Charter Schools Off To Slow Start
Charter schools become legal in Idaho in just one month, but it’s unlikely any of the innovative public schools will be cropping up in North Idaho this fall.
The state’s charter school legislation leaves so many unanswered questions, education experts say, that it’s almost impossible for school boards to resolve them in time to write policies for fall approval.
What kind of entities are charter schools? How should they be funded? Who should govern them?
And while school boards wrangle with those questions, potential charter school founders wait, hoping to win approval in time to make it to Boise and beat out the competition.
“It’s pretty much killed for the fall,” said Bill Proser, a Coeur d’Alene educator who had hoped to open a charter college-preparatory high school in September. “We are going to use the time to plan and try and work on our application.”
In addition to Proser, logger and political activist Stan Smith is working with a group of parents and others in Coeur d’Alene on a charter elementary school to open in fall 1999.
On July 1, qualified charters can be approved on a first-come, first-served basis, with no more than 12 schools created throughout the state each year. Under the law, no more than two charters per region and one per school district can be granted, with a five-year maximum of 60 schools.
Charter schools, made legal by the Idaho legislature in March, are designed to give parents, teachers and residents an innovative way of educating public school students. About 800 charter schools operate in 30 states.
But before any charters can be approved, local school boards must write policies about how to grant and govern them - a process many say could take at least several months.
And before those policies - which regulate just about every decision made by school trustees - can be drafted, school boards hope to receive a how-to manual from the state. That guidebook isn’t expected to roll off the presses until later this summer.
“We are far away from having enough questions answered to give you a green light to go to Boise,” Coeur d’Alene school trustee Vern Newby told prospective charter applicants at a workshop last week.
Some of the most nagging questions focus on funding. If charter schools are considered small districts unto themselves, which still is under debate, they could get more money per pupil from the state than other schools in the same area.
Some fear that could prompt existing schools to become charters solely for financial gain.
“You don’t want schools converting just because they get more money,” Sen. Jack Riggs, who served on the legislature’s charter school committee, said at the recent workshop.
But Timothy Hill, who oversees school finance for the Idaho State Department of Education, said if the law is interpreted accurately there should be no inequity between charter and traditional schools.
“The money follows the student,” Hill said. “We need to make sure we’re not paying any more or any less to a charter school.”
Traditional schools are given an allowance by the state to hire teachers. If teachers aren’t hired, the money goes away. But charter schools get to keep those funds regardless of how many instructors are employed.
“I am not against charter schools, but I want a level playing field,” said Ann Souza, chairwoman of the Bonner County School Board. “I wish the state would give regular school districts as much freedom as they are apparently trying to give charter schools.”
But Hill said school boards should think carefully about approving a charter that requests fewer than the recommended number of teachers.
“I would question that because it would keep class sizes too high,” he said.
School trustees from North Idaho have compiled a list of questions about the charter school legislation for the Attorney General.
And now they join prospective founders in waiting for answers.
“I wish I had better answers,” Souza said. “All I have are what-ifs. This first year is going to be very interesting. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”