It's all about the kids.
Whenever I hear that bromide from an educator, I take it as a tell that it's not about the kids. It's about the money.
Consider as a case study the Encinitas Union School District's evident desire to wipe out the two-year-old Theory Into Practice Academy, a K-6 charter school in Encinitas.
I won't belabor the history, but you need to know this:
The school district was never keen about its first – and only – charter school. From the start, money was a burst blister.
Like several other affluent North County districts, Encinitas enjoys real-estate values high enough to qualify as a basic-aid district. Local property taxes fund the public schools, not Sacramento checks.
Designed to offer gifted curriculum to a wide spectrum of students, TIP Academy by law had to draw from outside the district. Encinitas would be on the hook for part or all of the $5,300 cost for each student, including “foreign” ones.
In addition to the money issue was the ego problem.
Encinitas is proud of its schools and its service to all children. The board bristled when TIP's boosters identified a market for Encinitas students seeking more intellectual challenge.
Despite reservations, Encinitas trustees awarded a charter to TIP Academy in May 2006 rather than cede the oversight responsibility to the county or the state. Bottom line, the district's board wanted the power to revoke TIP's charter if the academy failed to perform.
“I'm elated,” Deborah Hazelton, one of TIP's founders, said at the time. “We wanted a unanimous vote and, even though they were reluctant, they approved it. And once we get the school started, they'll feel better about us.”
Falser words were never spoken.
Flash forward to this morning.
Deborah Hazelton, the school's principal, and her husband, Mike Hazelton, the director of operations and development, have departed under a cloud, as have other figures in the school's turbulent recent history.
Thanks to whistle-blowers at the school, a district investigation in the spring exposed serious conflicts of interest, violations of open-meeting laws and financial improprieties. Very bad stuff.
Though no criminal charges or civil lawsuits have been filed, the school board appears to view TIP as the equivalent of Enron, an academic shell game that made the kingpins rich.
To redeem itself, TIP's reconstituted board made sweeping changes, including a standard conflict-of-interest policy. It hired a high-profile law firm to scrub the school squeaky clean.
Too little and too late. That's the message from the school board, which is holding a meeting tomorrow night as it's obliged to do before turning a final thumb down next month.
The board's decision to revoke won't be made without pathos. The charter school has fostered a passionate community of teachers, parents and students.
At every public meeting, loyalists praise the school's rare ability to educate all children as if they were gifted. (As you would expect, the school tests well – an eye-popping 910 on the Academic Performance Index its first year.)
The school's enrollment of 281 is buttressed by 261 students on a waiting list.
In a June 29 letter, Lisa Berlanga, the general manager of the California Charter Schools Association, wrote to the district's superintendent: “We feel that with TIP's academic record, the strong parent support, the board's willingness to remedy issues brought to their attention by the district, that the charter school deserves the opportunity to continue. If indeed our driving concern is for the success of children, we must agree that the students at TIP are being well served.”
That last point – the one about it being all about the kids – is, as I said at the outset, wildly beside the point.
The conventional wisdom is that the Encinitas school board has found its smoking guns and intends to use them to shoot down TIP's pleas for redemption.
Thanks to a new state law, TIP could be the first charter in the county's history to appeal a district's death sentence to the county Board of Education, said Carole Parks, business consultant to the county schools superintendent.
It's anyone's guess how the county board might rule on an appeal, but it's fair to point out that the county trustees cut their teeth on district boards, not on charter start-ups. A bias could be built into the board. (Failing an appeal to the county, TIP could appeal to the state.)
Meanwhile, it's an open question whether TIP will be able to keep its doors open at Ocean Knoll School as an appeal plays out. If it revokes TIP's charter, the Encinitas board might have some good uses for that classroom space, possibly forcing TIP onto the street.
Other TIP options include asking to be adopted as a magnet school under the Encinitas district's total control.
Charter schools can point to signal successes – High Tech High is a conspicuous one – and clownish failures. They're a public-private hybrid that can, especially during the fragile first years, stumble and fall.
Does it make sense, however, to put them at the mercy of competitors who might wish them harm?
“I liken it to Netflix being overseen by Blockbuster,” said Gary Larson, spokesman for the California Charter Schools Association.
The charter movement, which has grown to nearly 700 schools in California, is obviously here to stay. But who will oversee its evolution?
This psychodrama over a brilliant, if troubled, charter school in Encinitas is but the TIP of an iceberg.
Logan Jenkins: (760) 737-7555; logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.
