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Concerns for charter school facilities are growing.
These semi-independent public schools often have to be creative in finding building space and might operate in church basements, retail centers, or trailers.
While building disparity between public school options is no news for long-time charter families, this topic is finally on the radar for various leaders and investors.
In Washington D.C. for example, there are empty public school buildings that are being converted to all sorts of things but education.
Robert Cane, the executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, writes in an Op-ed to the Washington Examiner:
“The D.C. public school children being crammed into inappropriate industrial and temporary sites attend the increasingly high-performing charter schools. Meanwhile, the D.C. government is spending more than $2 billion on traditional city-run public schools.”
Cane points specifically to a historic school building which was the home to one of the first publicly funded schools for African American children, but now refaced and sold off as a high-end condo complex.
But what is a district to do for its charter schools if there are not any empty buildings available?
Look at Douglas County (DCSD) in Colorado, for instance. DCSD is the home of 56,000 students in 74 public schools of various flavors, 8 of these are charter schools. To solve spacing issues for the overcrowded traditional schools the district has utilized a year-round-tracking system so students can time-share the building space. The DCSD charter schools are filled to capacity and have deep wait lists. One K-8 charter school with a capacity of 400 students added a bonus class to accommodate its wait list of 3,000 hopeful families. There are no empty buildings owned by Douglas County School District suitable for use of its expanding demand.
Besides building bunk-desks there are few ideas left on the table for accommodating site-based learning in such a district.
Yes, playgrounds, libraries, cafeterias, and PE halls, are some of the assumed offerings for school children that many charter school students might go without in make-shift school-buildings.
Yet there are hundreds of thousands families who still opt for these schools. The reason is really quite simple: The school—with or without a decent building—offers schooling which meets the needs of their kids.”
There is indisputably a disparity across our nation in facility options for chartered public schools than non-public chartered schools, and for a district to sell available space for profit over providing for one of its schools—is simply wrong.
However, don’t discount the craftiness behind some of the leaders of innovative public charter schools.
University Academy Charter High School (New Jersey) turned an abandoned laundry building into an award winning architectural design for its school.
The famed Media and Technology Charter High School (MATCH) in Boston, MA, is a former auto dealership.
Another charter school took an old barn and gave it new life as a school building.
Watching the creative solutions which often are preserving architectural history and frugal is quite exciting.
States like Colorado deserve much kudos for exploring all-inclusive funding options for charter schools. Just this last spring Colorado became the third state in writing law that school districts may add their charter school’s needs in bond elections.
One of those ballot questions is on the ballot for tomorrow’s election. If Greeley/Evans voters say yes, their district charter schools will receive an additional $890 per pupil as part of the district bond package.
Adding charter school facility costs to a bond ballot might offer best of both worlds for districts that do not have the space to offer. Plus it provides an opportunity for the taxpayer to invest in the innovative schools that might be in unconventional facilities.
More Information:
Robert Cane: Use schools for kids, not condominiums
Education 101: What is a charter school?
Info 101: Comprehensive national directory of charter schools
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Karin Piper is the author and speaker of Charter Schools: The Ultimate Handbook for Parents (Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing 2009), which boasts more than 30 chapters of must-know information and a complete school research guide for parents seeking charter schools.
At the Examiner we always appreciate learning about updated information and current events.
You may contact the Charter Schools Examiner directly Karin@charterschoolmom.com.
Follow on Twitter @charterexaminer
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