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April 21, 2006

Charter School Oversight

I said I'd tell you a bit more about charter schools so tonight I'll relate to you our experiences this past month with charter school oversight. I did mention things had changed since the legislation to allow charter schools passed.

The first few years it was very permissive. Any group of people with a charter school idea could be granted permission to operate. Unfortunately some of those schools were scams for people to make money or to promote a cause other than education. As those became a problem, rules and regulations were imposed to make sure those situations wouldn't continue. Now we are dealing with a number of regulations meant to be helpful, but are sometimes pretty cumbersome. We found one of those recently.

In order to prevent charters from bringing in a great deal of money and not having it go to children and learning, a regulation is imposed on charter schools requiring that 80% of the funds go to teacher salaries. The thinking, I believe, is to keep charters from having 90 kids per teacher which was happening in some on-line programs.

The charter school our office operates, William Finch Charter http://www.glenncoe.org/%5F%5Fdistricts/%5F%5Fwm%5Ffinch/, was found out of compliance because our accounting showed us at only 76%. We're a home/independent study program so we're used to be looked at carefully. There are many people who doubt whether children can receive a good education from home study progams. Ours is a good one.

We have been very careful to keep student/teacher ratios where they are supposed to be and parents and teachers with books and supplies, but we were moving into new facilities this year. Knowing it could be costly to move, we designated some funds to facilities and moves rather than extras for teachers. We were found out of compliance and in danger of losing some of our funding.

Our staff has been providing an excellent program for many years, so we definitely didn't want to lose funding. We were able to appeal, make some allowable corrections, and retain all the funding, but it took several trips to Sacramento to get it right.

My point tonight is that charters are becoming much more regulated and scrutinized. Like anything charters can provide excellent alternative for students. Unfortunately, like most things, they have folks who will take advantage. Regulations are set up to keep the unscrupulous away from children.

I may find those regulations tedious at times, but I'd rather they be there than in the days where parents would come in after having two or three years of a fly-by-night program with their children years behind and needing to catch up.

Charters are exciting because they take on the innovate and creative. They put some life back into learning. Public schools can do the same, but, as with most everything, it takes work, energy, and committment.

Check out your schools for the zest of learning. How are they doing?

Posted by Dr Joni at 07:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 16, 2006

Charter Schools

I had a great question from a reader this week. In case you didn't catch it the question was about how charter schools are funded. Specifically the issue was about how the programs are funded and whether all the funds are spent on the kids. I'll get to funding, but first for those who don't know much about charters let me do some ground work.

Charter schools are schools set up by a group of individuals who write a plan for running a school and petition a local school district to sponsor them. Many charters have a specific population or program they wish to target so their instruction is geared accordingly. For example, we run a charter school for home/independent study students. Only children and thier parents who wish to have their children study at home with the parent and the charter school teacher as the primary instruction providers should apply. It isn't a program where a bus comes to get the children at 7:00 AM and brings them home at 3:30 PM. It's different and parents need to want and understand that difference to enroll their children. Other charter schools have their own criteria. It's written in their plan.

Questions about charter schools have been going on for several years. They're new and we're all still working through what kind of animal they are. Some folks have no use for these new ideas. Others think the schools will correct any and all problems in the past.

My view is they are another option. Some children don't learn well in a traditional school setting. Like magnet schools, charters provide a different avenue for children to learn, but they certainly have created some controversy.

Originally they were greatly endorsed by several members of the State Board of Education. The first legislation granting their existence was very broad and allowed a great deal of latitude. Unfortunately several of those early charters took advantage of their opportunities. Students didn't recieve the school they were promised, funds went missing, and personnel problems arose. Laws got tightened to match the problems.

The freedom the charters once enjoyed has become more regulated and scrutiny from the Department of Education has become more careful. No one wants children to lose out on the education they need.

So to the question-funding was one of the big issues. Some of the "new to the education business" groups who tried to initiate charters and make a profit from them found themselves frustrated with lack of funds or those who let the instruction slip so they could make money found themselves sued, bankrupt, or out of business.

Now there are regulations around the use of funds. Charter school funding, like any school funding, is based on ADA (average daily attendance). An amount (Revenue Limit) is established for the charter and for every child in attendance for a day the school receives a set amount of money. So the school earns money for the number of children at school every day.

The money generated goes to pay teachers, administrators, aides, secretaries, and any other personnel needed to keep the school operating according to its adopted plan. It also pays facilites costs (upkeep at least), utilities, janitorial, cafeteria needs, books, materials, and all the other stuff it takes to keep a school going. There's a lot to it.

At first charters were allowed to develop their own budgets without much oversight. After several went bankrupt leaving children without a school home, ADA already received and spent, and once a school closed those children having to go to public schools who would not now receive the allocated ADA, regulations were put in place to monitor charter budgets much more closely.

I won't try to explain all the intricacies of those regulations, but suffice it to say that for those who thought this would be a nice for-profit way to make money, those loopholes have been fairly well closed. Several companies thought this would be a great way to make money until they realized how little is actually generated to cover all the costs of what is required. Quality is now also in the picture and I'll talk about that in future articles this week.

I appreciate questions like these. I don't always know what you'd like to hear about in schools. So if you'd like some straight answers about schools, learning, education in general, please ask and I'll do my best to provide information.

Posted by Dr Joni at 07:23 PM | Comments (0)

April 14, 2006

A Simple Question Answered

There is no particular purpose to this picture. I just needed to see if I had learned how to put a picture into a blog and I did! And they say learning stops after you leave school. Bah! Humbug!

Now I'm not the greatest techie in the world, but I am persistent. I've been trying to figure out how to do this since I started doing this blog. I've asked the guru of the Chico ER staff, but he said he didn't have time. I thought about asking our techies at work, but I hate to pull them off the work they're doing for schools to help me figure out something I do in my spare time.

I had several people say, "Oh, it's simple. It's just HTML tags." Uh, huh. Right. That's like saying "No problem, it's Punjabi or Navajo." I'm interested in other langauges, but don't speak them. So what do I do in a case like this? Continue to look for the person who could answer my one question. I didn't want to take a class in HTML. I didn't want to be an expert. I just wanted to include a picutre in what I was doing.

Enter Anthony from Diverse Network Assoicates I was over asking him a technical question about setting up some emails accounts when I realized he might be able to answer my simple question. He did. He not only showed me how to do this he showed me how to put a picture on the right side too. See... So the good news is I've finally found out how to do something fun and new. Now the bad news is I'm hooked and will want to learn more.

That's one of the things I really like about learning, you can really get engaged in it. There's always more. There's always something else out there that you just don't know quite enough about yet. So now I'll want to know more, but for tonight this is just what I wanted to know.

Have a great weekend.

Posted by Dr Joni at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)

April 13, 2006

Small School Success

The other night I went to the Hamilton City Elementary School board meeting. I was on the agenda to talk about the process of unification. They were polite as I assured them I was not going to go pro or con on them. Rather, my job was to provide them with the process.

While I was there listening to other board-type topics, someone mentioned the status of Hamilton City's students on their state testing. The board and audience listened politely and they started on to other topices.

I interrupted and asked if I could address the topic. My sense was that the group may not realize the significance of the accomplishments they had gone over so quickly.

I have had the unique opportunity to visit and work with people around the state on issues relating to instruction and assessment. This small school in rural California with a predominate population of non-English speaking families, has raised its test scores from 420 to 720 in the last few years. Their superintendent/principal mentioned that they were going for 800 this year.

Again, like the board, you may not understand the impact of those scores so let me put it into a little perspective. The scores are also rated amoung like schools. In the like schools system, 100 schools of common characteristics are compared. Hamilton Elementary rates 9 out of 10. It's almost at the very top of schools like itself throughout the state. There are only a handful of schools above them in the state of California in schools with their make-up. Now that's huge.

Hamilton Elementary has focused specifically on English Language Learners and religiously stuck to teaching the California standards. It hasn't been easy. In fact it has been downright hard, but the results show up in the assessment of students.

I know there are questions about the No Child Left Behind legislation. In my travels, I have probably heard every last one of them-twice, but what I find is when we specifically identify what it is we want children to learn and teach just those items, they learn them.

It's a little like planning a trip. You want to go to Dallas, so you make reservations to go to Dallas, you find a place to stay in Dallas, you rent a car in Dallas, and you check your location when you arrive. Hey, it's Dallas. You don't make reservations for Deluth because you've been there before or rent a car in Denver. You are specific about your goals and you go about making sure that you get there. Testing standards means we have to teach to the standards. Hamilton City certainly has done so, and it shows.

Posted by Dr Joni at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)

April 10, 2006

The U Word

My work takes me into some very interesting issues. One of those which is about as touchy as you can get is the topic of, well, I know it isn't used in polite company and doesn't exactly have four letters, but it's unification.

For those of you who are not familiar with the term, it happens in education when two or more school districts discuss combining to make one district. Now you may think this is a simple thing. Well, shoot, you just do it. Let me tell you, it's not so easy.

The last time I had the responsibility of walking four districts through a unification process I learned how exciting it could be. Two of the districts, Orland Elementary and Orland High School wanted to be unified. The other two districts, Lake and Plaza, wanted no part of it. At one point I heard one of the board members from one of the two smaller elementary districts say, "My grandfather was on this school board. My father was on this board. I'm on this board and my son will be on the board. There is no way in h--- I'm going to vote for a unification with anyone."

Hmmm. Okay. I think you could say feelings run high over these issues.

Tonight I have the opportunity to present the process of unification to the Hamilton Elementary School Board. A petition has been circulated and signed which starts the process. My job now is to explain how the process works so the board members and the community know what comes next.

It will take at least a year for this whole thing to even get on a ballot if there are no stoppages along the way. In the meantime there will be a couple of public hearings and lots of discussion within the community of Hamilton City.

I'm not a predictor of these things. I've discovered over the years that I need to do my job of helping district work through the process then let the communities work these things out for themselves. If anyone asks my opionion, which sometimes occurs, I will only provide it if I have done the research on what might be best for the children and the families of the community. What's best depends on a whole lot of factors, and is not something others might see as best.

In the meantime, tonight, we'll take about how the process works and I'll try not to use the U word very often.

Posted by Dr Joni at 06:29 PM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2006

Academic Successes

William Finch Charter School won the Academic Decathlon this year in Glenn County. This was a first for the small charter school and even more amazing because it's a home/independent study program. Now there are some of you who will insist that those schools are just so kids don't have to go to school and they "give grades" away. I've heard that from a number of folks.

Well, maybe some places are. Our program has never looked at itself as a place for students to come and mark time. In fact those who try that find themselves looking for another school to go to. Studying on your own without benefit of other classmates is not an easy road, and many, both parents and students, drop off because it isn't as easy as they've been lead to believe.

So, as can be seen this year, the home schooled students decided to take this on. They've been building a team and an approach to this event for the last few years. This year all their hard work paid off. They won, but once they won they were faced with a trip to Los Angeles to face the rest of the state.

Six of the seven students had never been on a plane before. The boys needed sports coats to wear for the competition. They didn't have enough money for airfare for everyone.

Two businesses stepped up and donated funds to help. Coats were found and nervousness over plane rides disappeared as they began to realize the differences between LA and Glenn County. Why worry about planes when there were freeways to navigate, competition to deal with, and, well, Disneyland. Wow.

Now they have completed their travels. They have competed. They have had experiences they had never dreamed of before. Teddy Rodriquez won a gold medal for music. Congratulations Teddy. The whole team had a great time.

What an experience! What fun memories. What an esteem builder for a small group of kids from a home/independent study charter school. That's what I call an education. That's what I call learning in all its various forms.

Posted by Dr Joni at 06:26 AM | Comments (0)

April 03, 2006

Science Fair

I always write something about the yearly Science Fair. I'm sure it's because there are so many kids involved in science in so contained a space. It's fun to see what kinds of experiments or investigations the kids are going to do each year.

Some years there are lots of volcanoes. Others we see hurricanes in bottles. Whatever they do, they are learning. They must do the research, write a report, and do the display on their topic.

My kids did a science fair project almost every year they were in elementary school. Jennifer even won a sweepstakes award with one of hers. I'm sure she won't forget it. Neither will I. We had petrie jars everywhere and things growing for weeks. It was fun unless you accidently got the wrong thing out of the refrigerator for dinner.

Posted by Dr Joni at 08:47 PM | Comments (0)

April 01, 2006

Parents Make a Difference

Rudy's grandmother took him to school at age five. He spoke no English nor did she, but she told him that he had to go to school, be respectful of the teachers, and learn. Scared or not he went, and he did what his grandmother told him to do.

Henry's family came from Germany. At seven he went to an English speaking school without knowing a word of English. His father told him that they had come to America to get an education, the best education there was. Henry was expected to use that education well.

My father was very clear with me as a child. He had only finished his sophomore year in high school. He lied about his age to get into the army. After his service he worked, he always had a job, but he never felt he was well educated. He wanted to make sure his kids were. My brother and I knew school was one of the most important things we could do. We did it.

Rudy grew up to be Rudy Castruita, a Superintendent of Schools in Santa Ana, California and now the County Superintendent of the San Diego Office of Education. Henry Beitz is now the Superintendent of Schools in Westwood District in Lassen County and is the President of the Association of California School Administrators. I'm the County Superientendent of Glenn County, and Rudy and I are both past chairs of the California County Superintendent's organization. All three of us were on the agenda for the recent Small School District Association conference.

Our parents and grandparents taught us well. They told us how important education is. All three of us are passionate about children having the best education possible. We come at it from different perspectives and for different reasons, but we believe in schools and learning for much the same reason. Education made a huge difference in our lives and our families believed it could do so. So do we.

Learning starts with families who believe learning is important. Not all motivated learners will turn out to be superitendents of schools. Some will run big businesses, others will be nurses or doctors, others will write books or symphonies, some will design or fix our cars, airplanes, or some new mode of transportion, and still others will create things from their imagination we've never even thought of yet. Learning starts with believing it's important. It's important. Believe it.

Posted by Dr Joni at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)