Charter Districts, my comments & questions

The following file was sent to District Staff on October 15, 2009, so they have advance notice on my areas of interest.  Staff encourages School Board members to send questions and comments in advance.  Please note that I understand this is a one hour session and we will not have time to cover every detail.  I am looking for insight into the options available.

My notes and questions are divided into six sections:

A.  Education
B.  Enrollment and Attendance
C.  Relationships with teachers and unions
D.  Finances
E.  Conversion process
F.  Governance

I refer to these charter elementary districts in the following notes.

Hickman Charter School District

http://www.hickman.k12.ca.us/index.php

Kingsburg Elementary Charter School District

http://www.kingsburg-elem.k12.ca.us/

A.  Education

Benefit
What is the benefit of converting to a charter district for a high achieving district? 

Charter Districts offer new educational opportunities
My general impression is that LCUSD can offer many opportunities without going charter.  However, we can’t go charter without an educational improvement proposal, so we would need to think about this carefully and determine the other possible benefits and limitations of going charter.  Is this basically true – the success of a conversion charter district application mostly depends on the education flexibility or improvement proposed?

B. Enrollment and Attendance

Enrollment
My understanding, if we have space available as a unified charter, we can open enrollment according to priorities.  This would be similar to what we do now, except we disclose the priority to the State in our Charter application.

For example, we might decide that:

• first open spaces will be available to the children of LCUSD full time employees
• next, children of employees who work full time in the District footprint
• next, determine another area, such as western La Cañada (aka Sagebrush)
• finally, open enrollment for any remaining space.

My understanding, the difference between our Unified District and a Unified Charter District, for a Charter District, the home districts of the incoming students don’t have the opportunity to release.  The parents notify the home district that their students will be attending a charter district and that’s it, no denials from the home district, so no appeals needed to the County.  Is this correct?

Attendance
I have also heard that Charter Districts can use the old rules for collecting attendance dollars.  If a family will be pulling their child from school and knows in advance (example, family wedding on the east coast during a school week), the parents can complete paperwork for their student to do self-study and the district will get paid by the State, starting with the first day of the absence.  This is similar (maybe the same) as the attendance rules that were in effect for many years prior to the current seat time ruling.  As I understand it, this is not a reason to become a charter, but it could be a side benefit.  The reasons to become charter are educational.  Is this attendance rule available to us if we decide to become a conversion charter?

Citizenship agreement to enroll from out-of-district
Both Hickman and Kingsburg have agreements for parents to sign before enrolling children in the charter district from out-of-district.  The agreement is mostly a behavior/supervision/citizenship contract, as far as I can tell.  Students agree to follow the rules.  The parents agree to do their part to help the District enforce rules and for things like homework supervision.  Hickman in particular strikes me as a place that wants parents to take the parent supervision seriously, teaching a child is viewed as a true partnership.  I suspect we have a similar document for our out-of-district kids, but want to make sure that, as a Charter District, we have the right to have this document signed before enrollment, and can enforce it if families don’t follow up on their part.  Eventually, we probably want to be able to send out-of-district students back to the home district if they don’t follow the rules.

C.  Relationships with teachers and unions

Unions, tenure
In my research, some charter schools and districts have unions, some do not.  Some charter schools and districts grant tenure, some do not.  I am interested in hearing from the attorney about her various experiences with charter districts, unions, tenure and related.  For example, if we convert to charter and have a few teachers who are not sustaining improvement, how does our situation change?

State education code and PERB rulings
Apparently, some California ed code applies to charter districts, some ed code does not.  Also, I gather some PERB (Public Employee Relations Board) rulings apply to charter schools and districts, some rulings do not.  How do we figure out which ed code and rulings would apply to a charter district we might form?  For example, I gather that some charters agree to lay off the newest teachers first, by hire date, similar to what we would need to do if lay-offs were looming.  Some charters have more flexibility, keeping the needed subjects/credentials and teachers with better evaluations.  Please ask the attorney to help us understand what would apply to us, the flexibility, benefits, and limitations.  I realize this is a limited workshop, but what is the range of options?  Some examples would be helpful.

Step and Column
Some charters appear to use step & column for salaries, but it is not clear that they all follow this model.  Charter schools appear to have more flexibility in hiring teachers with credentials in hard-to-hire subjects such as high-level math and science.  Considering a conversion charter, could we organize with flexibility in these areas?

D.  Finances
As I understand it, we would have two choices on state funding.  Are the following statements correct if we become a unified charter school district?

• Accept the charter block grant funding, but then can’t go back to revenue limit formula
• Stay with the revenue limit funding formula, similar to what we have now (Hickman & Kingsburg have both stayed with revenue limit, but note they monitor block grant amounts in case they want to change their minds.  They can go from revenue limit funding to the block grant funding, but not the other way.)

What funding is picked up with charter status and what funding is lost?

E.  Conversion process
In addition to the charter application which must be approved by the State (SBE & SPI), I have read about two votes needed to become a Charter District.These are the two votes I have read about.  Is this correct?

These are the two votes I have read about.  Is this correct? 

• a majority of the school board, three out of five
• a simple majority by the teachers’ union to either:
• agree to retain the current contract, but work under a charter district
• or, to agree to a new agreement or contract.

  In the charter school cases I have read about, all new contracts include due process.  Some conversion charter districts have a union, others appear to have a teachers’ association or similar.

  Does CSEA vote?
  Are there other votes we need to be aware of?

Traditional schools for families who elect that option
In completing the conversion charter application for a charter district, we would need to have non-charter schools ready to accept some of our students if the parents want the children educated in a traditional school setting.  I gather Kingsburg and Hickman don’t have a problem with this.  Their nearby Districts have declining enrollment and are happy to accept students.  Does the attorney see any major hurdles for us in placing students in nearby districts?

Traditional schools for current teachers who elect that option
In completing the conversion charter application for a charter district, we would need to have a traditional school (or several) ready to hire teachers should some teachers want to continuing working in a traditional school.  If we decide to move ahead with charter district research, I hope we would involve our teachers in the process.  And further, I hope they would all see great potential, and would want to stay with us.  In case some teachers don’t want to stay, does the attorney have a creative suggestion on how to arrange for placement of a teacher in a traditional school outside the district?

Conversion cost and grants for the conversion cost?
How much does it cost to convert to a charter district?  I understand there are grants available to help start-up and conversion charter schools.  Are there grants available to help districts converting to charter districts?

How many charter districts are there in California?  (Last list I saw had no date.  There were nine charter districts on that list.  None were unified school districts.)

F.  Governance
Kingsburg and Hickman have retained their school boards with the same authority and powers as before.  The board members are elected.  They hire and evaluate Superintendents, approve budgets, run bond elections.  (I don’t think either has run a parcel tax election.)  As a unified district, can we write a charter application that maintains the locally elected school board with its current role?  Are there ways the State can over rule the local board that would not happen under the traditional unified organization?

Both Kingsburg and Hickman have the option to revert back to standard elementary districts in the event it is no longer beneficial to be a charter district.  Given that we are a unified district, if we become a charter district; can we revert back to a standard unified district if the laws change?  In the area of Governance, are there additional ramifications we should consider?

Workshop on Charter Districts, 10/20/09

The School District has announced a workshop on
Charter Districts.
This information appears on the District web site, as noted below.

Workshop on Charter Districts
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
6pm
4490 Cornishon Ave, that’s the round building at the corner of Cornishon and Foothill.
Additional Parking across the street at Lanterman Auditorium.
The regular Board meeting is scheduled to begin at 7pm.

District web site navigation to this announcement:
www.lcusd.net
click Board of Education, found on top bar
click Meetings & Workshops, found in the list on the left
Scroll to the end of Meetings & Workshops

Goals in Closed Session

Released to the Valley Sun, October 7, 2009
Letter to the editor, for immediate release

I am a member of the La Cañada School Board, speaking for myself.

Question asked at the Candidate Forum, Tuesday, October 7:  The [La Cañada] School District has a goal to report out to the community on major Board-Superintendent goals.  Why are Superintendent goals discussed in closed session and is this in keeping with the open meeting laws?

Answers from incumbents:  The superintendent evaluation and personnel issues are discussed in closed session, but not Superintendent goals.  The goals discussed are similar to the public version called District goals, with the implication that closed session then does not matter.

Why is this issue important to voters?  There are no minutes in closed session and critical agreements/disagreements are not reported out.  I can’t say if board members have hidden unpopular votes – that would be a breach of closed session.

Where are we now?  The Board finished the Superintendent annual evaluation this summer.  Since then, the board has met with the Superintendent on his goals, for about ninety minutes, in closed session starting at 5pm, September 29.  We now have about twenty proposed goals, which is too many.  (Joel Peterson was absent, but this follows the pattern of prior years when Joel has participated.)  The Board and Superintendent have another closed session meeting scheduled on Superintendent goals,  4:30pm, Wednesday, October 14.

By my count, only three of the proposed goals are personnel issues.  In my opinion, the community is better served when the remaining goals are discussed, prioritized and voted on in public.

At the open session board meeting, March 3, 2009, (three-quarters through the audio recording, www.lcusd.net), I proposed a District goal to conduct Superintendent goal-setting in public and couldn’t get the two other votes needed.  The compromise was the goal on reporting out.  This pattern of evaluation and goal setting is not an oversight.

I am discussing two other topics on my website that were, in my opinion, mis-represented at the candidate forum.  See the top bar for a summary of election issues, http://cindywilcox.net

I encourage you to become an informed voter,
Cindy Wilcox