A Charter Schools a’ Coming to Town
There’s charter school news from the third district! An organization called New Schools for Virginia wants to convert the Norrell school in Battery Park into a charter middle school.
My phone has been a’buzz with questions about this project (and charter schools in general), so I thought I’d collect and publish those answers here.
What is a charter school?
A charter school is a public school, run with public tax dollars, that is governed by an independent Board of Directors instead of by the local school board or its administrators.
They make their own hiring and firing decisions, and have more freedom over curriculum, spending, and teaching methods.
This increased flexibility allows charter schools to experiment with new ideas (innovate), and their independent governance often allows for quicker decision-making, making these schools more responsive to the immediate needs of their school community.
How are charter schools funded?
Like public schools, charter schools are entitled to receive local, state, and federal per-pupil funding, though they may negotiate alternate per-pupil rates as part of their charter agreement with the local school board.
For instance: per their charter agreement with the Richmond School Board, Patrick Henry Elementary School for the Arts receives 75% of their per-pupil funding.
They may supplement this funding with “gifts, donations, or grants of any kind” so long as the funding is used legally and “in accordance with the conditions prescribed by the donor.”
Who attends charter schools?
As an extension of the public school system, charter schools cannot charge tuition, and cannot impose special requirements for admission. Seats are often awarded by lottery.
How do charter schools impact local public schools?
Even small charter schools create significant vacancies in public schools.
And, since local, state, and federal tax dollars follow the student to charter school, it can mean a huge hit to the public school’s wallet.
Ex: In 2023, RPS received $17,839 per student. If 50 students were to enroll in a new charter school, the division would miss out on $892,000 in funding; roughly enough to cover 13 teachers’ salaries.
What are the financial advantages/disadvantages of a charter school?
Charter Schools operate independently from the school division, and so do not contribute towards the salaries of division administrators. They can focus their resources on more in-school staff instead, which can in turn provide smaller class sizes or a wider variety of classes.
But, since they do not contribute to those shared division-wide staff/resources, they do not benefit from division services like academic resources, HR, professional development, transportation, etc. Charter schools may offer those same services less efficiently, or they may not offer them at all. (Again, these details vary based on the contract the charter school negotiated with the local school board.)
Supporters of Charter Schools say:
They provide parents with a tuition-free school alternative to their zoned school.
Teachers have more autonomy over curriculum and instruction.
(Some) spending can be done more efficiently
They can try innovative ideas (school calendars, specialized focus) and implement their own measures of accountability for staff.
Critics of Charter Schools say:
They take money away from public schools.
They operate without any oversight from the locally elected school board.
Their staff do not have union representation.
They do not guarantee all the student services public schools provide (ex: transportation), which create barriers to student access.
The Application Process
To start a charter school in Virginia, you need the approval of both the local School Board and the state’s Board of Education.
The VDOE’s Charter School Committee reviews each application, which essentially explains why this charter school is necessary and how the applicant is going to pull it off.
The VDOE recommends initiating the application process a least 18 months before the school’s intended opening date. Applicants are “encouraged” to work with the local school board “in advance of submitting an application” to “ensure a smooth transition for any charter school that may be approved by the local school board and then established within the local school division.”
Reading between the lines here, they seem to be saying “don’t waste the VDOE’s time applying for charter schools that your local school board has no intention of approving;” or maybe “you can’t start a charter without them, so don’t alienate the school board by organizing behind their backs.”
Evidently, this sort of thing happens often enough that they felt compelled to caution applicants from the get-go.
I won’t bore you with all my thoughts on charter schools, but before I go on, I should disclose my bias.
I have a lot of sympathy for those who want to start or attend a charter school. There are many families who cannot afford private school tuition, including those living in communities with underperforming, underfunded zoned schools.
This is especially true in our school division, where persistent poverty and state oversight are compounded by consistently weak governance teams (school boards) that struggle to make timely decisions on everything from cell phone policies (800 days) to legal contracts (575 days) - and only spend “0-10% of [Board meeting] discussions focused on student outcomes” - like the post-pandemic spike in absenteeism, or plunging literacy rates.
There are Board members who take their responsibility to create positive change in the division seriously - and division leadership that are committed to meeting the many urgent needs of the 20,000-some students in their charge. But their work is often drowned out and slowed down by political theatrics that erode public faith and leave frustrated parents wondering if a charter school would be a faster (or perhaps the only) path to improving their children’s academic experience.
That said, I also know that many charter schools fail.
”Within the first three years, 18% of charters had closed, with many of those closures occurring within the first year. By the end of five years, 25% of charters had closed. By the ten year mark, 40% of charters had closed.” Peter Greene
That high rate of failure - often the result of low enrollment, financial mismanagement, and/or weak academic outcomes - raises legitimate concerns about the risk/reward of gambling with taxpayer dollars.
Those risks often deter School Boards from approving new charter school applications. Charter approval is so rare, in fact, that there are only 7 charters in the entire state.
All this to say, I’m skeptical, but I’m also keeping an open mind.
Now let’s pivot our conversation to New Schools Virginia, and their flagship charter project…
The Harbor School
What is their plan? What are their odds?
The creators want to open a middle school at the formerly-abandoned Norrell School in the third district. The property includes a lot of open land for sports, and holds sentimental value for generations of Northside residents as well.
Norrell is not exactly an obvious choice, though. For one, it is in absolutely wretched condition. It’s 60 years old, with a 19-year-old roof at the end of its lifespan, and an HVAC system that has years of deferred upkeep.
Norrell is also occupied. Most of RPS’ central office work out of this building, doubling up in offices, enduring all the usual symptoms of a falling-apart-facility (mold, rats 🤮) and some fun new ones: recurring closures related to methane, formaldehyde, and other dangerous gasses emitted by the Fells Street landfill the school was built on/adjacent to.
If Harbor School moves into Norrell, RPS staff will have to move out. This is not an unsolvable problem - but right now, there is nowhere else for them to go. (This sort of inconvenience to the division is probably why 22.1-212.6. (D) of the state constitution limits charter schools to “vacant or unused properties or real estate owned by the school board.” Hmm..)
New Schools Virginia would then need to invest considerable funds into facility repairs before it can be suitable for student use. We don’t have exact numbers now, but recent elementary school renovation estimates (Fox, Woodville) put such a project in the neighborhood of $25M-30M.
Presumably, this money would come from undisclosed, private donors.
Perhaps New School Virginia will get some help from their Finance Chair, Founder of the DC-based for-profit charter management company, Level Field Partners. His organization provides construction financing for charter schools, and offer grants through a separate facilities fund.
Additionally, New School Virginia’s Board Chair may encourage her employer - Altria - to financially support the Harbor School’s renovation. They already have a reputation as the “biggest corporate donor” to local education initiatives, including gifting a sizable property to RPS for the development of a new trade school. Donating to the Harbor School project would be very on-brand for the $100B tobacco titan, though such speculation is based solely on their overlap with New School Virginia’s leadership team.
Ultimately, your guess is as good as mine. All we know for sure is that they’re undaunted by the fundraising task ahead, and projecting confidence in their ability to get this done.
As for the Harbor School’s academic vision…
”Its competency-based program gives space for the unique strengths, interests and needs of each student, allowing them to find a joyful and deeply personal learning experience that closes historical learning gaps and pushes them ahead.”
I mean this with all sincerity: I do not know what this means.
“We suspected that the best practices of youth development could be the foundation for a school model that would be engaging, uplifting, and effective for our youth.”
What youth development practices? What school model? What is/are New School Virginia’s innovative idea/s? What will they do different from other RPS middle schools? Who are the kids and parents who “co-designed” this school?
I don’t expect to find lesson plans or financial statements on their website, but I am pretty shocked that there are NO publicly available details whatsoever. Just: its a middle school that’s not Henderson.
Community members are desperate for details, too. Everything they know either comes from the rumor mill or newsletters that neighbors have forwarded to one another.
This is perhaps the most puzzling part of the Harbor School project. In 2019 the founder committed to organizing 6-18 “monthly small-group education discussions” (called learning labs) to engage “community stakeholders across profession, wealth, jurisdiction, and race.” They also claim to have “listened and learned from 200 youth, parents, guardians, and educators” between 2018 and 2022, and conducted 175 interviews with “primarily working class families and youth who identify as black, but also professionals and young college alumni who were both African American and white.”
…So why don’t community members know anything about it?
It sounds like a grassroots school-choice movement, born from “fearful,” “disillusioned” parents; but it looks like a charter school designed from the top-down that is only emerging from the shadows now because it’s organizers intend to use public interest (250 advocates) to pressure the School Board to approve their charter application in May, after the VDOE gives their blessing in April. 2024!
Meanwhile, nobody from New Schools Virginia has approached division leadership. RPS staff are totally in the dark. The Richmond School Board is, too. (Well, minus two very independent Board members. Guess who?!)
New Schools Virginia wants to evict central office staff from Norrell, receive hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars, and take ownership a valuable piece of RPS property… but they haven’t given the actual decision-makers so much as a heads-up
At best, this was a well-meaning, poorly-executed plan that had every intention of “inviting all stakeholders, from youth to policymakers, to the table to build relationships, learn and design together, and then test and scale solutions.”
At worst, it’s an ambush born from the founder’s total misunderstanding of a public school system she slams for it’s pervasive conformity, and depicts as test-loving and apathetic to the educational outcomes of Black students, rather than begrudgingly accommodating the same state assessments the Harbor School will have to comply with, also.
I am entirely unsure where the Harbor School falls on that spectrum, or if I could support such a plan. I simply have not received the information I need to make an informed decision - despite my efforts to engage in good-faith dialogue with its organizers. I will keep an eye on this project and report back with updates and/or clarifying details if/when I receive them.
Anywho. If you want to find out more about this project, New School Virginia is hosting a public meeting next week: Wednesday, April 3 at Pine Camp at 6:00.