The South Orange-Maplewood School District is moving forward with discussing and testing modifications to its Intentional Integration Initiative, according to District leaders and the District’s integration consultant.
The “Triple I” — now in its fifth year — has largely created socioeconomic and racial balance across the district, with 5 of 6 elementary schools and both middle schools within the target variance in Year 4.
Board of Education President Nubia DuVall-Wilson told Village Green that Supt. Jason Bing had discussed potential modifications — still being tested — at a town hall-style Community Conversations event on October 14. Wilson said the potential modifications will be discussed more at the upcoming Board of Education meeting on October 30.
The potential modifications appear to be driven by feedback from surveys to Triple I families and ongoing issues around transportation as the District faces a “fiscal cliff.”
Wilson referred to potential changes to the Triple I at the July BOE meeting.
“The Rutgers team met again in July to discuss the district’s continued work on Intentional Integration Initiative evaluation for potential modifications for K-5 and middle schools that currently would not be expected to go into effect until the 27-28 school year as much still needs to be analyzed and community feedback will be integral in this process,” said Wilson in her July 24 President’s Report.
Read more here: SOMA Schools Integration Initiative Could See ‘Potential Modifications’ in Two Years
In an Zoom interview and in written responses to Village Green’s questions, Michael Alves of The Alves Group, SOMSD’s integration consultant, confirmed that his group is working on testing models for the Triple I — including looking at the impact of increased variances as well as creating two zones that would contain three elementary schools each — a tactic used in other districts that Alves has supported. [It’s also a bit of a call-back to the original SOMSD integration model of controlled choice that was discussed by former Interim Supt. Dr. Thomas Ficarra but that was rejected under Supt. Dr. Ronald Taylor.] Alves also said that he was happy to see SOMSD’s adoption of a socioeconomic status (SES)-neutral transfer portal that he had recommended.
“Among the most successful aspects of the III is that it has achieved socio-economic integration in a manner that has been both peaceful and effective,” wrote Alves. “For example, in 2020-21, using the prior attendance-zone assignment method, the share of Kindergarten students at Seth Boyden Elementary who were Low SES was 43 percentage points above the District average (across all Kindergarten students). In contrast, by 2024-25, the share of Kindergarten students at Seth Boyden who were Low SES was just 4 percentage points above the District average. The III also dramatically reduced the significant over-representation of Black students and under-representation of White students at Seth Boyden that had existed prior to III’s introduction.”
Socioeconomic Status (SES) Neutral Transfer Portal
This summer, the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education meeting approved updates to its student transfer policies 5120 and 5124, with the aim of protecting “the integrity of our intentional integration plan while also giving families facing real hardships a pathway to request student transfers in a way that is SES-neutral to sustain integration,” said Board President Wilson. “Looking ahead, revising the current regulation and rubric for Policy 5124 will be a critical step toward creating transparency and accountability to the transfer process for both the Board and our community.”
When the policy changes were introduced in July, Wilson said, “These policies make it explicit that the District may consider real life problems that families may face in our community, such as work schedule incompatibility, lack of transportation, and childcare financial burdens, among other criteria” while achieving the goals of the Intentional Integration Initiative.
Alves told Village Green that he fully supported the district having transfer policies around the III, and had suggested them from the beginning.
“When I got contacted by the former superintendent [Dr. Ronald Taylor], and it wasn’t going to be controlled choice, and they were looking at something like in Berkeley. I’m like, alright, this’ll be very interesting. And so began to think through how this might work, but I kept emphasizing the importance of controlled choice — adapting some of the features because not everybody wants their child to go to the nearest school.”
“You need to have a mechanism where a parent could apply to be transferred to a school they prefer, but always be subject to integration. In other words, you don’t use a transfer policy as an escape valve. So the point is, you don’t like the school you got, even though you, your child could live across the street, but the idea is wherever you’re going to go, the school is going to be integrated. And as long as they maintain an integration criteria to the transfers, they’re fine.”
Alves said former Supt. Taylor was “brutal” — “He wouldn’t give in an inch. But you’ve got to use common sense. I’m not going to judge why you wanted to go to a different school. It’s your business. All I’m telling you is whatever school you go to is going to be integrated. You can’t escape integration in public schools.”
Potential Variance Adjustment
“While we have not suggested substantive changes ourselves, we have aimed to be responsive to inquiries about the possible effects of changes to the III algorithm,” Alves wrote in response to a question about potential changes. “For example, we were asked by a board committee to perform sensitivity analyses on the effect of changing the SES variance percentage from +/-5 percentage points to +/-7.5 points and +/-10 percentage points. We believe that this request was motivated by a desire to have more children attend their closest school.”
Alves continued, “With regard to any potential change to the algorithm, it is critical to test its effects on integration. [The emphasis is Alves’.] In the case of increasing the SES variance, the estimated impact on the percentage of Kindergarten students being assigned to their closest school was modest. In our beta test using a +/-5 pct. point variance, 56% of students were assigned to their closest school. With a +/-10 pct. point variance, 59% of students were assigned to their closest school. At the same time, the percentage of Low SES students assigned to Seth Boyden went from 5.1 pct. points above the Kindergarten average to 9.9 pct. points above the average. Weighing the relative costs and benefits to algorithm changes is a key responsibility of the school board and administration.”
In the Zoom interview, Nancy McArdle of the Alves Group further explained, “We’re still working on that, continuing the conversation with the administration about doing work on that. You didn’t get a big increase in the share of kids that are going to their closest school. Part of it is because a very substantial chunk — about half, give or take, of students — are preassigned anyway. They’re preassigned to their school because they have a sibling priority or they have a special ed or a multi-language placement.”
“So we aren’t seeing a really big effect, at least, going into variances that we’ve looked at so far in terms of the increase in the number of students who are going to their closest school. But it’s a trade off,” said McArdle, adding, “There is some increase for sure, but it’s a trade off that I think comes down to the school board’s decisions of how they balance those things. And it’s unfortunate that transportation has been so difficult.”
McArdle added, “Certainly it comes up that that seems to be what the number one complaint around the Integration Initiative is how it’s related to transportation. And that’s just very unfortunate.”
Responding to a question from Village Green, Alves noted that a plus or minus 5% variance represents a 10% span.
“So if you go to 10%, that’s 20%.” Alves noted that Cambridge MA and Champaign, IL are at 10% variance — meaning a 20% span. He said he believed that Charlotte, NC — where they implemented magnet schools — was at a 15% variance for a 30% span.
Alves said that the variance must be tested to ensure that it is appropriate for each community and that Alves Group has no set recommended variance but “you can’t have a plan where you adopt a variance where you have no integration at all.”
“I think that the 10% is fine, we can go to 10%,” said Alves. “That’s not an issue if that makes sense. But again, the real issue here is what is the root cause of people still upset about transportation? That’s really more important, because it’s not the variance.”
Creating Two Zones
Alves said he was flummoxed on why SOMSD is struggling so much with transportation.
“I’ve done gigantic plans. Wake County, North Carolina —180,000 kids, so forth and Boston and so forth. Nancy and I have been trying to understand why is transportation so difficult” in South Orange and Maplewood.
“The actual assignment of kids closest to their home — usually that does not create a transportation issue,” said Alves. “Now they’ve been talking about maybe going to two zones, and we’ve been working on that. We had a good meeting with Dr. Gilbert the other day. [Dr. Kevin Gilbert is SOMSD’s Asst. Supt. of Schools.] And, again, that would be to self-contain transportation.”
“We feel if we go to two zones, in other words, keep the algorithm and you can figure out what kind of variance you want. But the whole purpose would be self-contained. That you live in one zone or the other, and that’s your three schools, and you get assigned to the school nearest your home when they have to figure out some kids be inter-zone. But that should contain the busing.”
“My approach has always been to mediate legitimate interest,” said Alves. “And if we have a legitimate issue driving transportation, let’s work on that.”
“And now with the zones, we are making progress because in developing those two zones, they have to be equivalent demographically and, of course, educationally.”
Alves added, “I think the zones could be very promising to you — if that’s the consensus, that’s the approach to take. And hopefully, because I can only go into my bag of tricks for so much.” Alves noted that zones have worked elsewhere and with other clients — including Wake County, NC and Rockford, IL.
Other Factors
McArdle pointed out two other factors that were beyond the control of the algorithm: school capacity and residential segregation.
“This past year, but that was a significant issue around things happening in the South Mountain area and kids having to go to Seth Boyden because that’s the only place that still had space — even though it’s far away,” said McArdle.
Her second point: “If you didn’t have residential segregation, then you would have integrated schools because you have integrated neighborhoods.”
Communication Is Key to Protect Integration
Alves cautioned that the district needs to be careful in evaluating and modifying its Triple I.
“Hopefully people will begin to appreciate what you’ve created and try to mediate the best we can any legitimate issues you have with the program, ” said Alves.
Alves noted that in NYC, he runs focus groups.
“The whole idea of a focus group is you got people out there. If someone’s angry, I want to know about it now while we’re planning. Because again, if it’s a legitimate concern, then we try to work out what’s the best way to handle that. If it’s not, then see you later. But the idea with transportation would be maybe we need to do a focus group, bring in some of these parents and say what’s the issue? And that’s how you resolve things, right?”
