Iowa City school district still uses lunch data as part of determining school boundaries

CEDAR RAPIDS - It was six months ago that the U.S. Department of Agriculture ruled the Iowa City Community School District's use of federal lunch eligibility data was not in compliance with federal law.

Today, the district still employs that data, but in combination with other factors to determine its school boundaries, officials said.

The shift comes as the Iowa City school board prepares for a possible May 12 vote on new boundaries in the district, to take effect with the opening of Liberty High School in 2017.

It marks the latest chapter in a more than two-year debate over how best to balance poverty levels and other student demographics in the district's 24 schools.

Under the district's diversity policy, administrators last year used 'heat maps” of poverty in the district - measured by students' eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch in school, a federal program - to help redraw school boundaries.

After the USDA ruled in November that the maps could identify students eligible for the program, the Iowa City school board in January rescinded the diversity policy.

Now, district personnel use the lunch eligibility data in combination with other factors - whether students participate in programs for migrants or the homeless, for example - to create a generic 'low-socioeconomic status” designation, superintendent Stephen Murley said.

Representatives of the USDA and the Iowa Department of Education said their agencies are OK with the new process.

'Student confidentiality, at least with regards to their participation in the free and reduced school lunch program, should be adequately protected since the designation of ‘low SES' (socioeconomic status) in the system combines data from several sources,” said Devin Koontz, a spokesman for the USDA.

The new process protects students' privacy because administrators and school board members working on the latest boundary options do not know why students are designated as having low socioeconomic status or even which students have the designation, Murley said. The new boundary maps only indicate the percentage of students at each school who would be in that category.

Murley said he did not know how many students' low-socioeconomic status designation was determined by measures beside the lunch data. He said he consulted with Jeff Berger, a deputy director of the Iowa Department of Education, in developing the designation.

Board members also have considered the percentages of students in each school who are English-language learners or in special education as they discuss boundary options.

'I don't really care what the metric is that they use, if the goal is to assist academic achievement in groups that are underperforming,” said Ben Brozene, a parent whose children attend Shimek Elementary School.

Still, officials have been careful about how they use and talk about the data, making sure they stay on the right side of the law.

'I look good in orange,” Murley said, 'but not in a full bodysuit.”