ORANGE CITY, Fla. — Hundreds of students could be leaving two of Orange County's poorest performing schools. Students will be able to transfer out of Evans High School and Oak Ridge High Schools because of bad FCAT grades.
WFTV found out Thursday more than 400 students have applied to leave. The school district has received applications from families who have kids at either Evans or at Oakridge High School, and if those students do leave their schools stand to lose thousands in state funding.
The district is already processing transfers. Families who have children attending Evans and Oakridge high schools were given a choice to transfer their students due to poor FCAT scores.
"Our grade will probably go up, and that's the irony of this," said Principal David Christiansen, Evans High School. "There's a lot of misinformation the state based this purely on FCAT and now high schools are graded on a more comprehensive view," Christiansen said.
Advanced placement enrollment and college readiness are among the areas still being evaluated. Evans has improved its graduation rate. The final school grades won't be calculated until November.
But 181 or 11 percent of Oakridge parents have requested transfers. At Evans, 259 families or 15 percent of students are seeking transfers.
If all those students left, Oakridge would see roughly $687,000 fewer dollars from the state.
At Evans that figure would be closer to $984,000.
"We could anticipate losing some staff," David Christiansen said.
Students have the option of transferring to Colonial, Lake Nona, Olympia or Winter Park high schools. Dashontae Francis planned to transfer for personal reasons, but has since changed her mind.
"Just because other people do bad, doesn't mean I'm going to do bad. I just stay focused," Francis said.
Even if the final scores for Evans and Oakridge aren't F's, once the transfers are approved those students can go. Parents will be notified about their transfer requests within two weeks.
WFTV
