Charters are still public schools. It’s the phrase both Principal Paige Cisewski of Charter School of Morgan Hill and Head of School Jean Southland of the Silicon Valley Flex Academy have repeatedly said before and emphasized.
Charters work in similar ways to the typical district public schools: they’re tuition-free and receive their funding from state and federal governance based on Average Daily Attendance. Morgan Hill charter schools are separate from Morgan Hill Unified School District, have their own governing school boards and their own separate budgets. Yet they are subject to the same state standards such as state testing and reporting. In addition, teachers and other employees are not unionized.
The school is given a charter by a state-approved organization such as a school district or county office of education and must follow that charter in order to be re-approved, usually every five years. Communities can come together to fund a charter with a specific theme, as in the case with Charter School of Morgan Hill, which was approved by MHUSD back in 2001.
Silicon Valley Flex Academy on the other hand is an independent charter, approved by the Santa Clara County Office of Education. Recently, the county office approved 20 new Rocketship charters. Santa Clara County currently has 47 charters, a demonstration in the state’s recent rise of charter schools. In Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal, he allotted charters an increase of $50.3 million to the general fund of categorical programs due to charter school growth in the state.
Claudia Rossi, MHUSD board trustee, said people need to look at the big picture with charters.
“I look at it with caution. It is good for people to have choice, but at the same time we’re looking at the facts … How many special education students are served, minority students? Are they serving every student? That would be a fair comparison. I am not anti-charter school per say, what I’m asking is for people to look at everything,” said Rossi.
MHUSD looked into the possibility of a locally funded charter last April and are currently looking to discuss the possibility of a dual-immersion program next Wednesday at Nordstorm Elementary which may turn into a charter, depending on public feedback.
Other funding for charters comes from block grants funds instead of specific categorical programs. When districts receive funding for categorical programs, such as technology, they must spend the money in that specific category.
Charters are not subject to these same rules, and the charter school board can decide how to distribute these funds.
Cisewski said CSMH receives the state average for ADA, at $32 per student. Which amounts to about $17,000 per day if all 538 students attend school. Per year, that’s more than $3 million. They receive their additional monies from the lottery (approximately $121 per student), the block grant ($400 per student) and class reduction of K-3rd grade ($1,070 per K-3rd grader).
Themed-learning at CSMH
Charters are not subject to the same regulations that district schools are in terms of curriculum: they are free to design their own.
CSMH, a K-8 school, focuses on what is called project-based learning, a teaching methodology that actively engages students in hands-on experiences and real life problems. Cisewski gave the example of students at CSMH’s agricultural-science middle school class were to receive chickens. In turn, they researched what type of chickens they were getting, drew up blue prints for the chicken coop, determined how much materials cost and actually built the coop themselves.
It’s different than the typical lecture and textbook style that typical public schools may have, said Cisewski.
“Charter schools were started to do some innovation and do education differently,” she said. “There’s a lot of people who are saying that education isn’t working the way it is. And a lot of things that I know that even districts are complaining about is that there are a lot of laws, and restrictions on them. Charter schools were started to try some new things.”
CSMH started 10 years ago when a group from the community came together to discuss the possibility of a charter with more parent involvement. Cisewski was one of those founders, who wanted to try to start a school from the ground-up.
Now at capacity with 538 students, CSMH started out with 167 enrolled students. Now the school has a waiting list of 450, with enrollment based on a lottery system. Priority is given to siblings of current students, children of CSMH employees and residents within the MHUSD parameters.
This might be due to its high test scores, its Academic Performance Index, or API, is 901. That’s 101 points higher than the state’s target score of 800. The highest MHUSD school, Nordstrom Elementary, score has an API of 877. Cisewski has heard the comments that her charter school takes the best students away from the district.
“They feel we’ve taken the cream of the crop. It’s an open enrollment process, anyone can apply, anyone is welcome. We try to reach out to all the communities,” she said.
Location may play a factor, she said, with the school located at the old district-owned site of Encinal located at 9530 Monterey Road, about six miles north of downtown. Without a school bus system, parents need to bring their children to school. CSMH also expects parents to be highly involved with their child’s learning and actively participate in their education.
Silicon Valley Flex
Silicon Valley Flex Academy, a 6-12 school, opened its doors in Morgan Hill at its temporary location at Community Church on West Main Avenue in September, focuses on blended learning. It combines online curriculum with offline lessons and breakout sessions with 10 to 15 students in discussion.
The school has four English, science, math and history teachers and four academic coaches to help with those breakout sessions. The school offers 130 elective courses online for high school students, with options such as video-game design or marketing.
“One of the nice things that charter schools offer our community is it gives people a choice in terms of finding the best learning modality for their child,” said Southland, who has previously worked at CSMH and MHUSD as a teacher.
Flex currently has 154 enrolled students and will move out of its temporary location on Jan. 23. The new building, located near Cochrane Plaza, can hold up to 600 students.
“I hope we get to a point, that charter schools can share what we’re learning,” said Southland. “It’s easy in the press to go oh, one is against the other. But we have similar challenges and similarities. We’re all in the same business, of educating kids.”
