What I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before I Opened 1999 Charter Schools National Conference March 14-17, 1999 Denver, Colorado

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And welcome to our first session this morning -- What I Wished Someone Had Told Me Before I Opened. We have been asked that if the people in the back would please move up, it would be appreciated because later, as questions are occurring, they have mikes scattered in the audience, and we don’t have a difficult time hearing your questions. So if you could move up, we’d appreciate that.

We have a wonderful panel this morning that’s going to talk about this topic. And the way we’ll arrange things is I’ll ask each of them to introduce themselves and say just a few words about their school, the kind of student body they have, where it’s located, that sort of thing. And then we’ll go down the line and ask them each to address the topic briefly and then time for some inter-panel discussion and questions from the audience, comments from the audience, maybe items that you’d like to contribute to the topics as well.

So I’m Wayne Jennings. I’m from St. Paul, and I’m involved with several charter schools there in Minnesota. So beginning with Gail here, I’ll ask each to introduce themselves and say a word about their school.

My name is Gail Wright, and I’m the director of Macomb Academy. We’re a charter school located right outside the Detroit area. Our school is designed to provide a school to work transition model, predominantly for special needs students between the ages of 18 and 26. We’re chartered through Central Michigan University. We have approximately 60 students. We have two teachers, a tremendous amount of support staff. We are designed to provide a community based employment treating program. And I have to applaud how many of you are up and about at this time in the morning.

They weren’t out boogying late last night.

Right.

My name is Brett Peiser. I’m the cofounder and principal of the South Boston Harbor Academy. We’ve been open about 115 days, so I’m up here with a little humility, knowing full well I could of been down there instead of up here. So please, my perspective is one of -- that I’m going to be taking notes while other people are talking up here. We’re a Grades 5 through 7 middle with 120 students. We’ll be expanding on grade per year until we’re eventually 5 through 12. Next year we’ll be Grade 8 included. We have 20 students per class, and we’re a college preparatory school with a special focus on math and science. Our school year runs about 190 days, and our school day runs from about 8:00 to 3:30. Our population is about 40% free and reduced lunch. And we have primarily been focusing on getting our processies down over these first 115 days. So the perspective I have, as I mentioned before, is one of what I would of done, probably, over the last 115 days rather than what are we going to be doing next year.

I’m Karen Butterfield, and I’m impressed that Brett is here and still alive and standing and sitting, so. I am founder and executive director of Flagstaff Arts and Leadership Academy in Flagstaff, Arizona. Our charter school is in full partnership and located on the grounds of the Museum of Northern Arizona. And the first to do so in the nation, back in August 1996. We serve 140 kids in Grades 9 through 12. And our focus is a rigorous academic program with, also, a balance in the visual and performing arts.

Good morning. My name is Jonathan Williams, cofounder, codirector of the Accelerated School. We’re located in South Central Los Angeles area about three quarters of a mile away from the University of Southern California. We have a partnership with the California State University System at Los Angeles, particularly where the Accelerated School’s center is housed. The accelerated school’s project is about a project that encompasses 42 States, and there’s about 1,200 or so accelerated across the nation. And the Cal State University, Los Angeles is the regional center for the Southern California Region. We currently serve 170 students in grades Kindergarten through 7. We opened in 1994 with 50 students in Grades K through 4. We’re currently in the strategic planning phase to kick off a capital campaign to realize our next phase, and that’s the K build out that will be probably about 100, I’m sorry, 784 students in K - 8.

Okay thank you, panelists. Now, we’ll ask the panelists to make their observations on some of the things that they wished someone had told them. And Gail, would you begin?

Certainly. Macomb Academy is actually in its fourth year of a five-year contract with Central Michigan University. But I clearly remember the start-up process that we went through to become operational. We were one of the first schools in Michigan to be chartered. We were initially chartered through ISD. And the day after the State Superintendent visited us, we found out that the next day we were to get our first State aid payment. And we found out that the legislation had been challenged and, in deed, ruled unconstitutional. So we had been approved by the State Department of Education, but now we’re not operational to receive State aid. That brought a lot of problems, certainly. We did find money to be able to run. And it was in December that we were called to Lansing and found out that if we could directly affiliate with our ISD, we would continue to be operational. We did that and extended our instructional year as long as possible, which was to the end of June, to get as much money as we could to operate. After that our ISD found out that it was too political for them to charter us again, and so we then approached one of the universities which was Central Michigan University, which charters a great deal of these schools in Michigan. We became chartered through them. I think that was probably an interesting process because we were one of the first schools chartered. Today, I’m having another experience. I have applied for an application now four years later for another school, and it’s a totally different process, very defined, very structured. And when we first did this, we were part of the learning curve, and we were all in it together. And certainly, Central has come a long way. Both processes have been a real interesting experience.

Just some of the key issues that when we were setting up that we faced and, I’m sure, that in each State there are different issues. But in Michigan one of our biggest problems is to find facilities. And as such, we were fortunate. But it’s a process of trying to convince someone to take a risk, many people to take risks with you. And the first one was convincing someone to lease us space when we didn’t even have a charter. I was successful in doing that. I look back, I don’t know how. But I guess it’s one of the things that I feel that you need to have, a strong belief that it’s going to happen because you’re going to have to convince a lot of other people who are a bit skeptical. Now, it’s a little bit easier because the charter school movement in Michigan is recognized and people are much more vocal, and it’s understood. But initially, when we were looking for facilities, it was not.

Second major obstacle we faced was trying to get approved by the Fire Marshall. And again, there was no clear path laid out at that point in time because they didn’t know much about charter schools, and it was an interesting process. But eventually got through that with the help of a lot of people. And that’s another thing, you need to make a lot of friends along the way and articulate to them what your purpose is. As long as they’re believers, people go a long way if they believe in what you’re about. There are many key components. I’m sure you’re facing a lot of them. Hiring staff is certainly one I feel is the success of the school, to find dedicated people who are going to be willing to go with that first year and go through all of the ups and downs.

And the other issue is that a lot of us do many things within our schools. Our school is in Michigan. We’re allowed to use a management company or have a board of directors who hire the administrator. In my case, I’m hired by a board of directors that I report to. The board of directors works just like a school board in a local school district. And we had a great deal of difficulty at first hiring people to stay with us. We were not getting the kind of people we wanted but, eventually we have, in over four years, have had a very stable staff now.

Other critical issues, I think, that we looked at was trying to, obviously, get our enrollment. We had a unique situation where local school districts were more than willing to send their special needs students to us at the age of 18. So we weren’t quite as critical on enrollment as others might have been. Our design was to take these young people out of the high school and transition them into employment and independent living. And as such, there was a real need for the program in the county. And we had the blessing of the ISD and a lot of the local school districts. So most of our problems fell within getting operational. And there are just a tremendous amount of every day obstacles. And I remember the gentleman at Central Michigan University who is no longer there, but that was the head of the chartering movement at that point in time -- told me, I think in about June, that I would not get a charter because they couldn’t make it happen. I told them we must have a charter. And he believed that we could do it. And eventually, we were chartered to open. That’s one of the key issues, just putting all of the pieces of that puzzle together to get everything in place. So I know you’re all probably in the process, and I’ll let you go ahead and give your background. Thank you.

We received our charter about a little over a year ago on February 25th. And we had to recruit students by March 27th. So that gave us a month to recruit students, offer the people a chance to think about whether or not they want to come then offer waiting lists. Families a chance to think about things and then still submit things. And at that point, there was two of us, myself and my cofounder. And we received 244 applications for 120 spots in about three and a half weeks, which, I think, speaks less to our selling job and more to sometimes the desperation of families and their lack of options. Because at that time, we had no building, no teachers, no curriculum, no textbooks, nothing that you’d normally expect to see in a school. It existed on a piece of paper. So definitely, the emphasis on getting up early and staying up late was something that was kind of ingrained in our whole process over the last year.

I know last year, if I were doing this again, the most valuable information is very, very specific information that is, unfortunately, very unique to each State, each school, each charter school legislation. In Massachusetts, the State grants the charter, not the district. So the information that I know took us a long time was, for example, identifying a very inexpensive internet service provider. It took about a month to do something like that, and just stayed on the phone, and phoned and phoned and phoned. Or, even collecting fax numbers of local education schools or colleges or places to recruit teachers since, as Gail pointed out, the teachers are the most important part of the school since they’re going to carry the school forward. So some of the things I recommend or can offer advice on are probably more philosophical issues because the nitty gritty is so specific to each State.

First of all is always remember that you have a vision for the school. That’s important. And sometimes, you can lose sight of that when someone’s been sent to the office or when the textbooks are late or when the Fire Marshall won’t give the permit or whatever it may be. And it’s important that parents, students and teachers remember what that vision is. And if you can articulate that vision in five or ten concrete ways, making sure people are onboard with that, it’s a big deal. This is not to say that teachers in our school have a great deal of autonomy, but the thing is there is a vision. The charter is a contract between the founding group and the State. And therefore, certain provisions of that charter have to be accomplished. So making sure people have that vision. We put all of our lesson plans, for example, on our internal computer network. Every Monday everyone puts the previous five lessons on the internal network so that at the end of the year, we’re going to have a thick book of lesson plans. So even if someone were to leave, they’ve left their curriculum behind and it doesn’t go with them. And in September and October, there was a little bit of resistance on the part of some of the faculty members. And that was something that was kind of a cornerstone of our school in the first year. So that’s what I mean about writing down those five or ten nonnegotiables in your mind, as part of the founding group, that you really want to see happen in order to have a successful first year.

A second point is that it’s very tempting to go down the path of philosophical discussions and pie in the sky ideas. The problem is schools run on the nitty gritty. They run on the lunch schedule. They run on the teachers’ schedule. They run on where the students are at every moment of the day, not that you have to have some dictatorial regime that you know where they are, but there definitely has to be some sort of supervision. So when you’re in that opening process and you’re talking about large scale issues, if you can, if you’re having that discussion, try to narrow it down to what are the nitty gritty issues. One thing I’d recommend is to take a walk-through from the perspective of the student. They walk up the stairs, they sit down in their chair, the bell rings, and those types of things. So therefore, you have to make sure is the door open or is the door closed. Is the furniture there? Have you ordered it? Do you have a bell system? Or, I mean, these are the types that you’re going to face. Our phones were not turned on until 7:45 of day one. And it’s those types of things that we had to probably deal with early on. So that’s something you have to keep in mind -- is just focus on the nitty gritty at this point in terms of getting it done. And everything else will smooth much more smooth, everything will slow much more smoothly.

A third point is assessment. Don’t wait until next year to think about assessment. It’s so important because everyone is part of a charter school to improve student achievement, among many goals, but that is certainly one of the primary goals. And therefore, you certainly have standardized exams so don’t lose sight of base-lining students. You certainly have teacher written exams and the progress students make in the day to day classes. But after that, think of an alternative way that each teacher can assess the progress of the students because for too long, I think, many people feel that certain schools have relied too much on not a concrete way of measuring whether or not students have learned. And so I would recommend baseline everything. I mean, in art have them draw something beforehand that they’re going to draw later in June so they can show some improvement in art. In computer class, for example, do something as simple as typing. Baseline how fast they type versus how fast they type at the end of the year. In history and science. And come up with those alternative ways, whether it’s portfolios, which we haven’t actually adopted yet. Because we’re really, what we’re trying to find is an assessment that has a clarity of standardized exams but something that teachers can create. And it’s very tough to kind of do that, but it’s so important because when you’re in the maelstrom of every day schools, it’s kind of hard to step back and think of such a big picture item.

Teachers, teachers, teachers. That would be the fourth piece of advice. There’s two things you’re working on in the whole founding process. As Gail pointed out it’s facilities and teachers. And fortunately, we had two people, myself and the cofounder. She was working on the facilities piece and I was working on the teachers. Advertise everywhere, make sure that the people that you bring on-board buy into that vision. You’re not just looking to hire teachers who are dissatisfied with their prior position or who want to just come in and have their own, you know, personal agenda. And I don’t mean that in an nefarious way. I can’t imagine anyone going into education for an nefarious reasons. But people that have, that are working within that vision. So we have a dress code. We use our computers tremendously, by sharing information. We have a longer day and a longer school year so when come November, you don’t want to hear anything about it because you want people who are already aware that’s what’s part of this school makes it different. That also relates to something very specific. And I might be in a minority about this, but I would say I would not recommend hiring new teachers the first year. You do want to harness their enthusiasm and you do want to kind of grow people at your own, within your system, within your school, but there is so much going on. You know, we’ve been open 115 days. We’re in a city where a school’s been open for 350 years. And there’s just a big difference. And unless you’ve built into your school schedule a tremendous mentoring program and tremendous support system, if you’re going to ask teachers to kind of work out on their own, I would not recommend hiring a new teacher. Likewise, hire teachers who appreciate the new situation that they have because, for example, when I was teaching in New York City, I had five classes, three subject preparations, three classrooms, 175 students. I mean, I’m sure everyone in this room is familiar with that story. At our school no teacher has more than four classes, no teacher has more than 80 students, no teacher has more than two subject preparations, everyone has their own classroom, everyone has their own comfortable chair, T1 internet access, e-mail, computer, phone line and so on. Because we’re trying to run our public school like a private organization would. And so make sure you have people who appreciate that change and not take things for granted that make the school a little bit different.

And finally, if I could end on one thing is make sure people understand what a charter school is. We actually just took a poll of students to find out if they knew. And the answers were astounding. One student said, "A charter school is a school that selects people from a raffle." Another one said, "It’s a school near the water." And that’s where we’re located. And another one, actually, I brought one because it was that particularly funny. "A charter school is a school that can have the principal decide things without having to get permission. So if the principal decides to have a dance, he can and he doesn’t have to ask anyone." And so the fact that students -- And I have copies if people are interested in what others are saying. Parents tell. There are parents that will come to us and say, "You know, I’m surprised he’s having trouble. He was at another charter school and so it’s very familiar with the charter school curriculum." And when she said that, it kind of rang in my mind that she thinks it’s like a big conglomerate even though it’s a very specific school. And likewise teachers, to remind them always, this is an unbelievable opportunity that people have. I mean, charter schools, you know in many ways. Sometimes I’ll talk to traditional public school administrators, and I know the deck is stacked in my favor. I mean, I’m not denying it. And it’s almost like comparing apples and oranges sometimes because of the hiring, firing flexibility, because of the flexibility. We had a food service provider that just didn’t work out, and we ended the contract. I mean, it seems such an obvious thing, but a lot of districts are hamstrung by those types of things. So remembering that golden opportunity that both students, parents and teachers have is something that -- it seems so large scale and so knocked down to there. If you can keep reminding people every day. The whole school is sick of me counting up towards -- This is our 110th day, this is our 115th day. But that will shape the expectations in what you can do during your first year, your second year and years beyond.

Good. Karen.

I would like to share with you the importance of being flexible and being patient. When we opened in August of ‘96 and even going back several months beyond that, we had received our charter from the State Board of Education in January of 1996. I did not have a site for the school. By the end of February, we had reached a formal agreement with the Museum of Northern Arizona and started ordering modular buildings. So all of a sudden, I started wearing a hard hat and architectural hat and not knowing a thing about modular classrooms. And ordering six 28 by 60 buildings, dealing with site issues. I know more about Class A5 fire alarm systems than I ever want to know about. And also, the issue of being patient with obtaining permits. We were, literally, we had open trenches two weeks before we were to open school. We had to delay that opening by another two weeks because we still had those trenches and did not have our final inspections. On our first day of school, we were across the street at the museum having our student orientation while the State Fire Marshall was inspecting the modular classrooms. So you’ve got to be extremely flexible and patient. And as Brett stated, believe in your vision and your mission of your school. And keep reminding yourself and your faculty and your staff what that vision is.

I also would like to share with you several P’s. One beginning with partnerships. Because I began my school after 20 years of being with my local school district. My own district denied my charter. And after we had opened, two months later I called the local superintendent and invited he and several of the board members to come and see what we were about. I think because of that perseverance and, again, patience and also being very careful with politics, we were able to nail a bus transportation contract with the district. Over 60% of our kids need bus transportation to get to our rural site. We are literally in the woods on 400 acres of ponderosa pine, so we needed that bus transportation contract. We were also dealing with the politics of me opening up a school with the Museum of Northern Arizona getting calls going, "How dare you open up a charter school," and them losing membership. Of some of my local peers in the local district saying, "Karen, how dare you do this. You’re stripping funding from us." And again, you have to hold your head up high and persevere and believe in what you are doing. And because of that belief, now the new superintendent wants our school a part of the district.

I would also like to share with you parents, another big P. Although the bulk of our parents, and I’m sure every member on this panel can say the parents are an outstanding contributing factor to the school’s success. You’ve got to be prepared for the dysfunctional parent who comes to your door thinking your charter school’s going to be miracle for their dysfunctional child, for their dysfunctional families. I have had to have restraining orders put on a couple of parents. I had a recent restraining order on a special education student who threatened my life. And you’ve got to be prepared for that. It’s no fun but you’ve got to be ready for it. And again, form those partnerships so that you’ve got the backing and expertise to assist you with those difficult situations.

Personnel is another big one. We spent all Summer hiring 25 personnel and teachers for our small school. It has taken us three years to evolve the best team of teachers and staff we have ever had at the academy. I’m the first to state they are the best group in the United States. But it takes time, patience and perseverance, again, to develop that team of who best fits to follow the mission and philosophy of your school. Last May we had three weeks of school left. We ended up firing one of our teachers for unprofessional conduct. I had to make the decision, "Do I wait out the last 30 days of school or get rid of this guy? And I thought for the health of the school, we need to get rid of him. Again, that is the nice flexibility of a charter school. If I’d been with a district dealing with politics there, it would of been two years before that teacher had been eliminated from the system. So we were able to move very quickly, with my board of trustees following due process and replace that teacher with the right teacher in the classroom.

Be ready, also, for unexpected situations anywhere, from surprises. We opened up our school with the belief that our students would enroll with kind of like a major and a minor in the arts, but we’re now finding out we have got kids who are at our school who have never had an interest in the arts. And they are thriving in our environment because of it. So we’ve got violinists who are now dancing. We’ve got dancers who are now becoming visual artists. We’ve got photographers who have never picked up a camera in their lives and doing their own videography and film projects, in partnership with the museum. So those have been nice evolving surprises regarding our student population. And also, tweaking our mission and our philosophy of the school, by going through North Central accreditation. We just received that final stamp of approval in December, another huge accomplishment for our school. But on the other side, and when we opened in August of ‘96, in September we were invited to perform for President Clinton when he signed a historic bill at the Grand Canyon. That greatly unified our school very fast. They didn’t sound as great as they do now, but we still went out there and performed. Two months after that, we had a student suicide and it devastated our school. So again, those partnerships within your community, we had victim witness, we had the police. We had support from the local school district with counselors at our school site the next day. And we learned a lot from that process and growth. And it’s still very difficult for me to talk about that experience.

And last but not least, make sure you keep your personal lives. It’s extremely difficult to do as you develop your charter school. I have a wonderful supportive husband who has been by my side at every State Board meeting, every local district meeting as I went through the process. He’s at home right now making sure my kids get to soccer practice, girl scouts and to school every day. And I’ve got a fantastic team that, as I’m here today and on my way to Washington D.C. to meet up with our Juniors for an integrative trip tomorrow, I know I’ve got a staff at home who can continue on with that school. And always look at the light at the end of the tunnel. We, like Jonathan, we’re in the process now of seeing that light at the end of the tunnel, with working with an architect with the museum for the final version of our permanent facility. And our next goal is to raise three million dollars, and we’ll do it. So keep the vision and keep the perseverance.

Thanks, Karen. Jonathan.

I think Karen definitely captured it there at the end when she said perseverance and believing in what you do. It really is critical when we begin the process, the district told us, as being one of the first start-up charter schools in Los Angeles, that we needed to raise 200,000, find a fiscal agent and a facility in six months. Well, we were classroom teachers so finding the time to find that kind of money, to find a suitable facility in that short time period was a huge challenge. However, believing in what we were doing, knowing that it was something that was great, that was for kids, for teachers as well, we went down the road and hoped that we’d be able to acquire the necessary expertise as we went along. We were hopeful that we’d be able to find a principal who had the experience, who knew the Ed. Code and knew that this was such a great opportunity that they’d be exempted from so much of it, but to still have that knowledge base, was critical we felt. When we began to ask around and try and seek out persons who might be able to fulfill this position, we found not one applicant. So we actually began to realize that, "You know what? We’ve got to be responsible for this whole thing." So at 2:30 when the bell rang, we dismissed our school, we began establishing files. Those files were in our trunk. We purchased a cellular phone, we purchased pagers. That was our virtual office. We established a P.O. Box from which we could begin to generate letters. And it was very exciting, in that our first check actually was delivered to our P.O. Box with no contact. It was a cold proposal that was submitted for $30,000 to one of the local foundations, the Wydrimp Foundation, and they mailed the check without a call, without anything. So, obviously, $30,000 was not enough for us to get started, but it was a big chunk that we could then go and purchase a fax. Because what we were doing prior to that is we were passing a hat around the room from teachers, getting $20 here, $10 there. Whatever they can put in the hat in order for us to reproduce material. And this was after a pay cut had been imposed on the teachers that year, which was a large motivation for us to say, "You know, maybe we should look at charter because there is no connection between performance and pay." And we felt that that was a large part of we really wanted to see. If we were to see student achievement increase, obviously, something would have to happen differently inside of the classroom. So we felt that there had to be a direct connection there.

So anyway, we established our virtual office and we hit the pavement and started looking for facilities, which was a huge challenge, as I would image in most urban areas across the Nation. Fortunately, at the same time, we had began the other thing that Karen mentioned, which was a partnership with Cal State University, Los Angeles. And because the dean of the Charter, now, Charter School of Education there, knew someone who knew someone who knew of a company that was moving. We began our search around this particular facility. It actually happened that Carol Little, fashion designer, was planning to move her headquarters. So we began our search in that area and came upon a Catholic Church Sunday School Facility that was, 40 years ago, primarily in South Central Los Angeles, primarily Hungarian and German. And in fact, today still that Parish has now added an English and a Spanish session as well, but they still are primarily Hungarian and German so the Sunday School classrooms were only used on Saturdays and Sundays for the Hungarians and Germans who would commute from as far as 60 miles away to still come on Saturdays and Sundays to use those rooms. But they were then unused Monday through Friday. That began our first facility at that Catholic Church. It was only enough room for two classrooms and there was a parking lot that we converted quickly to a playground. So flexibility is also something that’s critical. We had, ideally, wanted to open with 250 students, six grades. You know, a very large school. But reality and adaptation were really critical there because there were no other buildings around in our area that already had a certificate of occupancy, which is a whole another list of other requirements from the City that we had to be able to become quickly aware of is the permitting and zoning and everything else that goes along with that. And the costs that are associated. So we were real fortunate to get that $30,000 that helped to offset some of those costs, allowed us to purchase a laptop computer, to really document information as we acquired that information.

Then approaching April, we still didn’t have enough money to open. We had found a facility. We had looked at several facilities. We had Cal State signing on as our fiscal agent. But we still need a lot more money, so we began to write much larger proposals. We wrote a proposal to the Wells Fargo Bank Foundation and they funded us for the entire $200,000. Again, it was a result of our belief in what we were doing, knowing that we had a great plan and that we were very passionate about doing it, that we had utilized the accelerated schools model and we had recognized some serious student achievement in both math and science on the standardized tests. So it was something that we really, really believed in. And we were able to sell Wells Fargo on a concept that they were definitely skeptical about. They were like, you know, "Well, you guys are, you know, 20 something. You haven’t hired staff yet. You’re talking about a school in September. I mean, it sounds great." They did research on the accelerated schools, model, called Stanford University where it was developed. And said, "You know what. We’re going to do this." Well, since we still had 30 days before we had any students enrolled, we actually had to begin walking door to door, as well, to recruit the students.

One thing we had done, we had searched in the Watts area, where Carol Little’s facility was located was five miles away. We didn’t want to lose any our students. And that’s the reason that we changed our search. So we had to then hit the pavement. And Kevin and I, Kevin Smed, my codirector, cofounder, and I walked door to door in South Central after we did all the work for the program during the day. At nighttime, walked through the community. And you’d see this black guy and this white guy knocking on, you know, these iron doors. And of course, many people thought, "Who are these guys, FBI, CIA?" You know, and we told them, "We’re educators and we’re opening a school." And after the sigh of relief, they said, "Wow, you know, teachers actually coming out into our neighborhood, reaching out to share some information with us, to open a school, to talk about an orientation that’s going to happen." And they were very much excited. After our first week of walking the community, we had a wait list. And at the end of that first year, the wait list was about 250. And now we have a wait list of over 1,000 students for the 30 spaces that we’ll have next year.

It’s been a really exciting and challenging experience. Something that I would definitely do again. If I had known then what I know now, I don’t know that much would of changed because I think it took not knowing for us to do what we had to do. It really did. And so don’t feel bad about not knowing because if you had that thirst, that hunger, the motivation to do it, you’ll be able to do it because that’s exactly what we did. We had hoped we would bring someone on who’d have all this knowledge and be able to say, "This is where we’re going." But we didn’t get that. And you probably won’t get that. But I think that one thing that you do have that we did not have, you have charter schools development organizations. You have educational management organizations. You have State networking organizations. And the Department of Education now has the Federal Start-Up Grant. I only wished that we had those kinds of opportunities back then. So I really do believe that the charter schools project has really moved very far and very fast. And there’s a wealth of information out there among people here on this panel, as well as though I’m sure some of you in the audience who began the research to give you a, really, a big leg up on where we were when we first began. We were actually the final position that was available in Los Angeles back then. Now, we have a new law that allows for unlimited or up to 100 new charters every year, up to 250 for this year. One that also requires that the districts provide facilities to charter schools, if they are not used. So the laws have changed and improved such that it really provides, I think, an opportunity for those of you who are in the beginning process to really ask some really good questions that you’ll be able to get answers for. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to, but now there’s time and some experience that you can greatly benefit from.

Thank you, Jonathan. Seems like the lesson we might all recognize now is if we had known how much work it was going to be, how many questions we didn’t have answers to, we might not of done it.

Absolutely.

It’s a testimony to the energy and dedication, enthusiasm of all of us and people here on the panel, and you in the room and the others who have started charter schools. That vision and the dream can drive us through all these kinds of problems. I’m going to ask one question of the panel then see if there are questions or comments from the audience, remarks that you’d like to make, things that you’d like to share. Did you experience any issues around special education that serves as lessons for all of us?

Well, I’ll start. Our school is designed for special needs. And we had just the opposite problem. Our curriculum was designed to take students, to transition them. And we started out in our pilot project with, which was done through a local school district, with working with the EMI population, the Educably Mentally Impaired. However, when we opened our doors, we knew that we could not identify a specific disability to work with. In Michigan our charter defines three issues by grade, by age and by curriculum and our curriculum was approved as a life skills program, Grade 12, and ages 18 to 26. So we knew within that range we had to open the doors to all special needs students. But however, the issue became, with our chartering agent, is we were a public school and we could not define to work with any specific population. So we had to do the other. We had to assure them that if we had a student who qualified for a free public education in the State of Michigan, that we could provide a traditional kind of education and not just a specific to the special needs population. We haven’t encountered a lot of that. We’ve got a couple students who had some background in juvenile and a couple with behavior disorders that weren’t special ed. certified. But for the most case, we haven’t had to deal with that issue. But we did have to give our chartering agency the information that we would work cooperatively with another school district to provide any classes that were necessary to complete graduation requirements. So the area of special education now in the State of Michigan is one that I know of the schools have had to deal with. And knowing just the rules and regulations is a full time job. So there’s lots of work in that area, spend a lot of time trying to just keep up. They change constantly. We have so many processes in Michigan, we have what we call an ERM. We have to even get permission to test now. We do a MET which is a Mutidisciplinary approach to it. And then we do an individualized educational plan. Each one of those you have to be pretty knowledgeable about. So it usually requires -- And they’ve developed lots of outsourcing now that you can contact people and contract those services to your school. So I believe that most of the schools in Michigan are providing those services, probably, through contract services. The Easter Seals is one of the main ones in our area that can be contracted. But it’s an issue that could bring some legal issues to the forefront also.

I would add three comments onto that. If you’re making a decision and you’re opening budget whether or not you’ll need someone full time for special ed. is hire someone, make it a priority. Don’t think that you’ll get people, let’s say, who have background in it and they’ll be a regular classroom teacher, that they’ll be able to do both. Because there’s just so much going on, that make it a priority in your budget that you should definitely hire someone to do that full time for your school beginning on day one.

The second thing is keep in mind no matter how many times you ask Karen, you know, how many time in different ways you ask families whether or not -- Even in the most polite ways, even in the most direct or indirect ways -- that if you ask families whether or not their children have any particular need, you’re still, after day one, you’re still going to be identifying kids. In November, December, we’re doing two right now that have had an IEP beforehand that you didn’t have or parents just never gave you any information. So when you sit there and struggle on your application, let’s say, or your questionnaire after your start, you know, "Is there any particular thing we should know about your child?" Keep in mind no matter how many times you phrase the question, people are going to. And that’s their experience with the past. They loath sometimes to give information that they feel there’s going to somehow be boxed into some kind of area or they’ve had a bad experience in the past. So do the best you can in that but, keep in mind, you’re never going to get the full information you need right from day one.

And the third thing is stay flexible. One of the things we do with one our children on an IEP that’s been agreed to by their families, the staff and so on is he’s in his regular classes in the morning and then come the afternoon when really when the problems seem to set in, in terms of his particular challenges, one of our teachers gives up his free periods every day and works with the student one on one during fourth period. And then fifth period we dismiss him and we pay for a taxi for him to go home. It’s a short ride and it’s not a silly, you know, innovative idea in that sense. But it just keeps him out of trouble. But at the same time, he gets the same education. In fact, he gets, in a sense, a better education because he’s getting that one on one attention for two straight hours. So in that sense, is stay flexible, try to. And that kind of brings back from the opening remarks about one of the things to keep in mind is when you have people on board, make sure it’s people -- And I hate using this expression sometimes because it’s overused these days -- is about thinking outside the box. But that’s truly what you need in charter schools because, you know, sometimes you know that a lot of good stuff has happened before and you want to bring that good stuff forward, but the whole opportunity of a charter school is to try something different because you have fewer regulations that aren’t hamstringing you. So be flexible in that sense and be willing, let’s say, to you know have a student who, you know, takes a taxi home every day because that is part of, let’s say, his necessary IEP. So those three things, really, in terms of hiring someone for special ed., making sure getting that information early from parents and third, being flexible with your special ed. children.

I would add that special education is a compliance issue, not only at the State level but at the Federal level. Take it seriously. It can shut you down. You can lose your charter if you do not comply with special education. I cringe when I hear in the media of parents who are denied, their children were denied, access to a charter school because the charter school told them, "Sorry, we do not serve special education students."

Can’t do that.

Cannot do it. So take it seriously. Hire a certified special education teacher for your staff. It will keep you legally above reproach. And our school, we have identified more special need students that have fallen through the cracks of the traditional system, that our State Department of Education has applauded us for. We do a lot of qualitative student study team meetings and screening our students first. So and we have now hired a three quarter part time position in special education. Take it seriously.

I definitely agree with that. But one thing that we’re doing is we’re partnering with the district to provide special education services. And that’s a whole another challenge because the district has the responsibility as the SELPA to provide the special education services. And in past years has done a decent of doing that, making sure that we had an itinerant resource teacher who would come out, serve the kids when the smaller. But since we’ve grown and we’re up to 170 students now, our load is a lot larger so we need a full time person. And the district has identified someone, but the rules, regulations of bureaucracy has prevented that person being released from their school in order to come to our school. So there are a lot of challenges and things that I’d advise those of you who are unable to take it on yourself to make sure that you have a clear understanding with your district or your SELPA as to how best to meet the special needs of the students that you will have. Because we have definitely been a place where parents really want to give their special needs kids because they feel like this is what’s best. This environment, my child will be able to flourish in.

Thank you.

Just a quick comment. Those students who are certified for special ed. also qualify for IDEA funds. And when you are ready and able to do that, and often your intermediate school district or whatever your configuration is in your State, you do receive money from Federal funds for those, so you might want to look into how you get IDEA money.

Good point. I’d like to reinforce something that Jonathan said earlier. And that was that there are resources out there to help people. The early charter schools didn’t have any of these resources. Sometimes people who are starting schools now don’t realize that there are how to do it manuals. There are charter resource or technical assistance centers in many States now. And there’s the Web itself. You know, people sometimes hesitate to call upon people in the establishment, like the Department of Education, but they may have technical assistance centers available or personnel that you can help you with special education or other regulations that we are subject to. So there are a lot of resources available. I think most of you probably know about US Charter Schools.Org, which is sort of like a funnel to all kinds of other resources and sites where you can get information on the Web.

THIS IS THE END OF SIDE ONE

 

I’m going to repeat the question because I think probably people in the back. Question is of Jonathan. Did the teachers have to sign or are they a part of the Union in Los Angeles?

Well, the interesting thing is that I was actually the Union chairperson. I was the Union chairperson. And back in 1992, the Los Angeles teachers, those of you are here remember that we were threatened with a 17 1/2% pay cut. And with that, I told the Union’s leadership that we need to do something very differently if I’m going to remain in this system. And she said, "Yeah right." So anyway, needless to say, I said that we needed to go a different route. The Teachers Union was not onboard then. There were too many unanswered questions, so we proposed a school without Union involvement whatsoever. We felt that teachers needed to be assigned or select grade levels based on their ability to teach those Grades well, versus, "I’ve been in the school 20 years. I’ve taught this class for 20 years. And these kindergartners are my kids, and just the way it is." We felt like that was not in the best interest of children. We felt that we could look at a number of different ways that we can assess whether or not each teacher is the best for the respective grade level. So we opted out of the Union and felt that, at that particular time, there was no way for us to go through all the hoops and circles of the Union while, at the same time, trying to get a charter approved. Again, we were the tenth and final spot, so we really had no time for that, nor was there much desire to be involved with the Union because we felt that we could get the same services elsewhere or if the Union really wanted to play ball then they could look at the needs of our teachers and then design something that works with them. And we’ve been successful at providing them all the support services they need without the Union.

Any comments from others of you about the Union question?

You know, a lot of that depends on your State legislation for charter schools. And in Arizona, first of all, we’re a Right to Work State. And so the Union has not been an issue in our State at all, although we’ve been visited by the Arizona Education Association a couple of times, so.

Michigan and New York would be a little different.

Yeah, Michigan is a little different. The legislation says if you’re chartered by a university, you don’t have to be Union affiliated. If you’re chartered through your ISD or a district, you must be affiliated with the Union. But it’s a clear delineation. And maybe the reasons people choose whatever chartering agency they choose.

In Massachusetts, you don’t. You can hire as many uncertified teachers as you’d like. So there’s a lot of flexibility in that sense. In a sense, however, when you’re searching for teachers most teachers, most potential teachers or previous teachers have already gone through the hoops of becoming certified. So in our school, for example, even though that wasn’t our primary hiring criteria, part of our primary hiring criteria, only one of our teachers is still uncertified.

Okay. Other questions or comments? Yes ma’am.

I’m from the State of Hawaii. And my biggest concern is our State law, our State charter school law, is a pretty weak law. And did any of you experience that and how did you change that or did you start out with a strong State law that helped you do that? For example, we can only convert a public school, an already exiting public school. We can’t start a charter school. And we’re only mandate 25 charter schools in the whole State. We only have two. So it’s pretty frustrating. And if -- The first thing I see that we need to do is work on the law itself, which can be tedious and long. Did you any of you experience that or did you have strong laws to start with?

I’ll comment just from the standpoint of Minnesota. Our first law, it was the first State to pass a charter statute, only allowed for eight schools. And after a year, we had close to eight, so the legislature moved it to 16 and then finally to 40. And now, there’s no cap. So but what we have done in the charter, our charter organization, is to lobby for changes that we’d like to see. Initially, there was no funding for start-up from the State. There was no money for facility leasing, but we’ve got those two provisions in, at least to some extent. And now, our legislature is in session right at the moment and we have about 10 provisions we’d like to see changed in our law to strengthen it.

Well Michigan, I guess ours wasn’t real strong because it was challenged. And actually, that challenge was defeated eventually but then they recreated new legislation to allow us to open schools the following year. We have an organization in Michigan which was developed. And I’m a member of the Board. It’s MAPSA. And they do a tremendous amount to increase the opportunities for all kinds of legislative efforts, as well as we were very active in that first year going to the capitol with our children and things, and approaching all of our legislators, letting them know what our needs were and issues that needed to be addressed. So it was a very active participation on the part of the authorizers, as well as the charter schools themselves in getting the legislators to look at what needed to be done.

As I mentioned before, Massachusetts has a very strong law. Our school started out -- As a good example of that, the strength of that law, is I was in my house with a piece of paper writing the mission. And now, the school is up and running. And when you have an opportunity like that, it kind of reflects about how strong the charter school law is, the flexibility in hiring. On the other hand, there’s also a strength in the accountability as well. If any of you went to the sessions yesterday about Massachusetts accountability, there are very strict guidelines that you need to meet. And we appreciate that, we appreciate that. We appreciate the fact that we go to sleep worrying about it every night because that’s really how schools should be run, that we worry. Are standardized test scores going up? Are parents and students happy? Are we making progress in that sense? And because the law, you know, the question seems to be pointing towards, "I wish I had a strong law." On the other hand is the stronger the law, at least in our case, obviously, the more anger there is towards what you’re doing because of the flexibility you have and because, in a sense, charter schools are basically an insult. And I mean that in the truest sense, to the people before. They’re an insult to local parochial and private schools. They’re even, in a sense, and I don’t mean insult in a negative way for teachers. Because when you ask them to come up with new assessment ways, when you’re asking someone to come up with something new, you’re basically saying is what you may of done before didn’t quite work, in that sense. And even for students because you’re asking them to face for the first time in many of their lives, academic and behavioral consequences to what they did. So the strength of that law is great because it gives the flexibility, but you kind of generate a little more anger, probably, because you have that flexibility.

Where in Arizona, we’re known as the Wild West Charter School State. I mean, it’s very wide open. And I

Tell them how many charter schools you have.

We have 223 charter schools up and running right now and with over 250 sites, I believe. And I was just talking with the State Board of Education Charter School Director this morning before this breakfast session. And she said the State Board of Ed. in Arizona for next year is only chartering five. They could charter up to 25. So that’s a first. They’re scrutinizing the applications a lot heavier now, which is good. The State Charter Board is chartering it’s full 25 for next year. However, my recommendation to you would be to lobby and to contact your legislatures and your congressmen and congresswomen on the importance that there needs to be more flexibility in your law and legislation to offer more flexible avenues and opportunities for educators and non-educators to open up charter schools. If I had been restricted to just my district, I wouldn’t of been able to open up our great school. I had two other options, State Board Charter School or the State Board of Ed. So lobby.

Yeah. So go political.

Wear the political hat.

Yeah. There are people among, for many people who are in education, are not political creatures but there are among us people who enjoy doing that and working at that. It might be helpful in Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana and other States with weak laws to even show the ranking of the States which are confined on the school reform site, which States are ranked from strong to weak. Next question. Yes.

Hi, I’m Sarah Tentella from the Charter Resource Center, New Jersey. The comments that speakers have made have been really terrific. One issue that hasn’t been brought up which is sort of like a giant elephant in the room is governance issues. When you start a school, there are always going to be these governance issues. Would you like to comment on them.

Sure. How are your schools governed?

At the Accelerated School we established a board of trustees that is responsible for the fiscal and legal aspects of the school. However, we also have a school governance structure as well that we really leave to the responsibility of the school site people, parents, teachers, students, to the extent that they want to participate at the school. But it’s really defined by the Accelerated School’s model, where you look at your whole school, you look at your priorities and challenge areas and you break out subcommittees based on prioritizing the top three or four of those areas so that they become working groups. Those working groups report to a larger more reflective body, which is called The School as a Whole. And then they recommend policy to them and they approve it. Now, if those policies have financial or legal implications then they have to go to the board of trustees. So it’s a governance structure whereby parents and teachers really drive the policy at the school site, but when it comes to legal and fiscal then the board of trustees has the sign off there. So it’s a very balanced structure.

Our school also has a board of trustees that operates as any traditional public school governing board. They must abide by the open meeting law. And our board consists of two founding parents of the school, a professor from the Center for Excellence in Education at Northern Arizona University who has helped us with baseline testing, a former Citizen of the Year and banker within our community. And we also have representative from the Museum of Northern Arizona, from their education department, on our board of trustees. And yet, like Jonathan’s school, we also have our on-site operations with myself as executive director and our academic dean who oversees the curricular instructional leadership of the programs. And we have a very active parent advisory council. And we have a parent representative at every one of our board meetings who gives a report and then return, go back to the pack to give a report from our governing board.

We have two boards, actually. A board of trustees which actually hold the charter. If you’re in the stages where you’re trying to determine how many board members you should have and who should be on it, it’s not as important. We used to struggle. Should we have seven, nine, eleven? Can we have an even number if there’s a tie? We found that if there was a tie then we’ve got bigger problems than numbers. And fortunately, we rarely take votes. Myself and the other cofounder are nonvoting members of the board of trustees, so that brings a total of seven and then the two of us. They give us a lot of flexibility on the grounds. We make the decisions. They serve as kind of the larger pictures of fund raising, facility, long term facility and so on. We also have an advisory board of seven members as well. They are kind of the people who want to get involved but they don’t want as much work as the board of trustees. And you have to find a balance between having people that are known in the community or known in the city or known in the State because they’ll help you a lot, in terms of getting resources, getting loans, finding grant opportunities and so on. On the other hand, because they are bigger names, let’s say, in your community, they are probably going to have less time to get involved, let’s say, with that specific. So you have to find a balance between people who can do the nitty gritty stuff that you really need help on but, also, you need also some people who because it’s a political operation in many senses have some connections as well.

Don’t forget your board members should also be firm believers in the vision of the school and its mission.

Yeah.

In Michigan our authorizer clear delineates our governance structure. We are to have between five and nine members. We must have one parent. We must have one ed. person that has an educational background. We operate pretty much as the traditional public school does, in terms of our format, our agendas and all the procedures. They’re on a rotation basis in terms of a three year term. And Central, which happens to be our authorizer must approve, and they interview all of the board members to ensure that they would qualify as board members.

If I could add two more pieces, two recommendations. Have a lawyer and have an accountant on your board.

Always.

Tremendous.

I’m still looking for that. I’d like to add three W’s. You want board members who are going to give you wisdom, wealth and a lot of work.

We have a strange provision in Minnesota in our law. It requires that a majority of the board are teachers employed by the school.

Wow.

That means these schools I run are teacher run schools. That’s a provision in our law that was put in at the very beginning and it was sort of probably the only way we got that law through the legislature initially because it was a way for the teacher Unions to feel they had some, the teachers had some power in the charter school.

We’ve come close to end of the time that’s allotted us. This has been a great discussion. There’s a couple of announcements here. One is that there is going to be a session on extracurricular activities. If you remember the opening session, students raised that question. It’s a hard question for many of us in small charter schools. And so by special request by students, there is a session this afternoon between 5:00 and 6:00 in Governor’s Square. And the request is that if you could send someone from your school to attend this session, it’ll certainly be a good discussion on the issue of extracurriculars. Again, that’s today between 5:00 and 6:00. It’s in the governor’s Square 15. There are some other notes on this blue sheet of changes that’s called Addendum Number Two, changes of rooms and times, etc.

And I wanted to just add one piece of advice. It’s contained in four words for all of us who are working in charter schools. It’s very easy to get carried away with all the wonderful things that are going to happen. This person suggested these words. Under promise, over deliver. Alex, did you have an announcement?

Actually, I wanted to make some more announcements.

Yes. Well, let’s close by thanking our panel and thanking all of you for you good thinking.

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