Attack of the Narcisse Clones

The Charter School - A Question of Finances

The proposed Charter School for at-risk middle school students is to have a budget of $643,000.  Most of this money is to come from per pupil state aid ($583,600 from 100 students).  What this means is that the middle schools from hence these students come will have to make do with less money.

For example, if 10 students come from each of the 10 middle schools each middle school will have $58,360 less money in its budget.  That is at least one teacher, maybe two, and a combination of fewer associates and supplies.  Since 10 students does not a classroom make, this could lead to more overcrowding or less options available for students.  Add on top of this the 10% state budget cut and you have a financial crisis in the middle schools.

The problem is that middle schools is where the high school dropouts of tomorrow are made.  This could lead to unintended and counterproductive consequences.  The Charter School is designed to reduce high school dropouts, but its budgetary impact could have the opposite effect.

The School Board needs to dig into this issue at its meeting tonight and make sure that the Charter School band wagon does not drag some middle school students under its wheels.

Finally! Something to Write About!

The trouble with blogs of this type is that they tend towards criticism.  The trouble with the current school board and its Superintendent is that it is hard to find much to criticize.  The board is one of the most experienced and competent that we have had in many years.  The Superintendent is the best in a long time.  But every now and then, there is going to be a slip up, and I will be duty bound to point in out.

Case in point is the curious timing of the Superintendent's announcement that the US Department of Education had rejected the District's grant application for $478,345 to be used to open the charter school in 2010.  As first reported by Holly Worthy of www.thinkdsm.com the announcement was not made during the two-hour charter school presentation at the October 6, 2009 board meeting.  It was announced much later, at the tail end of the long meeting after much of the audience (including the Register reporter), and one would have to imagine most of the television audience as well, had left.

Alerted of this odd event by a Facebook post by Graham Gillette, I watched the pertinent part of the replay of the board meeting tonight.  Dr. Sebring's rather sheepish announcement was not met by groans of anguish or stunned questions from the board, as one might suspect, but by stone silence. Having set at that table for something like 200 meetings over 9 years, I have the strong sense that the board members knew about the letter before the meeting ever started.  Yet no one mentioned it during the presentation.

The loss of the grant will make it very difficult to open the charter school in 2010.  Facing severe budget cuts it will be difficult if not impossible to undertake any new initiatives next year, even one as worthy as the charter school.  At the very least the lost funding source should have been made part of the presentation so there could have been a timely discussion of its impact before the board votes on the charter school at its October 20 meeting. 

If they vote for it, I hope they explain how they intend to pay for it and what current programs will be cut.  That doesn't mean there aren't some programs that deserve the axe, there are.  It does mean there needs to be a little more transparency in the process.