VISTA —— Requests for student transfers under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 have quadrupled in the Vista Unified School District, with more than half coming from fifth-graders who will be entering middle school in the fall.

In its second year of the program, the district had 234 transfer requests from parents who want to move their children out of schools that have been sanctioned under the federal law. Last year, 60 students sought to change schools under the program.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, schools that consistently score too low on standardized tests, or fail to test enough students, must allow students to transfer to higher-performing schools and must provide extra tutoring.

Almost 60 percent of those now seeking transfers are elementary school students who next year were slated to attend Lincoln or Washington middle schools. Both campuses are on the federal list of schools that need improvement.

Instead, about 125 of those students will attend Madison Middle School and nearly 100 will go to Roosevelt Middle School, said Assistant Superintendent Pete McHugh.

He said the district is struggling with ways to house the new transfers, but that no students at Madison or Roosevelt would be displaced.

Only 13 students filed for transfers from the three elementary schools on the federal list: Bobier, Olive and Crestview. A fourth school, Grapevine, could end up on the list, depending on this year's test scores.

McHugh said that the increase in transfer requests can be explained by the fact that this is only the second year that students have been allowed to transfer.

It takes two years of failed tests to be placed on the list of underperforming schools, and those schools spend at least two years under sanctions. McHugh said parents at those campuses were notified in February that their children were eligible to be transferred in the 2005-06 school year, with an application deadline of March 1.

For the 2004-05 school year, parents were notified of eligibility in September and had to submit transfer requests by October, when the school year was already well under way. That likely reduced the number of requests, McHugh said.

He noted that Grapevine could be in the same boat next year: It could be placed on the sanctions list in October if one of the subgroups of test scores fails to meet standards for the second year in a row.

Still, McHugh said, the increase in elementary to middle school transfers was higher than the district expected.

"From that perspective, I was surprised," he said.

He said the district needs to better educate parents about the middle school programs at all the district campuses. He also said the district could push back the transfer request date from March 1 to mid-April, to better allow parents to familiarize themselves with the schools.

Another aspect that added to the higher number, he said, was the 36 students who filed transfer requests at Lincoln Middle School after hearing that the school was considering changes in its Gifted and Talented Education program, also called GATE.

McHugh said the district usually doesn't see transfers for students who have spent a few years at a school. He said the number transferring from Lincoln was higher than expected.

Robb Scheele, who wants his soon to be eighth-grade daughter transferred from Lincoln to Madison, said he felt that now Madison was a better place for his daughter.

"It sounded like they wouldn't be challenged as much as they are now," he said about the potential changes to Lincoln's GATE program.

He said the demographics of the schools are much different —— that Madison's students are more affluent and have a higher educational level than at Lincoln, where there are many non-English-speaking students.

McHugh said the students are transferring from schools —— Lincoln and Washington —— that as a whole meet federal standards, but qualify for transfers because subgroups of English language learners or special education students have underperformed on standardized tests for two years in a row.

Contact staff writer Rob O'Dell at (760) 631-6620 or rodell@nctimes.com.