“PALM COAST — When Teresa Cestare first heard about Imagine School at Town Center, the fledgling charter school’s 226 students attended classes in a local church.
The school’s more permanent facility in Palm Coast wasn’t finished until a few weeks after classes started.
Three years later, Cestare’s three children will return to Imagine on Monday with more than 800 classmates. ‘It’s just been the talk of the town since it first started,’ Cestare said of the school.
Enrollment at Imagine and other charter schools in Volusia and Flagler counties has surged in recent years as an increasing number of parents seek alternatives to traditional public schools for a variety of reasons, from smaller class sizes to different teaching strategies. Many parents say they like being able to choose schools for their children without paying private school tuition.
But some charter schools haven’t performed well on state-mandated tests. ‘I wouldn’t say they’re on equal footing with public schools nationwide,’ said Bette Heins, an education professor at Stetson University. ‘They have not performed as well.’
Nonetheless, the popularity of charter schools seems to be growing. Supporters include Gov. Rick Scott, who recently signed several laws favorable to charter schools, including shifting millions in capital funds from traditional schools to charter facilities.
Charter schools have been an option in Florida since 1996. Two years later, Reading Edge Academy opened as the area’s first charter school. Three new Volusia County charter schools, opening this week, bring the total to 12 in Volusia and Flagler counties. More are planned for 2012.
Locally, charter schools are as diverse as the students they serve. A few cater to those with specific needs. Chiles Academy in Daytona Beach serves pregnant and parenting teenagers and young children. Richard Milburn Academy’s two campuses, one in Daytona Beach and the other in DeLand, are a last resort for struggling students.
Other charter schools target students with specific interests. Ivy Hawn Charter School of the Arts in Lake Helen will incorporate dance, visual arts, music and drama into its curriculum.
Still others offer students in geographically isolated areas the chance to attend a neighborhood school. After the Volusia County School Board voted to close Burns-Oak Hill Elementary School in 2009 to cut expenses, parents vowed to open a charter school in its place. When the Burns Science and Technology Charter School opens this week, it will be the only public school in tiny Oak Hill.
GROWTH CURVE AHEAD
While charters are gaining steam, they still represent a small fraction of the student population. There were about 74,500 public school students in Volusia and Flagler counties last year but only 2,082, or 2.6 percent, attended charter schools. Statewide, more than 137,000 students, or about 5 percent of the total enrollment, attended charter schools.
Gov. Scott recently signed a law that will allow high-performing charters to serve additional grades or open another branch in the same district. And state lawmakers eliminated $121 million in funding for maintenance, repair, renovation and remodeling projects in traditional public schools in this year’s budget while retaining $55 million for similar projects in charter schools.
‘My understanding is the Legislature believed traditional public schools didn’t need renovations and repairs while charter schools did,’ said Ruth Melton, director of legislative relations for the Florida School Boards Association. ‘The Legislature is of the opinion, and has repeated it often, that capital funding for charter schools is scarce and difficult to obtain.’
Also, school boards are allowed to levy a property tax of $1.50 per $1,000 of taxable value to support their construction, maintenance and renovation programs, while charter schools don’t have that authority. Melton said some school districts share that tax revenue with their charter schools, others don’t.
Supporters say charter schools compete with public schools, forcing them to get better. When students attend charter schools, the state’s money follows them. But local school administrators say they don’t view charters as competitors.
‘We really view them as a partner,’ said Alicia Parker, program accountability and evaluation coordinator and the charter school liaison for Volusia County. ‘Volusia County students, regardless of what school they go to, are Volusia County students.’
MORE FREEDOM?
Though they are supported by tax dollars, charter schools straddle the line between public and private schools.
‘A lot of surveys kind of show that the public really doesn’t understand the distinction between charter schools and private schools,’ said Jim Hull, senior policy analyst for the National School Boards Association’s Center for Public Education. ‘Many times, they think they can charge admission or teach religion and select their students, when that is not what a charter school can do.’
Though Florida charter school students take the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and must meet state graduation requirements, charter school administrators are free to design their own curriculums and instructional strategies.
That arrangement hasn’t always worked the way it was intended, Hull said.
‘One of the original reasons for charter schools was they’re supposed to be the incubators of education and then share their best practices with neighboring schools,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, we don’t see that happening.’
Many local charter schools include elements that are common in private schools, such as uniforms, smaller classes and mandatory parent volunteer time.
Cestare pulled her oldest son, Justin, from a traditional Flagler County school almost three years ago after classmates bullied him. Cestare said she appreciates Imagine’s focus on character development.
‘Kids are kids, but that kind of thing is not allowed to continue there,’ Cestare said. ‘That kind of stuff is nipped in the bud right away.’
Justin, now 11, will be in fifth grade and twins Logan and Ansley will be in third grade at Imagine.
To encourage their students to become good citizens, teachers integrate lessons about positive character traits into their plans, said Lisa O’Grady, Imagine’s principal. Teachers can occasionally abandon their regular curriculum for the day and devote that time to listening to guest speakers, writing essays and reading stories that promote those qualities, she said. Students also volunteer for outside organizations like an assisted-living facility or the humane society.
That program ‘is so woven into who we are,’ O’Grady said.
A very different charter, Chiles Academy in Daytona Beach, helps pregnant and parenting teens earn standard diplomas and provides care and preschool programs for children. That school also has expanded over the last three years, growing from about 50 children ages 4 and younger to about 180. It’s a “conversion” charter — it started as a district program but became a charter school in 2002.
MIXED RESULTS
Some charter schools haven’t performed as well as public schools on standardized tests and some educators think it’s important to hold them accountable.
‘I look at it from a taxpayer’s standpoint,’ Heins of Stetson said. ‘I don’t want my money taken out of public schools to fund something that’s substandard.”
If a school violates its charter, district officials can revoke it. But getting rid of substandard schools, or preventing them from opening, can be difficult. For example, the Volusia School Board rejected applications from administrators for Boston Avenue Charter School four times before the organizers appealed in 2005 — and won state and court approval to open.
Last month, School Board member Judy Conte made a motion to close the 3-year-old school that died for lack of a second. The superintendent and staff attorney said the ‘D’ state grade that the school received earlier in the month probably wouldn’t be considered legal grounds to close the school because it had improved from an “F” the previous year.
But some parents of charter school students often say their schools’ low grades and test scores don’t bother them.
Kim White, chair of the Boston Avenue Charter School board, said her son Noah took the FCAT for the first time last year and received all 4s and 5s, the highest scores. It’s unfair to compare Boston Avenue’s test scores to the other public schools because many of the students struggled at other schools before coming there, she said.
Some charter schools do serve students who haven’t done well in other schools, Heins said.
‘To be fair to charters, many of the charters take very difficult populations,’ she said. ‘You have the schools that take your talented kids but you also have your charters that take troubled children.’
Cestare said she’s aware that some of Imagine’s FCAT results haven’t been up to par with the local traditional schools. But her kids are doing well, making the honor roll every term.
‘I don’t put a lot of my trust or my interest in the state scores or the grading,’ she said. ‘What concerns me the most is what’s going on in my child’s classroom.’
MORE CHARTERS COMING
More charter schools are on the way. Volusia and Flagler received applications from three schools to open for the 2012-2013 school year.
Officials with Richard Milburn Academy and Florida Virtual Academy, an online school, applied to open new schools in Volusia. Meanwhile, a group of Flagler parents is seeking to open Global Outreach Charter Academy of Palm Coast, a K-8 school that will specialize in Russian language instruction.
And, some of the existing schools have more applicants than they have space for on their campuses. Ivy Hawn, one of Volusia’s new charter schools, received 565 applications for 300 spots.
That’s a sign that some charter schools are offering niche programs that parents desire, Heins said. Many public school districts are cutting arts and other extracurricular programs and charters are ready to fill that niche. She predicts district officials may even turn some of their own schools into charters.
Hull said she thinks charter schools will likely continue to serve less than 10 percent of public school kids.
‘The vast majority of people are very satisfied with their local traditional public schools,’ he said.
Public school teachers are helping students deal with a lot of difficult issues, including the breakdown of families and community support, Heins said. Overall, the traditional schools are doing a pretty good job, she said.
The same may be true for some charter schools. But unlike public schools, charter schools don’t have long track records, and some close up soon after they open.
Heins said she doesn’t like to see charter schools investing public money to build or renovate school buildings while local district officials are closing traditional schools.
‘We’ve built this beautiful campus and we have outfitted it and landscaped it,’ Heins said. ‘How do we know that in three to five years that it’s going to still be here?'”
Article published on August 21, 2011 by the Daytona Beach News Journal