D.C. Public Charter School Board Determines Schools’ 2010 Status

The D.C. Public Charter School Board meeting held Monday evening in Columbia Heights granted the requests of two public charter schools, and later motioned that two out of the 11 schools reviewed would receive a charter warning for the 2010 academic year.
The eight members of the D.C. Public Charter School Board (PCSB) evaluated 13 of their public charter schools, based on feedback from the 2009 academic year and the strategic planning for the upcoming year. The PCSB meets on a monthly basis to discuss the progress of their schools, acknowledge specific requests, and to motion a charter review analysis for each school.
Board director, Tom Nida, opened the meeting and asked for a motion on the agenda, and further explained the intended goals for the evening. “You don’t score extra points for dragging this out tonight,” he said with a laugh. The objective for the evening was to compare information, depth, and content of each school’s plan.
Cesar Chavez Public Charter School for Public Policy started the meeting by requesting to lift the notice of conditional continuance. The school was admitted to a year long period of conditional continuance beginning January 26, 2009 for not meeting the academic criteria. The members of the Cesar board presented PCSB with their progress over the past year, covering all 26 requirements and only have to further improve five of them. Their other campuses, Capitol Hill, Bruce Prep, and Parkside all improved their math and reading scores by a minimum of 20 percentage points.
One parent, Kimberly Bryant, approached PCSB with her concerns about non-academic issues, listing 15 problems she had with the Parkside school system. “This has been going on for the past three years, and it has not been addressed” she said. Bryant believed that the safety and care for students were just as important as academics. Cesar board member, Jeff Cooper, defended the actions of school system. “There are certain areas we need to go a bit further than we have,” Cooper said. “We just need to work harder at some.”
The board judges the schools’ progress based on the Performance Management Framework (PMF), which took effect in fall 2009. PMF is a tool that evaluates a school’s academic and non academic measures as well as each school’s unique mission. Each school must meet the five academic performance indicators -- Student Progress, Student Achievement, Gateway measures, Input measures, and Mission specific measures, and three non-academic performance indicators – Compliance, Governance, and Fiscal Management. If a school meets all of these requirements, the school is not a candidate for a charter warning.
ALTA Public Charter School and Potomac Lighthouse Public Charter School were two candidates that received charter warning. ALTA did not meet the academic or governance standards set by the PCSB. The school was offered an open forum to defend their case in order to prevent a charter warning. ALTA board chair, Donna Potts said, “Our review does not reflect the progress that ALTA has made.” The ALTA development director presented the PCSB with the improvements the school has made since the last analysis. She explained that special education needs are now being identified, whereas last year they were overlooked. But their general performance ranked ALTA 50 out of 50 with a GPA average of an F, therefore the PCSB motioned for the school to be on charter warning.
Nida wanted to clarify to the candidates that charter warnings should not hold a negative connotation. “The charter warning is to get everyone focused,” he said. “It’s not a punishment. The warning is to make sure there’s not a problem next year.”
The Potomac Lighthouse Public Charter School disagreed with Nida’s outlook after they receive a GPA of a D and discovered that 84 percent of their targets were inadequate. The school refuted the criticism of the board by claiming that their school had met the requirements of the PCSB in prior years. This past year Potomac increased the amount of new students by 75 percent, which left the majority of its students far behind the others, thus decreasing the academic performance. But with the new PMF requirements, PCSB only takes into consideration the school’s performance in the past year and not the existing accountability. The school traded quality for quantity during a tough financial situation, which ended up hurting their academics. With the evidence provided, the board motioned for Potomac to be under charter warning. When asked to comment on the PCSB’s decision, members of the Potomac board deferred the questions.
Once all the forums were closed, Nida motioned to adjourn the meeting. As a final disclaimer, Nida reminded those that were not candidates for charter warning to keep improving their schools. “This is not a get out of jail free card,” he said. “Don’t let anything go down.”