|
Charter school draws 1,000 supporters
By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun
SPRING VALLEY — Grossmont Union High School District Superintendent Terry Ryan, reacted to the opening sentence of the 32-page Steele Canyon charter application by sending a four-page letter to school parents warning them of “risks associated with changing Steele Canyon's relationship to the Grossmont District.”
In his letter, Ryan stated that a small group of teachers is responsible for proposing the change in status from a regular school to a charter school. But Steele Canyon government teacher Charles Tyler, a leader in the charter drive, said 95 percent of
74 full time teachers signed the charter petition. “Only two didn't sign it,” he said, claiming overwhelming support for the charter from staff.
At the monthly board meeting held Dec. 6 at Steele Canyon, the GUHSD board members got a real glimpse of the support for the move to charter, as they sat at a table in the middle of the
gymnasium floor, and nearly 1,000 supporters towered above them in the bleachers.
Teachers, parents and students who addressed the board urged trustees to support the proposal.
“It is rare for teenagers to find a cause we can devote ourselves to,” said Steele Canyon junior Liz
Freeman, who spoke at the meeting. “The reason I’m here tonight, the reason we’re all here tonight is just that, a worthy cause.”
Freeman motioned to the crowd of students behind her, which evoked a brief moment of cheering and clapping.
“This is a cause for all our futures. Please do not ignore us,” Freeman said.
“At Steele Canyon, we want to be number one in the county, and refuse to be held back by the district management,” said Steele Canyon parent and former athletic director Ken Hughes. “We learned in this country, over 200 years ago, that the best government is the one that’s closest to the people. Well, we are the people. We have the teaching, administrative and financial expertise at our school and in our community to do a better job.”
Steele Canyon, located in Spring Valley, is one of GUHSD’s 11 high schools, and serves about 2,000 students in ninth through twelfth grades. Steele Canyon charter supporters modeled much of their petition after Helix Charter High School, the only other charter in the district.
Trustee Ron Nehring recently announced a separate charter proposal for the entire district, to convert the other 10 district school to charter systems.
Some at the meeting said that Nehring’s proposal was a ploy to reject the Steele Canyon proposal.
“That is, at best, a detractor to our efforts,” said Ron Boehmke, a Steele Canyon High School teacher and parent.
Nehring said his proposal was not meant to be a “substitute” for the teacher-led proposal for Steele Canyon High.
“I believe the Steele Canyon charter proposal needs to be evaluated on its own merits,” he said.
In the superintendent’s letter, Ryan raised concerns about enrollment numbers, school demographics and the assumption that charter schools are more successful that standard public schools.
Ryan's letter suggested that Helix Charter has cost the district money and that, contrary to Helix claims, the charter is not run more efficiently than regular schools.
“The district governing board cannot afford to approve another charter school agreement like the Helix Charter, without doing so at the expense of East County youth in our other schools,” the letter reads.
Helix supporters have taken exception to the charge in Ryan's letter that their school's charter agreement “unfairly allocates many burdens and responsibilities to the district” and that “the net effect of this is that Helix has a budgetary surplus at the expense of every student in the Grossmont District.”
A group defending the Helix charter called the remarks untrue and inflammatory, and posted a response online to counter Ryan's charges.
The document, which is unsigned but presented as the “Helix Charter High School Response to Superintendent Terry Ryan's Letter to Steele Canyon Parents,” concludes by asking, “Who is the real burden on the back of every student in the Grossmont district?”
A charter school has autonomy from its district office and is run more independently than regular schools. Charters are managed by their own governing boards and are able to hire and fire staff, control and prioritize finances, develop and design curriculum and instructional programs, and run their own site-based operations. Funding, based on per-pupil attendance, is provided by the state directly to the charter school, which must participate in state-mandated testing to ensure that academic standards are being met.
According to Tyler, the school is now allocated about $6.9 million each school year. As a charter, it would receive about $12.5 million directly from the state. After factoring in the cost of about $4 million for facilities, maintenance and other operational expenses that are currently covered by the district, “we would still end up with $1.5 million more than we now get,” he said.
Steele Canyon opened six years ago, with Tyler as the school's vice principal, and has the second-highest Academic Performance Index ranking in the district — 737, up 18 points from last year. Helix Charter recorded an API this year of 714 — up 27 points from last year's, the greatest increase in the district.
Ryan maintains that there are “literally hundreds of legal, financial, management and educational questions which remain unanswered.”
“It's taken years to develop an award-winning high school at Steele Canyon, and it's difficult to understand why any responsible educator would seek to tamper with this clearly successful and proven model,” he stated in his letter.
“There has been a lot of concern expressed about my recommendation related to Steele Canyon. I'm choosing on my own to remove myself from that process,” Ryan said at the December meeting.
Grossmont trustees have until early February to approve or deny the application. If the board opposes the charter, supporters have the option of taking their petition to the county or the state board of education for approval.
 E-mail
Christy Scott
|
