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Dr. Duncan Mathewson
Introduction
Conversion charter schools are very different from start-up schools. Converting
a mainstream public school to a charter school-of-choice usually involves
many concerns and issues not encountered by newly created start-up schools.
This article is an introduction to a book being written which analyses the main strategies used to save a small, rural neighborhood school annex from being closed by the school board through converting it to charter status. The book will also outline the problems the governing board of directors had during the first two school years of the operation (2002-04) in establishing a new educational model focused on school choice within the Monroe County school system in the Florida Keys.
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Project
Motivation Our neighborhood charter school was converted in three stages. At first, the effort to save this little school was generated by the feeling that it was simply "the right thing to do". Local parents did not want to have the district transport their small children (aged 5-8) over an hour each way to Sugarloaf Elementary School in a bus filled with older kids. Coupled with parental support including a petition of over 600 signatures, there was enough community pride on Big Pine Key to want to keep the school in the neighborhood and to have control over how the school would be run through a locally elected, non-profit organization. |
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After slowly getting the local non-profit organization together and with the charter application beginning to take shape, it gradually became clearer that success could be achieved if the right strategies were used. The goal focused on "proving a school conversion could be done". After jumping through all the hoops presented by the school district, our charter school doors opened on August 13, 2002.
Once we had proved a school conversion could be successful, the emphasis shifted very quickly to developing "a successful school choice model" with school competition and the deregulation of unnecessary rules and regulation in an effort to affect change in the status quo of the public school system.
Strategy
Shift
It did not take long for our newly elected
Board of Governors to realize that we had a real struggle on our hands if
the school was going to be able to survive the next couple of years. We had
to be able to stand on our own feet financially without federal funding assistance
during the third and final year of our contract. Now we have to significantly
increase our enrollment next school year if we are going to demonstrate financial
viability for our contract to be renewed by the school board by July 1, 2005.
Everyone knows that when banks compete, we win; we get lower mortgage interest rates and better consumer services become available. When restaurants compete, we also win; food improves with larger servings and lower prices. Why can't schools compete in the classrooms as they already do on the atheltic field?
Our faculty and board firmly believes that if we challenge our students to reach for higher classroom achievement they will get as good if not better grades than the other elementary schools in the district. This type of friendly, controlled competition will draw more students to our charter school and eventually have an impact on the other elementary schools in our district.
BPNCS believes that this academic competition between schools focused on a grade by grade comparison of standardized test grades can have a very positive effect of raising the bar for standards and expectations for all schools.
Getting rid of unnecessary bureaucratic red tape that makes
it so difficult to get anything done in a traditional school is one of the
things our BPNCS Board is concentrating on. As a full conversion school, we
are always very aware of the district's efforts in trying to inhibit us from
exerting our full rights and privileges for eliminating policies and procedures
as stated we can in the State Charter School Statues and our charter school
contract. The school district seems focused on "cloning" us back
into the mold of a traditional public school which we had previously rejected.
Future Implications
BPNCS can be viewed as a case study to illustrate the changing strategies
used in the three different stages of implementing the conversion. The first
stage, "Mobilization of Community Support" will examine what it
took to rally local support from parents and the business community through
public forums and dialog with school district administrators. The second stage,
"Formulating the Educational Program", will describe the educational
and empowerment issues involved and how we dealt with them. The third stage,
"Developing the Educational Model", will be an insider's look at
how our instructional program was designed to meet the needs of our neighborhood
families while focusing like a laser beam on making BPNCS not only different
from traditional elementary schools but also better.
This case study will focus on topics such as: stakeholders - parents, business community, teachers, as collaborative partners; the teachers' union; the school superintendent; and the Monroe County School Board. The use of the local media will be discussed as the "court of public opinion" as a counter to education politics generated by those who were more interested in maintaining the status quo of the school system than implementing badly needed school reform measures and school choice options. Successful strategies involving community involvement and networking will also be addressed. Additionally, a number of key educational concerns need to be examined in the conversion process including: Title 1 funding, Full Time Equivalent (FTE) politics, negotiating with the local teachers union and dealing with the school board daily to establish credibility through raising academic standards, strict accountability and assessment of classroom progress by all students as required by the No Child Left Behind Act.
BPNCS presents a unique story in our long struggle to save our little neighborhood
school. As the first conversion charter school in South Florida, BPNCS is
only the seventh of fifteen conversions in Florida where almost 300 charter
schools serve over 50,000 students. Much can be learned from the fight to
establish this special little school-in-the-community on Big Pine Key.
Dr. Duncan Mathewson is an anthropologist who has been a teacher for most of his adult life. He has a BA in Geology from Dartmouth College, an MA in Anthropology from Florida Atlantic University and a Ph.D. in Environmental Science Education from the Union Institute & University where he has been a professor since 1994. As a community activist and child advocate, he has been actively involved in the reform of public school education for many years. He organized the conversion of the Big Pine Neighborhood Charter School (BPNCS) to a school-of-choice for working families in the rural setting of Big Pine Key and is writing a book about how the local community played a major role in making this conversion school possible in the face of strong political resistance. The author is interested in communicating with teachers, administrators, and parents involved in other charter school conversions around the United States. Those interested in trading experiences and sharing information can contact Duncan Mathewson through the website www.schoolscanwork.com.
