Seats reservation
Objective: Improving the distribution of students with socioeconomic vulnerability
City: Barcelona
Description
Every public and private publicy funded school must reserve a number of seats for students with special needs derived from their disadvantaged socio-economic situation. New legislation establishes two different enrolment process for ordinary students and special needs students.
These students have priority for occupying these seats over those not considered vulnerable. This measure, on the one hand, allows the administration to “force” the distribution of these students across schools (this is especially important in those schools that commonly enrol very few students of this socioeconomic profile). On the other hand, it indirectly reduces the number of seats available for non-vulnerable students, facilitating their distribution among different schools.
This measure is developed within a broader strategy (see Shock Plan Against School Segregation) which combines the seats reservation with other measures aiming at reducing the economic barriers faced by some students enrolled in schools that charge high family economic contributions -mostly, but not only, publicly funded private schools-.
Opportunities
- In the long term, this measure can have an important impact on the distribution of students and the level of school segregation.
Limitations
- Seats reservation needs to be promoted together with guidance strategies for those vulnerable students enrolling in schools which are different to those they would have chosen if no seats were reserved. Otherwise, these students can opt for changing the school in the following school year.
- Strategies need to be developed with schools to improve their ability -and willingness- to make all students comfortable and confident and thus to prevent them from leaving the school.
Resources
https://www.edubcn.cat/rcs_gene/extra/01_documents_de_referencia/informes/Informe_%20igualtat_oportunitats_COVID_juliol2020.pdf
https://www.edubcn.cat/rcs_gene/extra/01_documents_de_referencia/plans_de_treball/Pla_de_xoc_web_201903.pdf
Detection of vulnerable students
Objective
Increasing the ability to detect students with special needs derived from their disadvantaged socio-economic situation.
City
Barcelona
Description
Elaboration of a vulnerability indicators including information about the situation of poverty and the protection of children. This information is given by the Social Services and the Childhood Protection Services. Additionally, different detection instruments are promoted and coordinated (such as interviews and school detection) to articulate different social benefits for the most vulnerable students (i.e.: seats reservation and fees’ and other charges’ reduction or coverage).
Opportunities
Detection of vulnerable students is a key issue for improving the balanced distribution of students across the city’s schools. Information about the number of vulnerable students to be enrolled in city schools is a necessary step to evaluate school segregation, as well as to revert it and to prevent it. Detection is thus a must to activate other anti-segregation measures such as seats reservation or direct economic support for students.
Limitations
Detection strategies require a high degree of coordination by all involved services (Social services, kinder-gardens, health centers, psicopedagogycal services and schools). The design of common and particular protocols for them to detect and share information may be limited by their particular-professional points of view and interests.
Resources
https://www.sindic.cat/site/unitFiles/7849/Informe%20Deteccio_NEE_cat_ok.pdf
Shock Plan against school segregation
Objective: Guaranteeing the detection of vulnerable students, their balanced distribution across the education system and the allocation of compensatory resources to ensure that they have equal opportunities to succeed in education
City: Barcelona
Description
The Shock Plan against Segregation and for Equal Opportunities and Educational Success (SP) has two goals. First, it aims to reduce the concentration of socially disadvantaged students by ensuring a more equitable distribution among schools in the city of Barcelona, including both public and private subsidized schools. Each school must reserve a number of places for vulnerable students, which must be a proportional quote of the total number of vulnerable students living in the reference catchment area. Second, the SP ensures gratuity of access to school activities and educational services to beneficiaries. It guarantees gratuity of books and materials, excursions, and other supplementary educational activities. School Free Meals are also granted to beneficiaries.
The SP started in the academic year 2019/20. It has gradually increased its coverage, starting with first grade of preschool education (3 years-old, P3) and lower secondary (12 years-old, ESO1,) in 2019/2020 and adding every year a new school grade. Therefore, in 2020-21 the SP covered 4 grades (1st and 2nd grades of preschool and secondary education: P3, P4, ESO1 and ESO2, for its acronyms in Spanish).
The balanced distribution of socially disadvantaged students is based on the early identification of vulnerable students before the enrolment process starts. Social Services participate together with educational local services, in this early detection phase.
Once vulnerable children have been detected, the educational local authority contacts their families and informs about the existence of the Shock Plan and the place reserved for the child in case they accept to participate in the programme. The pre-allocation of places is established with the aim of ensuring a balanced distribution of vulnerable children among public and private subsidised schools in each catchment area. Students registering into the system when the regular enrolment process has been closed must present a late application. The local education authority assesses the child’s risk of vulnerability and proposes a school place to the child following the same procedure set for all students at the beginning of the academic course and, therefore, taking into account the balanced distribution of vulnerable students among schools in the area.
Prior to the approval of the plan, high-level bilateral discussions were held with the heads of the municipal Social Services and representatives of the publicly funded private schools’ associations. All public policies of the educational local authority are approved by a Board of School Principals compounded by 6 representatives of the Catalan Department of Education appointed by its Minister, and 4 representatives of the City Council.
Once the Plan had been approved by the Board of Schools Principals, a round of presentations was held among the agents involved: primary and secondary principals’ board, educational services, publicly funded private schools, and specific sessions at the Municipal School Council and at the District Councils, and at the School Guarantees Commissions (where all sectors are represented) to gather impressions prior to implementation.
Opportunities
- The centrality of the issue of school segregation in the agenda gives it public visibility and may increase the awareness of the several involved actors about it.
- The Plan is also an opportunity to improve the detection of vulnerable students through the cooperation and coordination of different actors and, more broadly, to introduce a way of working more transversally among all the education actors in the city.
Limitations
- Lack of capacity to identify all vulnerable children before school enrolment
- High implementing costs
- It may be difficult to retain vulnerable families in highly social class where they feel minoritized.
Balanced enrolLment of late arrival students
Objective: Avoiding the enrolment of late arrival students in schools with high concentration of vulnerable students
City: Barcelona
Description
New arrivals were usually assigned to low-demanded schools that had available seats after the beginning of the school-year. The Schooling Commission (public body to allocate late arrival students) has now the mandate to assess the effects of students’ distribution on school segregation. The Commission evaluates the situation of the whole system and allocates students trying to balance the preferences of students’ families with vacancies available in schools with lesser vulnerable students.
Opportunities
- New arrivals are a challenge for the planning of school supply, since it is difficult to anticipate their number, their educational and social characteristics and their specific settlement. Public bodies need to ensure that their distribution, while flexible according to their particular situation, will not increase school segregation. The role of the Schooling Commission must pursue this objective as well as rising the awareness of educational agents about the need to balance the distribution of new arrivals.
- The Schooling Commission has the authority to increase/decrease the ratio complementing the decisions taken in the previous stage of planning the school supply in order to prevent the concentration of new arrivals in low-demanded schools.
Limitations
- The task of the Schooling Commission is limited by the settlement of new arrivals. The Commission needs to complement its action with a broader strategy to prevent low-demanded schools to enrol a high number of late arrivals (for example, decreasing ratios of these schools to ensure they will not receive more students). Likewise, students’ settlement conditions the assignment policy to ensure proximity schooling.
District Schooling Offices
Objective: to provide guidance and support to the families in the pre-enrolment and enrolment process
City: Barcelona
Description
The enrolment process normally takes place in March (and it remains open for families applying for a school place out of the ordinary process). The District Schooling Offices work from February to September to inform families about the characteristics of the school supply in the city and about the regulations guiding the school place allocation process. These offices also provide information about schools’ projects and facilities and help families to carry out all the pre-enrolment and enrolment required procedures.
Opportunities
- District Offices aims at bringing the public administration closer to citizens and to improve the information and support that families receive regarding the schooling process (including the paperwork they need to fulfil).
Limitations
- Limited resources prevent District Schooling offices to develop a more active role in orienting families in their school choices.
Transitions between primary and secondary schools
Objective: Providing pedagogical coherence to the transition from primary to secondary education and reducing segregation
City: Barcelona
Description
Several primary schools are administratively attached to a number of secondary schools. Therefore, students attending primary schools attached to a certain secondary school have priority of access to this secondary school over those students enrolled in other primary schools. In this context, the process of linking primary and secondary schools is aimed at providing pedagogical coherence to the transition from primary to secondary education and, at the same time, to fight school segregation. As far as secondary schools are much bigger than primary ones and they will welcome students from different schools, the possibility of mixing students from schools with different social composition must be considered when designing this “Units of Reference”.
Opportunities:
- Linking public primary and secondary schools can increase families’ confidence in public supply (a percentage of families move to private schools for secondary education) as well as facilitate the transition from one school to another.
- The definition of strategic bonds between primary and secondary education can be a mechanism to orient families’ choices in order to improve students’ distribution, and therefore to tackle school segregation.
Limitations:
- Changes in the adscriptions between primary and secondary schools may reduce the number of options and this may increase their preference for private secondary schools
- Linkage between primary and secondary schools may promote the strategic election of primary schools based on their attachment to secondary schools.
Resources
https://www.edubcn.cat/ca/centres_serveis_educatius/centres_educatius/consulta_adscripcions
Reduction of ratios
Objective: Increasing control over students’ distribution and limiting vacancies in low-demanded schools
City: Barcelona
Description
This measure consists in reducing the maximum number of students per group. This strategy is aimed at avoiding oversupply in the different catchment areas (when there is oversupply, most of the instruments to distribute students become useless). It also seeks to facilitate the learning process in schools with higher proportions of students with special needs. Reducing the maximum number of available seats is translated in a reduction of vacancies in low-demanded schools and it can be a useful strategy to prevent that new arrival students enrol in schools that have already a high concentration of at-risk students.
Opportunities
- Reducing ratios in schools placed in CA with more available places than students to enrol avoids problems of oversupply of school places. Oversupply makes other potential measures to reduce school segregation ineffective, as students have opportunities to enrol where many vacancies exist.
Limitations
- The distribution of schools in the whole city is not balanced and thus some CA need to offer seats to students living close but not in the catchment area.
The local school principle
Objective: to make sure all pupils are entering a municipal school within walking distance from their home.
City: Oslo
Description
The national and local legislation state that students have the right to go to their local school. The municipality decides and adjust the catchment areas on a yearly basis. Catchment areas are strictly defined by address, according to the number of pupils in the relevant cohorts, regardless the income, skills, mother tongue etc. The assignment of a local school is based on the distance to the school from the student’s place of residence, but also other factors are considered (safe school roads, sibling affiliation, overall local environments, the capacity of the school or special individual consideration…).
In the municipality of Oslo, indicative catchment areas have been prepared, which link each individual address in the municipality to a primary school. The indicative catchment areas are designed in line with the local school principle. When new schools are built, or a school has too many students, the Education Agency can change the catchment areas. In some rare cases, there are more students in a school’s catchment area than the school can accommodate.
Opportunities
- More than the 90% of the pupils in Oslo attend the local school defined by the catchment area. However, this percentage is not homogeneous and in approx. 20% of the schools attract less than 80% residents, while 25% of the schools attracts more than the children resident in the local catchment areas.
Limitations
- The strict geographic catchment division makes the system sensitive to residential segregation. Oslo is a divided city with considerable differences in house prices. The desire to change schools is related to the economic possibility to buy a house in another part of town or another catchment area.
- Some schools located in areas with a high share of immigrant population, experience a very low share of native pupils. In some schools the share of immigrant students reaches 98%.
- There are limited alternatives to the local public schools. Some critics wants more alternatives and possibilities outside its own residential neighborhood.
- Since the most effective way to change school is to move, it could be argued that the system is a possible driver of residential segregation. Evidence of this criticality is that the main site for buying and selling properties in Norway (finn.no) includes a Neighborhood Profile where potential buyers get detailed information about the local area, including the perceived quality of the local schools according to some parents’ survey.
Redesign of Catchment Areas
Objective: a territorial pact between schools providing the redefinition and re-design of catchment areas in the 6th District of Milan
City: Milan
Description
In the period 2019-2021, the 6th District (Municipio) of Milan promoted a working table with the District Schools’ Principals for the tackling of the segregation in the district schools. One of the strategies elaborated was the redesign of the catchment areas and the strengthening of their role in managing enrollments. The Comune worked with the Municipio for the elaboration of proposal that has resulted in a Territorial Pact. The re-design of catchment areas, alongside with the promotion of the proximity criteria, would re-balance the composition of students in schools in terms of ethnic and social background.
Opportunities
- The re-design of the catchment areas would take into account also the socio-economic composition of the area in order to avoid the concentration of similar population and the segregation, and promoting instead a more mixed composition.
- The focus on the “territorial principle” conceives the school as a local point of reference for the families living in the territory, strengthening the relationship between school and families.
Limitations
- The territorial pact which provides the re-designing of catchment areas has been replied in a much softer manner only from another District, while the process has not yet been considered at city scale.
- The strong presence of private school (not following any residential criteria for their enrollments) risks to weakening significatively the potential impacts of the territorial pact
Resources
https://istitutonarcisi.edu.it/images/Regolamenti/PATTO_TERRITORIALE_SEGREGAZ_SCOL_CON_FIRME.pdf
Poli Start
Objective: to help families of Late Arrival students for their placement
City: Milan
Principio del formulario
Final del formulario
Description
Established in 2007, 4 Poli Start Hubs help especially the late arrivals foreigners in navigating the school system. The Poli Start Hubs are located in the districts with the higher presence of non-italian families. They also promote the teaching of Italian as a second language. Their main role is to create a connection between families, schools and initiatives or projects that may help in the integration process with the more specific aim of avoiding school drops out. They target families with children from 6 to 14 years old.
Opportunities
- Poli Start Hubs are strongly embedded in the territory and they have the chance of supporting valuable local networks and enhance the role of the local school
- Alike other projects and initiatives they have a long-term experience (15 years) and have become an institution in counteracting the risk of dropouts for foreign students
Limitations
- As the city has changed and the foreign population has increased Poli Start have not been adapted to the new trasformations
- Poli Start tackle mostly the late arrivals and very specific and at risk situation: its effect is limited in terms of changing more wider and structural dynamics.
- There is no a consolidated evaluation system, despite the years of activity.
- Financial resources are limited compared to the needs
Resources
https://www.comune.milano.it/servizi/poli-start-contro-dispersione-scolastica
Informational letter to all families of children “of age”
Objective: Reminds parents of the obligation to enroll children into primary school and proposing the local school (the one of the catchment area of residence) as the first choice
City: Milan
Principio del formulario
Final del formulario
Description
Every January, Comune di Milano send a letter to all families in the enrollment process to remind them the obligation of enrolling their children, the terms of this process and to indicate which is the local school, suggesting it as the first choice.
Opportunities
- It gives relevance to the “proximity” principle focusing the attention on the local school
- The letter suggests the local school as the first choice in order to contain the white flight dynamic and, by consequence, segregation
Limitations
- The letter is purely informative and extremely formal: this reduces the effect of convincing parents to choose the local school
- The letter is sent by January, just before the closing date of the enrolment process: mosto of the families have already made their choice at this point.
Resources
See attachment “Letter to families”
Involment of Comune di Milano in a school’s Open day
Objective: To present the Open Air Educational Method “Rinnovata Pizzigoni” and to increase the attractiveness of the school for residents
City: Milan
Principio del formulario
Final del formulario
Description
Description The Paravia school has more than 90% of non-Italian pupils and is located in one of the neighbourhood with the highest rate of foreigner population. In 2019 (as already done in 2011), the top management staff of the Education Departement of Comune di Milano directly participated to the Open Day, in order to present a new collaboration for the offer of the Open Air Educational Method “Rinnovata Pizzigoni”, and to underline the caring of the Administration for the school itself. The involvement of the Education Department is not common and has been widely advertized by the media, with the result of smoothly changing the reputation of the school.
Opportunities
- Being the Open Day the main formal informative instrument utilized by parents, the presence of institutional actors gives more relevance to the event and it is a sign of investment
- Ad hoc interventions, with more investment from the part of the authorities, could be one of the strategies to balance the inequalities between schools.
- The intervention has partially reversed the stigmatization of this schoolas a “ghetto”
Limitations
- Being the school located in a very segregated neighbourhood, the intervention has not been able to counteract also the territorial effetct
Resources
No material available
Realization of video for the presentation of the school
Objective: To help the schools build an attractive image based on actual educational quality.
City: Milan
Principio del formulario
Final del formulario
Description
In 2020, the 6th Municipal District has conceived and financed an idea for a communication campaign centered on the most segregated schools of its territory. Three professional-quality videos were produced that would form the basis of a communications campaign in the fall of 2020, with the idea of helping the school build an attractive image based on actual educational quality.
Opportunities
- This video have represented an attempt to change the narratives about schools in the peripheries, highlighting the quality of the offer rather than the composition and the reputation
- The Municipal District has been seriously and extensively involved in this project contributing to spread these materials among the population and to give them a great relevance and reliability
Limitations
- There is not yet an evaluation of the impact of these videos in the enrolment process
- This intervention has been possible because of the signature of a Territorial Pact between the Municipal District and the local schools.
Resources
Changing the school reputation
Objective: To change the school image – from “a school filled up with non-Italian pupils”, to “a dynamic school with international students”.
City: Milan
Principio del formulario
Final del formulario
Description
Description Through financed projects, the Parents Association of a segregated school (Scuola Cadorna), promoted for 4-5 years different methodologies in order to change the school image – from “a school filled up with non-Italian pupils”, to “a dynamic school with international students”. They work on the re-labeling, on the website design and try to open the school also to parents (i.e. Italian language classes).
Opportunities
- Working on the re-labeling and the narratives associated to a school is a soft intervention that can anyway have important effects on the reputation, which plays a significant role in driving families’ choices
Limitations
- The intervention is soft and its effect is very limited if not accompanied by other measure enhancing attractiveness
Resources