MUSD to charter six schools

Chartering schools within the Maricopa Unified School District comes down to growing the student population and having more money to pay for academic programming – two issues the district has long struggled with.

Members of the governing board took the first step to charter five elementary and one middle school Wednesday when they unanimously voted to accept charter school applications from Butterfield, Maricopa, Saddleback, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa elementary schools, as well as Maricopa Wells Middle School.

“This is a vehicle to get us to where we want to go (academically),” Superintendent Steve Chestnut said during the meeting.

“That’s the whole purpose of creating a charter. You want to create an area of focus that will improve the academic achievement of students,” he said.

Each school will spend the 2013-14 school year developing a plan for what type of charter school it intends to be. The board eventually must approve each plan.

“I think that’s what I’m most excited about, the conversations that we’ll have as we develop these charters,” Chestnut said.

Arizona allows public school districts to charter schools and receive additional funding.

Chestnut said chartering six of the district’s nine schools – one school at each level in the district must remain traditional by state law – the district stands to get $4 million in additional state funding.

For instance, he pointed out, if the district’s schools remained status quo it would get about $14.7 million in state funding, but by the second year of the charter, the district would be getting $18.7 million.

Per pupil state funding is $4,274 for traditional schools within a district and $5,438 starting with the second year of a chartered district school.

Charter schools do not receive unrestricted and soft capital money, nor are they eligible for override money.

When pitching the idea of chartering schools to board members, Chestnut pointed out that charters have more flexibility in the number of school days offered and can create their own academic environment from blended learning (a mix of high-tech and traditional schooling) to a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education to a Spanish-language immersion programming to a performing arts focus or some other core curriculum decided on by the school, parents and the school community.

He said chartering schools would offer local parents more school choice and could attract students from other school districts, as well as curb the outflow of students leaving the district.

***ADVERTISEMENT***“We want to create attractive programs that will have a waiting list at each school, that’s our ultimate goal,” Chestnut said.

And, unlike in many charter schools, MUSD would use credited and “highly qualified” teachers and they would be paid in accordance with current district practices.

School board president Torri Anderson said Wednesday while she has long favored traditional public school education, the “reality is our state has redefined public education. … And, our state has turned education into a competitive-driven commodity.”

“So, why not jump on board and be a part of that competition and make our schools the best, and if this gets us to that level our goal is to be an A district … to me that’s my goal,” she said. “Why do our kids deserve any less? So we can let this competition fail us or we can use this competition to make us better. I choose to make us better.”

For an in-depth look into MUSD’s foray into establishing charter schools within the district, read the July edition of InMaricopa News out July 3.