Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Thank you for starting this Brooks thread! Can you tell us what you and/or your student loves best about Brooks and what factors tipped you to choosing it?
Getting an offer to a selective enrollment high school in Chicago is a big deal. But CPS blames a ‘clerical error’ for some students getting passed up.
When the clock struck 5 p.m. on Friday, March 27, eighth grade families throughout Chicago gathered around computers as high school admissions offers started appearing online.
But a week later, some of the teens are still waiting to find out where they got in.
Nearly 200 students who took the selective enrollment exam at King College Prep in January have since learned that they may have been affected by an error that prevented them from receiving offers from the 11 selective enrollment schools in Chicago Public Schools. CPS officials said they were alerted to the issue late Friday after hearing from families who weren’t seeing scores posted on their online CPS accounts.
Derek Nelson and Erika Chavez’s daughter is one of them. That evening, the girl’s phone starting going off with messages from friends who got in at coveted schools. But no selective enrollment offers were showing on her screen.
“She’s a pretty mature and reserved kid, so it’s hard to read her,” Chavez said. “When her dad and I finally sat down to check in on her, she did say she was disappointed and angry — or the other way around: angry and disappointed.”
Nelson knows what it’s like, though the process has changed since he was a CPS student. He didn’t get into Whitney Young and went to his neighborhood high school, Kenwood Academy. Chavez attended Lane Tech, where their daughter would love to go.
Accepting she didn’t get in to the highly competitive school would be one thing. Waiting for closure is worse.
Derek Nelson and Erika Chavez are waiting to find out what high school their eighth grade daughter, right, will be accepted to attend. They’re worried her test scores might be not just misplaced but missing.(Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)Chavez called another eighth grade parent and figured out that her own daughter was missing selective enrollment test scores, which account for one-third of the admissions criteria, along with seventh-grade grades and standardized assessments. Scores are released after the high school application deadline, and often at the same time as high school offers.
“It was disappointment and frustration,” Chavez said. “They work so hard, and there’s just so much stress around this process that begins in seventh grade. To have that transpire in addition to all the social and emotional impact of the ongoing pandemic and transition to remote learning …”
Months or years of preparation and buildup lead Chicago students to one of the most critical moments in their young lives: finding out, in the spring of their eighth grade year, where they may go to high school in the fall.
Students can apply to as many as 20 “choice” programs and six selective enrollment schools, and get at most one selective enrollment offer and one choice offer, in addition to guaranteed admission at their neighborhood school. “Choice” programs, such as International Baccalaureate, fine arts, prelaw and pre-engineering, have varying admissions criteria, which can include auditions or portfolio reviews, point systems and lotteries.
Current eighth graders who submitted applications received first-round offers Friday, and have until April 22 to accept or decline. That date was pushed back due to the coronavirus pandemic. The second-round waitlist process opens April 27.
Among those eighth graders who did receive their offers, more than half got into their first-choice school, while about 80% received one of their top three choices, according to CPS. However, for just the selective enrollment schools, fewer than 16% of applicants got their first choice.
“We recognize the stress this places on families affected by this delay and we extend sincere apologies,” CPS said in a letter to parents.
Chavez and Nelson’s daughter had prepared for the test for a year but still stayed up late the night before studying extra vocabulary, because that was the most challenging part of the private school admissions tests she’d taken. The test took more than three hours, and she remembers feeling confident, “maybe a little bit too confident.”
“It was way easier than the private school tests,” said the 13-year-old, who attends LaSalle II Magnet School in East Ukrainian Village. “My GPA from the seventh grade was pretty good, my NWEA score was above average, I thought I’d have done well.”
While she waits to find out, she’s trying to be patient, she said.
“I remember the test being ordinary, and I followed all the directions the lady gave me and finished the questions thinking I’d be getting my results back on March 27,” she said. “… If they couldn’t have my scores for me, did they even get them?”
The email CPS sent to parents indicated the answer may not come this week.
“… We are working to update the score information and expect to have an update for families by early next week. Please be assured that this clerical error will not impact your child’s placement in a selective enrollment school. If your child is eligible, they will be offered a seat at a selective enrollment school.”
CPS officials said the letter went to 189 students, but have not explicitly provided the number of students affected by the “clerical error,” or said if their test scores have been located. The district staff is “working on a resolution,” they said.
One set of parents who got the email said their 13-year-old daughter was extremely stressed going into the test and even more stressed coming out of it. They didn’t want to risk her feeling devastated twice, so for now they’re just telling her she didn’t get an offer at a selective enrollment school, and planning to tell her later on if she does, which is why they didn’t want to be named.
“In the event they don’t get an offer when CPS fixes the issue, we didn’t want to go through that re-traumatization,” the father said.
Parents of affected students say they are worried about next steps and they’re finding it hard to plan without knowing what their options are. They wonder if they should be working on applications for principal discretion, a process through which students who didn’t make the cut can advocate for a spot. And, meanwhile, private school deadlines are looming. Chavez and Nelson’s daughter applied to private schools too, and the family was waiting on CPS offers before making a final decision.
Though the district may have its hands full, Nelson said the shutdown has only given parents like him more time to worry, and he wonders how the error could have been prevented.
Chavez keeps thinking of her daughter and her peers, for whom the high school offers are similar to decisions seniors face about college. “It boils down to, we have been working and looking forward to this for so long, and to not have an answer,” she said.
In Humboldt Park, right at 5 p.m. on March 27, Kathleen Lyons and her daughter sat in front of the computer and opened the results page, the eighth grader hoping for a spot at the same school as her older sister. She’d felt good about the test she took in January. But they saw no selective enrollment offers, and no test results.
Lyons remained glued to the computer, refreshing the site, until nearly midnight, while her daughter got text after text about friends getting into schools, including her top pick. Her daughter had planned to bake a cake to celebrate the news. She baked one anyway.
“She’s just waiting and waiting and waiting,” Lyons said. “She’s disappointed. All her friends know where they’re going, and it would be nice to know if you’re going with them or not.”
Lyons is trying to be understanding, while obsessively checking a parent blog and the GoCPS portal for updates.
“I feel bad, because I know the school is going through a lot,” she said. “I feel like it will work out in the end.”
Find your tier by entering your address in to https://schoolinfo.cps.edu/schoollocator/index.html
A blue band will show up with your address and the Tier to the left. Below that will be your assigned neighborhood K-8 elementary and 9-12 high school.
Cutoff score for Choice High Schools were also published: https://cps.edu/SiteCollectionDocuments/gocps/GoCPS_Cutoff_Choice_2020-21.pdf
Cutoff scores for SEHS were published: https://cps.edu/SiteCollectionDocuments/gocps/GoCPS_Cutoff_SEHS_2020-21.pdf
Academic Center notifications will come with the elementary schools, which is on April 24, most likely after 5pm. A long wait!
Please feel free to post high school results here: https://chicagoschooloptions.com/forums/topic/spring-2020-cps-hs-offers/
From 2/12/20, Oscar Mayer’s Principal Drayton:
Tuition Based Update
After an extensive community engagement process with the Oscar Mayer working group that included over 10 working group sessions, community forums, and meetings, the Chicago Board of Education accepted our recommendation to phase out PreK-3 and offer tuition-based Pre-K to only four-year-olds beginning this upcoming fall. Tuition-based Pre-K4 will continue to be offered until we introduce universal, free Pre-K in the coming years.
In prior years, if a student tested by early November, their test scores were returned before the close of the application and they could determine their 900 point total prior to final submission of their application. Essentially, those students who had 899-900 points would be guaranteed their 1st choice SEHS. Cutoff scores would not be determined or released until the first round notifications came out in March, but those with perfect or near perfect scores have always received their first choice school.
This is the first year CPS has talked of releasing scores after the application deadline. If they release before the re-rank deadline of Feb 3, then it could make sense but I haven’t seen a definitive date on the early score release beyond “by early February”. This leads us to believe they are shooting to release the Nov/Dec scores by Feb 1 or 2.
Attendance no longer factors in to freshman year admittance to SEHS. The 3 components are only Spring 7th grade NWEA MAP, 7th grade final GPA, and 8th grade entrance exam. https://cps.edu/SiteCollectionDocuments/gocps/GoCPS_Scoring_SE_2019.pdf
CPS did away with attendance considerations during the swine flu epidemic years ago. For transfers into 10th grade, however, they do look at attendance in your 9th grade.
GoCPS’s website says that high school notifications will come out on March 27, 2020. The portal will have a link to your child’s “notification letter”, which will list their score and any single offer for SEHS and if they did the “Choice Application”, a single offer is on a link for that result as well. Basically check your child’s GoCPS portal on March 27, but sometimes it doesn’t come out until 5pm or so.
Cutoff scores for SEHS are usually released sometime that day or early the next day on the same website.
You can change your rankings for programs until Feb. 3, 2020. See info here: https://cps.edu/AccessAndEnrollment/Documents/FAQs_2020-2021_HighSchools_Application_v4.pdf
How can I change my school choices? We encourage you to attend Open Houses and conduct any other school-related research BEFORE submitting your application, to decrease the need for changing school choices. If you wish to make changes to your school choices, you will need to do so by the December 13, 2019, deadline. If you apply online, you can make changes by deleting your application and submitting a new one. If you apply via paper application, contact the Office of Access and Enrollment at 773-553-2060 or gocps@cps.edu to request a paper Application Modification Form. If you want to re-rank your school choices, you can do so up until February 3, 2020. (Note that you cannot add new school/program choices to your application after December 13, 2019.) Please contact the Office of Access and Enrollment at 773-553-2060 or gocps@cps.edu for instructions on re-ranking after the December 13th deadline.
