump into a large public school, she said.

Savely said there would not be an instance when administrators would have to choose between a public school applicant and a private or homeschool applicant. If two such applicants both were a good fit for GTECHS, administrators could send both applications to the lottery for random selection.

She said because there are so few private and homeschool applicants, it's more likely for them to get in than for all the public school applicants to get in.

But Spears argued that any private school student accepted to the program is still taking a slot for a public school student.

"Under the MOU, it should have been 100 percent (of private school students) rejected because they shouldn't have been eligible to apply at all," he said.

District reactions

Spears argued the original MOU outlining the program does not allow for private school students to apply.

He said he's received multiple calls from parents arguing that because parents who send their children to private schools still pay taxes that fund public schools, their children should have the same opportunity as public school students to attend GTECHS.

But Spears said that's not what the MOU says and that the board cannot violate the MOU.

"(Parents say,) 'Well, it's all tax money,'" Spears said. "But that's not how it was supposed to be applied."

The MOU does not specifically address private or homeschool students.

SOCSD Superintendent Eddie Peasant declined to comment when reached by The Dispatch. However, at the meeting where SOCSD's board voted to end the partnership with GTECHS, he raised concerns that GTECHS administrators were using public money to fund a "private-type setting."

Not everyone agrees with Peasant and Spears. Rodriguez Broadnax, state transformation interim superintendent for NCSD, which is under state conservatorship, said he plans to continue working with GTECHS and that, at least in Noxubee County, he hasn't seen a problem with private school students attending.

"I think EMCC is doing a wonderful job with GTECHS," he said.

WPCSD Superintendent Burnell McDonald did not return calls from The Dispatch by press time.

Allison said he does not know exactly how his district's relationship with GTECHS will pan out, given CMSD and SOCSD's departure from the agreement, and that the remaining superintendents will have to work out a new agreement with GTECHS and EMCC administrators.

"We all got to get together again and figure out at least what the program's going to look like," he said.

Broadnax said in particular that he hopes CMSD and SOCSD's departure from the programs does not increase the $130,000 costs for other districts.

Allison added "at the very least" he wants Lowndes County students currently attending GTECHS to be able to finish their high school careers there -- an opinion Savely shares.

Initially, the board votes at CMSD and SOCSD indicated all their GTECHS students would return to their home districts but Labat said would be left up to Allison, since students at GTECHS become LCSD students once they reach 10th grade.

"I'm hoping we can work out a way for (Columbus and Starkville) students who are already enrolled in the early college to stay because they have taken a risk to enroll in a school that was brand new and out of their comfort zone, and we want to make sure that we honor the promises that we made to them when they enrolled with us," Savely said. 

Dispatch reporter Tess Vrbin contributed to this report.

Online

View GTECHS Memorandum of Agreement at: https://bit.ly/2xXTmpd

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