Buck passed on charter schools

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Friday, Oct. 19, 2007 | 7:34 a.m.

After nearly a decade struggling under the yoke of state regulations, the Clark County School Board has finally voted to hand the whole mess associated with new charter schools - the crush of paperwork, red tape and accompanying expenses - over to the Nevada Education Department.

"We're not making any of these rules," School Board trustee Sheila Moulton said. "We're just trying to interpret what the state tells us are the rules and enforce them. This is really a state responsibility , and it makes sense for the sponsorship authority to rest with the state board."

The School Board's decision - approved on a 4-0 vote Oct. 9 - will not affect the eight charter schools it already sponsors. But groups that have applications pending will have to seek sponsorship elsewhere.

There are quirks to Nevada's charter school law, first passed in 1997, that have been sore spots for Moulton and other trustees. If a local school board turned down an application twice, the organizing committee could - and often did - go to the State Board of Education and win sponsorship.

The charter school law's original wording caused headaches for the state board as well. Initially the law said the state board "shall approve" any charter school application that met the basic requirements. In 2005, lawmakers, under pressure from the state board, changed the language to "may approve," giving it the authority to say "no."

Also in 2005, the Legislature said charter school organizers could go directly to the state for sponsorship, eliminating the requirement that they first be turned down by the local board. And organizers figured out state sponsorship meant a few hundred dollars more per pupil, another reason to skip the district-level application process.

School Board member Mary Beth Scow said she and her colleagues support the concept of charter schools, which often bring much-needed resources and educational opportunities to Clark County's students. But the demands on district staff to support them have become overwhelming.

"Most people are doing a job that would require two or three people in private enterprise," Scow said.

Charter schools receive the same per-pupil funding as district schools but are given more freedom in hiring and instruction. The schools typically target a niche not always filled by the public system, including teaching at-risk students.

Unlike other alternative forms of publicly funded education - such as magnet schools or alternative schools - the charter schools are not under the direct control of the sponsor. However, the sponsor is responsible for helping the school's organizers navigate the red tape that accompanies the application process.

The sponsor must also regularly monitor the charter school for compliance with state law and provide staff.

That's become an impossible burden, said Edward Goldman, associate superintendent of education services for the Clark County School District. His staff is spending so much time on charter school-related tasks, he said, that their regular work is suffering. And it's not just his division: The charter schools require immense amounts of guidance from other departments, such as special education.

"There comes a time when we're really taking time away from our own students to do work for charter schools," Goldman told the School Board prior to the Oct. 9 vote.

In Nevada, the schools can seek sponsorship from one of three entities: a local school board, the State Board of Education or the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Nevada currently has 22 charter schools. The state board sponsors five, and Clark County's eight includes the Las Vegas Charter School for the Deaf, which has not yet opened. The Washoe County School Board voted last year to not sponsor new charter schools, capping its total at six. The Douglas County and Carson City school boards have each sponsored one charter school, as has the Nevada System of Higher Education.

As of September, the state education department had received applications from 11 organizing committees indicating a desire to open charter schools for the 2008-09 academic year. All charter school applications, whether the applicants intend to seek local or state sponsorship, are first reviewed by the state education department.

So, how many people in the Nevada Education Department are working on reviewing those applications and monitoring existing schools for compliance?

"We have one full-time person," said Tom McCormack, the department's charter schools consultant. "That's me."

In 2005 the Legislature authorized funding for a quarter-time staff position dedicated to charter schools. But McCormack said he is forced to spread out the work among other employees in the department who already have other assignments.

"We do have concerns about our ability to handle more applications and sponsorships," McCormack said. "As the workload increases, we will certainly need more staff."

Whether an influx of applications will exhaust the good will of the state board (and its willingness to sponsor new charter schools) remains to be seen. But the board's charter schools subcommittee has already expressed concern about the staff time required to handle the existing roster, along with the many applications in the pipeline.

Cindy Reid, the State Board of Education member who chairs the subcommittee, said with another avenue for charter schools to seek sponsorship eliminated, the burden on the state education department could be intolerable.

"We're in such a bind," Reid said. "We're almost forced by law to approve any charter school application that's compliant, but the Legislature hasn't made clear how we handle the work load that comes with that."