Washington State Charter School Letters of Intent Filed
The deadline for letters of intent to file a charter school proposal in Washington State was 5 p.m. today. Checking the Charter Commission website, I count 15 but Seattle Weekly is reporting 24 (I suspect SW called and asked and that the Charter Commission just doesn't have all of them up yet).
Those 24 do NOT include whatever letters of intent that Spokane School District received as it is the only school district in the state to be a charter school authorizer.
All full applications must be in on November 22nd.
Seattle Weekly had a good story on Puget Sound hopefuls who are getting a boost via the Washington State Charter Schools Association (and, of course, the money coming from the Gates Foundation). Three different women each received $100k for their charter school planning.
A second charter group out of California, Summit Public Schools that runs high schools, has filed (joining Green Dot).
The newest entries are signalled by a *.
Update to the list:
Quantum Leap Educational Foundation (PDF) - K-12 (they put down Seattle/Puget Sound for area)
The Village Academy (PDF) - to be at JBLM, preK-8 (I believe this is a military wife that I saw on the news.)
I looked through all the letters - after checking, I'm getting a vibe off one that may indicate a Gulen charter (the largest charter chain in the country). Not good.
Those 24 do NOT include whatever letters of intent that Spokane School District received as it is the only school district in the state to be a charter school authorizer.
All full applications must be in on November 22nd.
Seattle Weekly had a good story on Puget Sound hopefuls who are getting a boost via the Washington State Charter Schools Association (and, of course, the money coming from the Gates Foundation). Three different women each received $100k for their charter school planning.
A second charter group out of California, Summit Public Schools that runs high schools, has filed (joining Green Dot).
The newest entries are signalled by a *.
- Academy of Continuing Education - Cesar Chavez Charter School (PDF) (Yakima)
- Cedar River Academy (PDF) (Enumclaw)
- E.Y.E. Academy (PDF) (Seattle)
- First Place (PDF)* (Seattle)
- Green Dot Public Schools Washington State (PDF) (Tacoma)
- International Technology and Education Institute (PDF) (Toppenish)
- New Path to Education and Sustainability (NPES) (PDF)*(Seattle)
- Pioneer School (PDF) (Spokane Valley)
- Pioneer Youth Corps (PDF) (Grays Harbor, Mason, Thurston Counties)
- Rainer Prep (PDF) (Highline)
- SOAR Academy (PDF) (Tacoma)*
- Summit Public Schools - Olympus (PDF) (Tacoma)*
- Summit Public Schools - Sierra (PDF)*(Seattle)
- Sunnyside Charter Academy (PDF) (Sunnyside)*
- Yakima Academy (PDF) (Yakima)
Update to the list:
Quantum Leap Educational Foundation (PDF) - K-12 (they put down Seattle/Puget Sound for area)
The Village Academy (PDF) - to be at JBLM, preK-8 (I believe this is a military wife that I saw on the news.)
- Excel Public Charter School (PDF)* (Kent)
- Out of the Box Learning Studio (PDF)* (Seattle/South King County)
- Sports in Schools Team Charter (PDF) (Seattle)
I looked through all the letters - after checking, I'm getting a vibe off one that may indicate a Gulen charter (the largest charter chain in the country). Not good.
Comments
Just wondering..
$100K to "plan" a charter school. Bet we'll be seeing some of those tax-breaks-for-donating-to-charter-schools legislative bills popping up soon in our oh-so-effective Rodney Tom legislature.
-CT
I have to say the lawsuit against 1240 looks better all the time.
What if instead that money was given to Dunlap and Emerson and Aki Kurose? So that each of these schools could have hired 2 teachers each? 6 Teachers for a year? What if each teacher had 20 FR&L kids? With a lower class size, they could have intensively worked with these 120 students, raising their academic achievement and possibly their spirits too. Great teachers can do that. 120 kids would have benefitted. Plus more, because the classrooms they would have been pulled from also would have had a reduced class-size. What if... We will never know. Not that 20 is such a small class. But it is a start. Oh, wait, silly me, I forgot class size doesn't matter.
Instead, three women will file a bunch of paper to some office, that might yield a magical school, that might hire some actual teachers (although, they may not necessarily be certified, so they may not be real teachers after all), so that at some point down the road in the future kids might actually be learning something somewhere.
Not how I would spend $300k, if I had it to spend. No doubt I am simply
(and deeply) misguided, wanting to spend money for education on teachers to teach kids. Clearly, I just don't get it.
-kids first
There is college prep high school proposed for Seattle, as well as a Core Knowledge K-8. Pioneer school in Spokane is proposing to serve gifted students as "gifted and highly capable children are an underserved and at-risk population." There's a dual language school proposed for Yakima and a Green Dot middle school proposed for Tacoma.
reader
But better for it to be pocketed by a private citizen so as to keep the money out of the public realm, right Bill Gates?
CT
No, you get it, kids first, but many others don't.
Venture Philanthropy is not benevolent and generous, but protects and furthers the self-interests of those who practice it.
We should dispense with the labels and slogans and call it out for what it is: Hegemony. I.e., Their way is best. Period.
WSDWG
1) Four of these schools want to open in Seattle. Where? Where is there a building suitable for use as a school and why hasn't the District acquired that property?
2) The four schools that want to open in Seattle are a 6-12 STEM-focused school using blended learning, a K-5 STEM school for traumatized families, a rigorous K-8 STEM school for at-risk students, and a high school offering personalized instruction. Are these the schools that are missing from Seattle? Apparently we need a lot more STEM.
3) If these folks had come to the school board and proposed these programs, what would have happened?
4) How will the pro-Ed Reform folks in Spokane, Highline and Tacoma welcome their charters?
STEM is the new black.
CT
1. You could open a K-5 school with 6 classrooms (~150 students) in about 7500 square feet of office space as long as it was near a park you could visit once a day for recess. While I'm not a real estate broker, I'm sure that this space is available in many places in the city. SPS doesn't want a small school in an office building, they want a standalone school that will last for years and hold 650 kids.
2. There is a lot of demand for STEM in Seattle (see K-5@Boren, Cleveland, STEAM at another site, etc.). It may be just a fad, but it does seem to be popular.
3. They would have been (rightly) told that SPS doesn't have the money, space, or bandwidth to develop these programs. SPS has enough to deal with without developing four new boutique schools.
4. With open arms. The ed reform muckety mucks can't let this be a failure. The schools will not lack for funding and whiz-bang stuff, the newspapers will write glowing articles about the cool new tech invigorating a half-empty office building with super-awesome teaching, and we won't know if they produce results for 3-5 years. By that time, Harold Hill will be selling trombones somewhere else.
We know what would have happened. They wouldn't even have gotten calls returned. And even if such a school had been opened, it would have had kids assigned there involuntarily from "failing" NCLB schools, moved, split, and finally closed because families get sick of having their school moved every couple of years. They'd still have to use the same materials neighborhood schools use and the same dysfunctional central office services, so they have only a little scope for being different from the neighborhood schools.
The biggest issue - and the absolute reason that 1240 has the conversion part that it does - is facilities. That's why they are arguing in NYC - Bloomberg allowed some charters to not pay rent (even though the state law said they should). This has also had major ramifications in LA. There are even charter groups that exist solely to set up facility space.
It can't be that big a problem if there are this many charters. Having said that, I suspect the low per pupil funding in this state might be a challenge for some.
I agree that charters are going to find It much more difficult to operate in Washington than in other (adequately funded) states.
State money: ~$9500 per student = $1.43 million
SPS Operating Levy money after the next levy passes: ~$500K
Assume no federal or state FRL/Sped/ELL money
With parent fundraising, bring that to an even $2 million
Costs:
6 teachers @ $30K nominal salary, top end $75K total cost including taxes, benefits, etc. = $450K
1 principal @ $150K total cost
1 admin @ $75K total cost
1 financial person @ $150K total cost (could be part time and reduce cost as well)
Total personnel cost: $825K
Rent: About $200K/year ($26/sq ft)
That leaves just shy of a million dollars a year for all of the soft costs (new books, tech support, supplies, copier rental, etc. etc.). In the first couple of startup years, it would be about $500K less since the charter doesn't get operating levy money until a new levy passes.
I've surely left out a lot of stuff, but the budget also has lots of slack. Of course, this presumes that teachers do PE/library/language etc. Lunch can be done extremely cheaply--sign a deal with your local cheap pizza joint/Subway to get food from them at about $2/person/meal.
http://summitps.org/
They propose starting both of them as roll-ups, with only 9th grade to start. That seems to be the intent of several schools - to start with a fraction of the grade band and roll-up. Summit has merit based pay and with their current locations they draw teachers from schools such as Stanford and UC Berkeley. They have a record of success in CA.
reader
But I'm always suspicious of websites for established groups that have a tab for "FAQs" and then have none. Summit also has very little on governance.
It's like most charters - you take what they are giving and if it works for your child, great, otherwise keep looking.
This effectively knocks out 1) your families with no car or 1 car needed for work, 2) both parents working - usually lower income shift work so hours are not good for dropping kids at school - or single parent families doing the same, 3) kids who need FR breakfast and lunch at school, 4) kids who need recess to work off their energy - most often boys and kids with ADD/ADHD -type issues (sometimes they'll start out at a charter, but their behavior gets them "counseled out")..
So already, the charters start with a different audience than public schools.
Then you've got the application process, which also lends itself more towards the wealthier, more educated populace.
I always picture a greater than/less than sign with public schools on the big side, and charter schools on that teeny-tiny point.
-CT
Obviously there are always exceptions, but I found the bulk of this to be true more often than not.
-CT
I don't imagine that any of them will be denied. Really. I don't see this commission denying any applications because I think they see their role as supportive rather than regulatory.
If 14 applications are approved then that's all eight for this year and six of next year's. That means two things:
1) There will be a race to submit applications since only the first eight can start this year. Frantic.
2) There will be only two spots for new applicants for next year. That's going to be an even more frantic race.
"The following schedule is used to determine state salary allocations for certificated instructional staff
(i. e., teachers and educational staff associates) for 283 of 295 Washington State public school districts.
The remaining 12 public school districts receive somewhat higher allocations due to a higher base salary.
"The state schedule determines ALLOCATIONS of state funds. ACTUAL SALARIES ARE DETERMINED
IN LOCAL NEGOTIATIONS. Questions regarding individual employee compensation should be directed
to the local school district personnel or payroll office."
The charter schools will be allocated funding for their teachers in accordance with this scale, but the schools don't have to pay that money to the teachers.
Yes, the race will be on BUT you are wrong about approving all of them. This Charter Commission is very serious about getting it right. For their own work, I'm not even sure they will get to eight because they are going to pick through the applications very carefully.
I mean, how will it look to approve anything less-than-great that serves truly at-risk students? I know some of these members and I can only say - not on their watch.
However, Spokane gets to use whatever process they want and I would think they would be the ones to approve all of theirs.
So you could see 8 approved (plus a couple of others that would roll over into the next batch) but mostly coming from Spokane.
"Questions regarding individual employee compensation should be directed to the local school district personnel or payroll office."
That's rich: Charters aren't part of a local district in some cases. To who, then, does one direct questions about the total compensation of charter teachers? Will this information be public record, as it is with public school teachers?
Someone should ask these charter letter of intent grouo s what they are paying their employees.
If they aren't told, they should ask the state: These ARE still public employees, right? Earning OUR tax dollars?
Exhibit A: Arizona
http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/2010/09/east-valley-az-charter-schools.html
CT
Charter "Schools" claim that they're "public" when they want our tax dollars---often to pay the "CEO" and other company executives posing as educators.
Ask "Ms. 1240 Shill", Shannon Campion, who was everywhere last year, whining insistently that "Charter Schools ARE public schools", and outright lying during an online chat sponsored by the Seattle Times when she said no one was paying her for that work.
However, when the Charter Shills and PR Lackeys determine that it is to their advantage to say "but we're private", then that's their claim.
Kind of simple, actually. Right?
When it benefits Charter Shills to say they're public schools, that's the claim they make. When it benefits them to say they're private, then they'll call themselves that.
See? Pretty easy. Say "public" or "private" depending on who you're talking to and what question is being asked. When you have billionaires backing you, you CAN have it both ways. Can't you?
They are free from mandates about how they budget, but they are not free from disclosure about how they budget.
Now grant dollars, that may be different.
- Muir Mom
-CT