Education Week - November 5, 2014 - 16

As Charter Movement Matures, Closures Are More Common
CHARTER SCHOOL SHUTDOWNS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
of failing charters closing abruptly,
blindsiding parents and sending
them scrambling to find new
schools, the city of Indianapolis is
among several charter authorizers
that have been pioneering new best
practices in school closure.
"A lot of people in the school choice
movement like the idea of accountability,
but when accountability hits
home, it's really hard to maintain
your focus on results," said Brandon
S. Brown, the director of charter
schools for the Indianapolis mayor's
office. "It's the authorizer's responsibility
to hold an absolute bar for
performance, which means that,
sometimes, low-performing schools
will not continue to operate."
Managing Transitions
Although closure rates for charter
schools nationally have fluctuated
over the past five years, according
to survey data collected by the National
Association of Charter School
Authorizers, the number has stabilized,
and nacsa doesn't expect
it to go down. If anything, the organization
said in a 2013 report,
closures may rise because of growing
pressure on authorizers to
close underperforming schools, and
the effect of state laws that do so
automatically.
For the most part, charters are
closed when authorizers choose to
not renew their contracts at the
end of the term limit, most often because
of poor academic performance
and financial reasons. More than
15.7 percent of charter school contracts
were up for renewal during
the 2012-13 school year, and of those,
11.6 percent were denied. For charters
outside their renewal period, the
closure rate was 1.9 percent in that
school year, according to nacsa.
Whatever the justification for closure,
the decision to shut a school
down is perhaps the easy part; exMost
charters close when authorizers decide not to renew their contracts; fewer schools get shut down
while still in their contract term.
Closed during
contract
2008-09
1.5%
2009-10
18.5
8.8
1.6
2010-11
16.5
6.2
1.5
2011-12
14.2
2.5
2012-13
15.7
1.9
SOURCE: National Association of Charter School Authorizers
ecution is a different story. Closing
a school is disruptive and emotional
for students, teachers, and parents,
but, experts say, there are ways to
soften the impact by having a plan
in place and meticulously managing
student transitions.
When the Indianapolis mayor's office
decided to close Flanner House
Elementary School over a cheating
scandal, it assigned charter-office
employees to communicate with
parents on a biweekly basis.
"We had a tracker that listed
when we called families, the nature
of that communication, next steps
that we agreed to, and then we
worked with those families to meet
their needs," which included buying
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school supplies and new uniforms,
Mr. Brown said.
The mayor's office also hosted
two enrollment fairs where parents
could talk with leaders from nearly
30 schools and could enroll their
children on the spot.
"What we saw is that we had a
lot of angry families at first that,
over time, came to really value the
support we gave them, to the point
that we had multiple families call
our office and say, 'We are so thankful
that you made this decision,' "
said Mr. Brown. "We didn't feel like
it was appropriate to close a school
and then make the families unilaterally
navigate a complex choice
system."
As an authorizer, he noted, the
Indianapolis mayor's office has a
unique relationship with the families
in the schools it oversees: They
can help vote the mayor out of a job,
come election time.
Flanner House was a special circumstance;
generally, the mayor's
office makes contract-renewal decisions
for the following school year
early in the second semester of
the current year. That time frame
allows schools whose charters
aren't renewed time to wind down
their operations and gives families
time to make new arrangements
for their children. But the timing
doesn't allow such schools to languish
in limbo for too long.
'Zombie Year'
In Ohio, when the time between
the announcement of a charter
closing and the actual shutdown
stretches the full academic year, it is
referred to as a "zombie year." Teachers
and administrators learn as early
as September that their school-as
well as their jobs-will cease to exist
come May or June. That situation is
generally a product of Ohio's closure
law, which mandates the automatic
shutdown of the state's poorest-performing
charter schools, as well as
the timing for when student-assessment
data gets released.
When announced that many
months in advance, authorizers say,
there's a risk that school personnel
won't remain invested for an entire
academic year. That's an issue even
under shorter closure timelines.
"We did get to a point where we
did have to be there [at the school]
almost every day, because we would
have teachers go to lunch and not
come back," said Kathryn Mullen
Upton, the vice president for sponsorship
at the Thomas B. Fordham
3.3
11.6
3.8
12.9
2.3
2.8
2.9%
12.6%
12.6%
Overall closure rate Reviewed for renewal
Closed after review
Foundation in Dayton that began
authorizing charter schools in Ohio
in the mid-2000s. "That was a big
lesson."
To avoid that, the Fordham Foundation,
like the city of Indianapolis,
prefers to make closure announcements
in the spring, even though
it's not always ideal, particularly
because they occur after the deadline
for parents to apply for private
school vouchers.
Whether or not an authorizer
is faced with a closure in a given
year, Ms. Mullen Upton recommends
having prescribed steps to
follow that include templated letters,
talking points, and answers
to frequently asked questions for
parents.
A plan for storing and maintaining
student records is also crucial,
according to DeAnna L. Rowe, the
executive director of Arizona's state
board for charter schools.
"When a school is going to close,
one of the things that you talk
about is who is going to be the custodian
of those records," which can
be the home school district, another
charter school, or, in Arizona's case,
the state charter board, Ms. Rowe
said. "The worst-case scenario is
when the school disappears, the
building is not even there anymore
or it's not functioning as a school,
and a student is trying to find those
records."
The Receiving End
But regardless of how smoothly
charter students make the transition
to new schools, the influx affects
campuses on the receiving
end, which are often regular district
schools.
The effect can be especially acute
in Florida, where a constitutional
amendment caps district class sizes.
The arrival of a few extra students
can mean a school has to hire additional
staff.
"Depending on the timing of the
closing, if those students are returning
after the numbers [for per-pupil
funding] are sent back to the state
in October, we can have a large
influx of students coming in without
the funding that's supposed to
come with them," said Stephen R.
Frazier, the principal at Silver Trail
Middle School in Pembroke Pines,
Fla. "That can really be challenging
for a principal when you're left having
to hire more teachers and buy
materials."
Some authorizers are trying to
address that issue by recruiting
new charter operators to open shop
in the same facility as a recently or
soon-to-be shuttered school.
But that approach, like templated
letters and special enrollment fairs,
is just an example of how to deal
with a worst-case-scenario. The better
strategy, experienced authorizers
say, is adhering to solid vetting practices
during the charter-application
process.
"It really starts on the front end,"
said Ms. Mullen Upton. "It's much
easier to say no on the front end
than it is to close it down on the
back end."

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