The Charter School of Morgan Hill has its eye on Burnett
Elementary School as a possible new campus.
The Charter School of Morgan Hill has its eye on Burnett Elementary School as a possible new campus.
Nestled in one of the city’s highest Hispanic populations and one of its most socio-economically disadvantaged, Burnett, located at 85 Tilton Ave. in northwest Morgan Hill, could provide the means for boosting Charter’s numbers in these populations at the 520-student school.
The K-8 Charter school focuses on project-based learning, and its state Academic Performance Index score is 851, above the goal of 800 and the districtwide score of 767. The school has a waiting list of more than 150 students. Since there are more students wanting to attend than there is capacity, the school has an attendance lottery every year. Siblings of attending students have preference. If the school moved to Burnett, they may consider giving preference to students in the surrounding neighborhood, officials said.
The charter school is funded through the state, and this year has a budget of $3.2 million. Charter schools aren’t as constricted in how to spend it as traditional school districts. Morgan Hill Unified School District oversees the charter school, approving its budget and making sure the school’s activities are on par with its mission. For this, the charter pays an oversight charge to the district which totaled almost $90,000 this year, Principal Paige Cisewski said.
For the past five years, the school has been at the Encinal campus, a former district elementary school north of Morgan Hill at 9530 Monterey Road, just south of Bailey Avenue. The school is in disrepair, with dry rot so severe on the overhangs of one building that the students enter the classroom from the back. This is one of the main reasons for the facility change request, Cisewski said.
The Charter School has been harshly criticized by trustees for years for not having demographics that match the district. About 40 percent of the district’s students are Hispanic while just 19 percent of the school’s population is. Recruitment efforts, including holding two Spanish-speaking meetings at Burnett last year, haven’t improved matters, according to district data. District officials suspect the current Charter campus is too far from town for many families. The school offers one afternoon bus that drops students off at Extreme Learning. Like the district, the charter school charges parents for this service.
That’s another reason why Charter’s board listed the empty Burnett campus – closed this summer to save the district $400,000 annually – as its preferred school site for next year.
“Part of our school’s mission and vision is community involvement, and being closer to the community” would help the school achieve that vision, Cisewski said.
Trustee Peter Mandel called it an “interesting opportunity,” but said he’d prefer new superintendent Wesley Smith be given the chance to come up with something “innovative and practical” to do with the north Morgan Hill school before signing it off to Charter.
“I find it intellectually insulting that after eight years of failing to do anything about their demographics, for them to now come up and say ‘Give us this property and we can meet it.’ They could have always funded buses. They have infinite flexibility with their funding. For them to say this is the solution, when they had that ability the whole time, is irritating.”
Trustee Julia Hover-Smoot said she “couldn’t disagree more.
“Burnett is a wonderful, beautiful school. It’s a much, much better layout than Encinal. (Encinal is) terribly old. Charter has done a great job, but it’s still just a crumbling building. (Burnett) is a great site for them and we don’t have any plans for that site.”
New Board President Bart Fisher said he would like to see a cost comparison of keeping the Charter School at the Encinal campus and paying for repairs there versus the cost of moving the school to Burnett and keeping up that campus. Since charter schools are technically public schools, Morgan Hill Unified must provide a facility for them, and the district is responsible for maintaining it. But, the charter school pays for the daily upkeep of the facility, such as gardening and utility bills, Cisewski said.
Trustee Shelle Thomas said the move was a “legitimate question and an obvious question.” Her main concern with a move would be the district’s long-term plan for growth. Could Encinal be used for another purpose?, she wondered.
“There are a lot of pluses here, but we want to manage that with our growth plan,” Thomas said.
The district typically responds to the Charter school’s request in April, but new state regulations mandate a response by Feb. 1. Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini said she would keep trustees apprised of the progress in selecting a site for the school.
