System drops controversial choice plan

Savannah-Chatham County Public School officials are bowing to pressure and dropping a controversial plan to use satellite schools to comply with the No Child Left Behind law.

The law requires school officials to give students the choice to transfer out of schools that don't meet standards to schools that do. The problem is that, at the high school level, there are more transfer students than space at the two schools accepting transfers.

A plan floated a few weeks ago gave students a choice to attend a satellite school, essentially a school within a school, its location being one of the lower-performing schools out of which students could transfer. Another option was to take classes online at a Technical College.

Some parents and school board members railed against the idea at a heated meeting. Now officials are backing away from the plan. Their new options are traditional campuses. They're buying portable classrooms to make that possible.