Monday December 31, 2007

Beloit's charter schools work through problems

Posted: Monday, Dec 31, 2007 - 11:44:48 am CST

By Ashley RhodebeckDaily News staff writer

Though branded with School District of Beloit insignia, the charter schools housed at the Eclipse Center receive direction from governing boards composed mainly of parents and community members who are still working to understand their role as the second semester approaches.

Implemented this fall, the Roy Chapman Andrews Academy focuses on project-based learning. The Eclipse Charter School houses special education and the district's alternative programs that help struggling high school students earn course credits.About seven parents, five community members and one Board of Education member have a vote on the Roy Chapman Andrews Academy Governance Board, which is led by parent Jim Wise.

Two parents, two community members and three district employees - Kevin Miller, career and technical education director; Barbara Lake, executive director of student programs; and Dave Luebke, Eclipse administrator - compose the Eclipse Charter School board. It is led by former school board member Regina Dunkin, who said district officials contacted her about the position because they needed someone who had school board experience.

The academy's board meets monthly at the Eclipse Center, and Dunkin said the Eclipse board “meets monthly now.” Agenda items have included writing bylaws, board organization and establishing board responsibilities.District officials maintain some control over the schools - “Charter schools don't hire, they don't fire, they don't pay the salaries of the people doing the teaching and administration,” said Ron Nortier, executive director of operations - but, like the Board of Education, the governing boards have a say in how the charter schools are run.

According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the majority of the governance board's voting members - 51 percent - must be parents or community representatives, and the remaining percent can be staff or school board members, thus making the school more autonomous from the district.In a document dated October 2007, DPI defined the governance boards' autonomy as the “power to make decisions over budgets, personnel and policy.”

Establishing the proper amount of independence has been a struggle for the Roy Chapman Andrews Academy board, whose members have said they felt like the Eclipse Charter has received preferential treatment.Since the academy's inception, its governance board has claimed the district has meddled with the academy's staffing without the board's consent, has charged the board for items it never approved and spent its money on 50 computers mainly used by Eclipse students.The charter schools each received a $150,000 grant, of which the district cannot co-mingle.

Within recent weeks, DPI froze the academy's grant until a revised contract is signed and the finance issues have been resolved.“The reason DPI has put a hold on the (RCAA and Eclipse Charter) grants has everything to do with the appearance of co-mingling funds,” Kimberly Thompson, school board liaison to the Roy Chapman Andrews Academy board, wrote in an e-mail Thursday to Nortier. “This is no secret - Mr. (Barry) Golden, (charter schools consultant) DPI, alluded to this at the joint open meeting between the two boards.”Superintendent Lowell Holtz said the academy's initial board president agreed the school would pay a portion of the technology lab costs and other items both schools would share, such as a secretary.“That's called fair share, not co-mingling,” Holtz said.

Cathy Mark, the district business manager, provided the Daily News with expenditure lists for both schools in separate files. About $137,294 has been spent with the Eclipse Charter grant and, as of Nov. 21, $30,633 is left of the academy's grant.

Problems with the Roy Chapman Andrews Academy have been addressed at Board of Education meetings this fall, yet no ruckus regarding the Eclipse Charter School has arisen. Holtz pointed to the academy's leadership changes as possible reasons why.“Whenever you have a leadership change it really disrupts the apple cart, whether it's in the administration or board,” he said. “In this case it was both.”Miller, the career and technical education director for the district, said the Eclipse Charter may be running more smoothly because the school was implemented more at the direction of the district rather than parents.

“It really was done more with a lot of educational folks who said we know what the students need and know how to implement it,” Miller said, noting a strong relationship between the charter and district must be built so everyone understands what is to happen. “It's much harder to do that when the driving force is outside the institute itself.”