It felt like they were set up for failure.
In June of 2012, Academic Performance Excellence Academy (APEX) in the heart of East Hollywood was granted permission to convert from a district high school to a charter school. The catch, however, was that their charter school funding wouldn’t arrive until the following Spring.
“Everyone was telling us to wait a year,” says Cesar Lopez, principle at APEX. “But we had students who were counting on us. If it wasn’t for Charter School Capital, we wouldn’t be open.”
Funding from Charter School Capital allowed APEX to open in September of 2012 and make the necessary changes that would allow the school to continue with an important mission. “We take the kids that no one else wants,” shares Cesar.
APEX is the school gives everyone a chance; in fact, they give everyone a hundred. Students dealing with addiction, pregnancy and other issues that may make them unwelcome at other schools find a home at APEX. The school focuses on personal attention for each student as the way to help them succeed and get to college, and it doesn’t shy away from dealing with the hard issues.
APEX provides group therapy and counseling for students dealing with substance abuse and addiction issues. The idea is that off-site options do not work for everyone; so the school offers treatment in the one place they know the students will get it. “We try to be a one stop shop that centers around their education,” explains Lopez. And if a student gets into trouble, they won’t be sent away. “We want you here to learn everyday.”
It takes a special group of individuals to teach students with challenging needs, and having the right people is crucial to success. This was one of the major motivators behind the change from traditional public school to a public charter school.
As a district school, budget cuts from the state had made it harder to operate each year. Moreover, school officials were unable to hire the right teachers for the job. Mr. Lopez saw his staff changing each year, with most teachers transferring or having to be let go because they weren’t a good fit. This made the school’s difficult mandate even harder to meet. But now that APEX is a public charter school, the school has been able to build staff stability, strengthening school operations and student relations.
With reliable charter school funding from Charter School Capital, APEX is set to dramatically increase the number of students they enroll next year, from 250 now to approximately 400. Many students who could have otherwise been lost now have a path to success. By all accounts, APEX Academy has had more than enough reasons to fail, but with its students it is persevering and thriving.
Month: April 2013
– Not to the benefit of charter schools
Last week the legislature’s Assembly Education Committee continued its year-long process of passing anti-charter school legislation that could impact charter school funding. After passing AB 917 earlier this year, which adds classified employees to the list of signatures needed for a charter school conversion, the committee passed AB 1032 this week. AB 1032 radically changes the Proposition 39 facility options for charter schools with new requirements around how you quantify facilities and what the district’s responsibilities are. Additionally, AB 377 was voted down by the committee. That measure would have allowed non-classroom based charter schools to claim ADA for any student anywhere in the state. This is similar to proposals in the Governor’s budget that would address the contiguous county limitation that non-classroom based charter schools currently are hampered by. The anti-charter school legislative assault will continue this week in the Assembly Local Government Committee when they hear AB 913 which would create conflict of interest laws for charter schools and possibly make certain board violations criminal by applying Government Code 1090. To view any of these bills go to www.leginfo.ca.gov and type in the bill number.
On a positive front, the Administration continues to support strong policy changes for charter schools in the budget subcommittee hearings – policies that support charter school funding. Both the Assembly and Senate Budget Subcommittees have voted to transfer the SB 740 facility grant program and the Charter School Revolving Loan Program from CDE to CSFA in the State Treasurer’s Office. The administration’s other charter school changes are still being held ‘open’ in the subcommittees. These changes include:
- Adding non-classroom based charter schools to the Sb740 facility grant program
- Dramatically altering the SB740 regulatory process
- Extending the surplus property requirements for charter schools
- Making the law more flexible for all online schools in the state
The Governor’s new funding formula, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), is also still being considered by the legislature and it appears they are coalescing around a few changes which would include:
- Increasing the base grants for all districts and charter schools
- Requiring the SPI to review accountability plans in order to maintain flexibility over categorical funds
- Providing some increase to the base grant for redesignated EL students after year five
- Pulling ou some key categorical programs from the flexibility provisions (e.g. CTE programs, Adult Ed)
- Reducing or changing the county office of education funding formula to be “less generous”
This week, the Assembly Education Committee will hear AB 88. AB 88 contains the Governor’s Local Control Funding Formula proposal. While members of the Legislature and education stakeholders are expected to air their concerns, there will not be any major action on the proposal until after the Governor releases his May Revision on May 15.
Consistency and community are critical to educational development. Those are the motivating principles behind Excel Prep, an in-demand charter school group in San Bernardino, California.
Chartered in 2009 with its first campus open in 2010, Excel Prep charter schools offer an excellent learning environment dedicated to helping K – 6 students, many from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Excel Prep stands out for offering a unique model in the charter world, a model that is based in a sense of community. Each campus is limited to 200 hundred students who wear uniforms to help them identify with one another. Teachers spend time with each student on campus daily and also speak with parents on a regular basis. Rules and practices are the same at each campus helping school officials maximize efficiencies as well as recognize patterns and identify issues early. The model has proven to be very successful, and the future is promising.
“I’m just truly excited about what’s about to take place,” says Antonette Sims, founder of Excel Prep. “I feel that from the beginning that there has been this sense of urgency, because I feel like there are a lot of kids falling through the cracks… I think that now we’re in this season that we have the right administration to pull off growth.“
Growth is exactly what is taking place. The school has added three campuses and several hundred students since 2010, evolving from a highly dedicated grassroots team to an organization that attracts top-quality educational professionals. But such rapid expansion has presented its own set of challenges.
“If it hadn’t been for Charter School Capital, we wouldn’t have been able to start this year…. We wouldn’t have had any start-up money… Keeping the doors open is thanks to Charter School Capital,” explains Sims. The charter school funding was a start and the partnership looks promising for the future as well. “l know that we have the system; I know we can duplicate it… So we’re definitely ready to expand.”
In addition to new campuses, Excel Prep is working to grow their program offerings, particularly for those kids who need “extra support.” Food, computer and uniform assistance are all starting to come together so that Excel Prep can enroll more disadvantaged students who require additional services.
“Our goal is to take kids from struggling areas and make sure that they have additional opportunities,” finished Sims. “We’re proud that we’re able to provide these kids with a zeal and a love for school.”
It may become more difficult to open a California charter school that is a new conversion. This week the California Assembly Education Committee will hear AB 917 by Assemblyman Bradford. AB 917 would add the signatures of classified employees to the signatures that are needed to convert an existing public school into a charter school. The bill is being sponsored by SEIU and supported by the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA). It is unclear what has led the CCSA to support this measure but they are actively behind it.
Adding classified employees will make it more difficult to convert a school into a charter. In some cases like in Los Angeles, it could add up to 60 new signatures that will need to be gathered during the petition process. For other parts of the state the new requirement may not be that onerous but it would depend on how many classified employees actually work at the school site. For the sponsor it is a manner of including classified employees in the decision making process at individual schools but for charter school supporters it means that they would have to work to organize both the teachers union and the classified union employees.
The bill also raises a serious policy issue: should classified employees be involved in the conversion process at all? When the charter school statute was drafted it was meant as a tool for teachers and parents at and around a particular school. Clearly, AB 917 expands the law to include individuals that the original statute did not intend to cover.
Luckily for charter school advocates this measure is similar to AB 86 from 2011 and AB 2363 that was run a year prior to that. AB 2363 failed in the Senate Education Committee and the Governor vetoed AB 86. If the California Governor keeps his same position he will veto AB 917 once it reaches his desk.
To view any of the bills listed above go to http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billSearchClient.xhtml and put in the bill number.