Charter School Applicants Active During Early Sign-Up Period

More than two dozen organizations submitted early applications to launch charter schools in North Carolina by last week’s deadline, according to the state Department of Public Instruction, and a larger groundswell is anticipated in the regular spring application period.

The 100-school statewide cap on charters was abolished in a sometimes prickly process during this year’s legislative session. Some charter school advocates say the next necessary reform is to get construction funding and state level personnel resources for the expanding school choice program. They acknowledge that could set off a new tussle in the General Assembly.

“The biggest challenge is facilities, without a doubt,” said Eddie Goodall, president of the North Carolina Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a nonprofit organization. Public charter schools “can lease, but they can’t purchase” buildings with state money, Goodall said, a high hurdle that traditional public schools do not face. “Very few [charter] schools can afford to purchase.”

Aside from the lack of direct state funding to build or renovate facilities, charter schools face stiff challenges obtaining their own financing.

“The charter is so short for a lender that they are fearful of making a 20-year loan when a charter school is given a 10-year life to begin with,” Goodall said. “A charter is not given an indefinite life. We need to work on structures for charter schools to acquire funds as well as provide funds for them.”

Greater administrative support from the State Board of Education also will be necessary and could become a public policy issue at DPI and among some lawmakers “pretty soon,” Goodall said.

“There are 27 applications on the desk of Mr. Joel Medley, the director of the Office of Charter Schools, and I think what will be interesting will be what happens next, how quickly they move, how much help they get in figuring out their job,” Goodall said.

“We have 750 employees at DPI, but we have four employees at DPI that work with the charter schools and they are asked to keep up with 100 schools that exist,” he said.

The need to shift resources will heighten in coming months, Goodall said.

“I would think the number of applications would be a considerably higher number in April, which is the new date the state board is targeting for receiving new applications for schools to open in 2013,” he said.

“What we certainly don’t want” is for DPI personnel to be overwhelmed by a robust expansion of charter schools, Goodall said. “We’ve gotten rid of the cap. The second cap could be a de facto cap … using a lack of DPI resources as an argument to opening charter schools.”

“It will be interesting to see, if we got 27 for fast-track, how many we will get in the spring,” Medley said. “It’s going to be an increased work load.”

Some applications were rejected summarily because they were incomplete, and “we don’t know how many are going to be approved by the state board” among those still under consideration, Medley said.

Adding personnel is “a need that’s been recognized. It is something we’re looking to address,” Medley said. One vacant slot that is expected to be filled is the consultant position in which Medley served before he was promoted to director.

Allowing charter schools to use direct state funding for construction and renovation of facilities “would take legislative change,” Medley said.

“I think that’s something that may be coming up in the May session,” state Rep. Maggie Jeffus, a Guilford County Democrat, said of calls for additional state support for charter schools. “Whether we could take action I don’t know. A lot of it depends on the economy.”

Jeffus is a former public school teacher who for years had opposed lifting the cap on charter schools. But she voted in favor of the legislation in June, and agrees that shifting resources from traditional schools to charter schools was contentious in this year’s session.

“I think that’s what caused a lot of the controversy and compromise” on Senate Bill 8, the bill lifting the cap, she said. Whether a renewed push for resource allocation could touch off another round of partisan wrangling, “That’s hard to say,” she said.

Adding personnel to the Office of Charter Schools could get a favorable review. “The capital projects and the building may be more of a problem,” Jeffus said.

“It needs to be discussed now that we’re where we are and we have all these schools that will be opening,” Jeffus said.

Though he said he was uncomfortable reading political tea leaves, Goodall, a former Republican state senator from Mecklenburg County, acknowledged that he has been keeping his finger to the air to gauge the mood of the electorate, especially after voters in Wake County ousted the Republican school board majority on Nov. 8 just two years after deposing Democrats.

“I don’t know if that’s pervasive or not” as the sentiment of North Carolina voters in state races, he said. “I guess if it swings that way one time, it could swing again” in the legislature.

The charter school movement got its biggest push towards eliminating the cap after Republicans gained control of the General Assembly last year, and there could be reason for concern that a shift back to Democratic power in the 2012 election might put the brakes on school reforms, Goodall said. Education associations at traditional public schools are a key power base for Democrats, and vigorously have opposed increasing the number of charter schools.

“Of course, our organization would be delighted to see more and more people elected to support charter school education,” he said. “Certainly we’ll talk to members about candidates and what their positions are.”

His organization will continue education efforts to narrow “the huge gap in understanding charter schools and the North Carolina charter school law. We want legislators to understand charter schools and that’s what our role is,” Goodall said.

Darrell Allison, director of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, is optimistic that the charter school debate has been settled.

“Now that that cap has been lifted, you’ve got leaders all across the state excited,” Allison said. “It’s a buzz in our community, it’s a buzz in our business community and a buzz among our advocates and education leaders.”

The freedom of educational choice has been absent in many counties because of the cap, he said, not for lack of desire among parents.

“We’re going to see in the next decade a real upswing in terms of our children, higher graduation rates, and higher rates of children entering four-year colleges,” Allison said.

Those applying early are mostly private schools looking to convert, existing charter schools hoping to duplicate and replicate, and organizations that have wanted to create charter schools but were stymied by the cap, Allison said.

Medley said the fast-track applications will be vetted by his office and forwarded to the newly created North Carolina Public Charter School Advisory Council. The council’s subcommittees will study the paperwork and report back to the full council on whether applicants should be invited for interviews. After that, the full council would recommend successful applicants to the State Board of Education for a final approval vote by March.

Dan Way is a contributor to Carolina Journal.