Upcoming Charter School Applications in Washington State

There were 12 NOIs (Notices of Intent) submitted to the Washington State Charter Commission this fall. 

I'd be surprised if more than six even submit an application; it's a heavy lift to get done.

There were some surprises as I researched each NOI.

First surprise?

That the two assistant principals at West Seattle High School, Scott Canfield and Garth Reeves, have submitted an NOI.  That would be for Cascade:Midway High School in south King County to start in 2021.  They are getting help via the Washington Charter Schools Association which accepted them for their School Leadership and Design Fellowship.

 As I said in my email to the Board, it's not a crime to be looking for another job.  Not even for another job that will directly compete against your current one.   But I would hate to learn that they are using time and/or resources at SPS to do that work. 

There are several schools in other areas of Washington State including Vancouver, Bremerton, Whatcom, and the Tri-Cities.

There are a couple labelled as opening in Seattle while still others say South King County( and that may include Seattle).

There are a couple that are dual-language-based including Camino:The Learning Journey that would be a Spanish/French immersion school for grades 5-12.  The applicant, Antonette Sabrots, is a long-time educator, including six years in SPS.  This would be a Seattle-based school. 

As well, the charter in Bremerton, Catalyst:Bremerton, which would be a K-8, has two long-time charter school administrators including one from TFA.

On the other hand, the one in Vancouver would be started by a business management consultant.  It would be a K-12 called CAM Charter School.  CAM stands for Character and Academics for the Marketplace.

There are a couple of familiar charter faces in former SPS employee, Bree Dusseault, who hopes to open a K-8 in Tacoma in 2020.  Likewise, Impact, which opened one elementary last fall wants to open another elementary, Salish Sea Elementary in "south Puget Sound."

There are two ethnically-based NOIs.

One is the Fursan School. The lead on this charter is, Mohamed Bakr,  a guy who does digital marketing and directs the Muslim Community Neighborhood Association in Bellevue.  He wrote down "King County" for location.

The other would be a school called Whole Elephant Chinese Charter School under the direction of Lotus King Weiss.  This would be a K-8 in Seattle opening in 2020.  The Commission previously rejected their application.

Dr. Weiss, a cancer researcher, has opened several of these in New York State.  One possible issue with this application could be that  Dr. Weiss is a follower of Falun Gong/Falun Dafa.  I don't know much about this but it seems to have been a sticking point for opening charter schools in New York State.

There are two others on the horizon that have not filed yet; one in Wenatchee and one in Spokane.  The one in Spokane would go thru Spokane SD which is a charter school authorizer and would be for teen parents.  To note, SPS has and has had for a long time a school to help teen parents complete with day care in South Lake High School.

Comments

Nicolas Esparza said…
How can charter schools be any worse than Seattle Public Schools ?
Anonymous said…
On average charters perform about the same as public schools so the statistical answer is they will probably be a wash. The more serious answer is they are going to destabilize the South End in particular and the overall balance of kids being served will drop as well weakening the public system after creaming off kids.
Carol Simmons said…
Dear Nick,
You know there was no one more critical than I of the manner in which some groups of students of color were underserved and the disproportionality that exists between certain groups of students of color and white students in academic achievement and disciplinary sanctions and the fact that the Disproportionality Task Force's Recommendations were ignored...HOWEVER there are attempts by the Board to implement some of the DTF recommendations and there are attempts to include some groups of underserved students in the Strategic Plan. There is still a great deal of work to do but we must not, cannot give up by privatizing education and allowing Charter schools to drain resources from public schools. I believe I know you well enough to know that you will continue to fight for educational success for all our students in our public schools.
Anonymous said…
I support charter schools in Seattle.

Voter
Voter, wait for my Part 3 which is the national scene. Not a lot to get excited about.
Anonymous said…
I'm just going off of my families experience. We had to go private after years of agony. We then hired a lawyer and recouped the 35K we spent on private school.

Nobody won. We spent 100s of hours and went through years of agony. SPS refused to do what the law demanded. Phase 2 of the legal challenge is coming soon.

I don't see how it could have been any worst in a charter school. And sure the private school could have turned us down but they did not and they made good progress after so many years of neglect by SPS.


Voter
Voter, you don't explain what special services your child needed. Clearly, SPS has a track record of trying to pay as little as possible. Could it have been worse in a charter? Possibly as they might have enrolled your child and then said they don't have the services available.
Anonymous said…
Since there are no comments on the HCC thread, I want to ask: is Kim Wentworth that you referred to Kim Whitworth? -TeacherMom
Anonymous said…
Charter schools don't do anything to improve outcomes for kids -- they just siphon off money and community investment and nobody wins in the long term. But I love the idea here of a "School Leadership and Design" fellowship. At a time when SPS is contemplating cutting growing talent in its Assistant Principal pool, these two capable APs seem to be taking the bull by the horns because there's no future for them in the district. How could the Alliance for Education -- somebody! -- help support the growth of innovative leadership within the district? How about supporting long-time principals to retool and refresh?

Tired
Sad Reality said…
Both charter schools and unions siphon dollars away from students. Over the past two years, we can expect unions to consume $1.9 benefit packages.
Sad Reality said…
Clarification: Unions will consume $1.9B for employee benefits.

Anonymous said…
Charter schools = > public schools for the average student. That'S a fact jack!

The rest of it is just jobs for Adults so other Adults work to pay the taxes that funds the jobs, you can see the vicious loop...right?

The Adults are never satisfied being a public sector wage earners.

BooHa







seattle citizen said…
Damn those employee benefits.
Moochers.
Let them eat cake.
seattle citizen said…
Ummm, BooHa? Don't adults work to pay the taxes that fund the jobs in both charters and publics?
What's your point?
"Vicious loop"?
Should we not pay taxes to educate our children?
What's your point?
Anonymous said…
This is how I get interpret people’s rankings about teacher’s salaries and benefits:
“We should go back to oldie days when job options for women were limited. And when teachers were primarily women and we didn’t have to pay them much because we knew their husbands had benefits and were the real “bread winners”, and the single ladies were just waiting to get a man anyway. Because, pish posh, we all know educatin’ young uns isn’t hard”.

Grumpy

Anonymous said…
Of course, omit the “get” and change “rankings” to “rankings” in first sentence above. I blame my spinster 4th grade teacher, Ms. Watt. That, I’m riled up now. peace.

Grumpy
Anonymous said…
Rantings-darn auto correct

Grumpier
Teacher Mom, thanks for that catch on Whitworth; I made the correction.

I just don't get this anger at public sector employees. Is it unions? Jealousy? What? I mean, you do have to have people actually do the work so why the anger?
Also, get back to the topic which is charter schools.
Anonymous said…
Charter schools do have more flexibility to fire teachers and to hire teachers that will teach and not promote their personal agenda.

In my family we have had over the years over 200 different teachers work with our children, so I have some personal experience to draw on.

Some of the teachers were very good, most were average but a few should have never been hired and in fact seemed to be immune from termination.

Charter schools will not have to keep incompetent or dangerous teachers employed. Charter schools can be more discriminate in their hiring.
Charter schools do not have to follow union rules.

Thanks goes out to all the smart effective teachers working at SPS.

Just helping

Strike 2 said…
Charter schools don't have to make-up strike days, which has become a matter of routine.

I feel for districts that have to deal with both snow and strike days.
Just Helping, of course, everyone has had bad teachers. It probably fits the law of averages. But if you think charters don't have bad teachers, you'd be wrong. Naturally, not being part of a union makes it easier to kick bad teachers out but it also allows charters to kick ANY teacher out that doesn't fit with their ideals.

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