"Let's look at performance too with the kids that we keep."
- Julie Ward, NVMI Board of Trustees
As recipients of public funding, charter schools are supposed to accept all students who seek to enroll. In the increasingly rare event that demand exceeds capacity, a random lottery is supposed to give all applicants an equal chance of attending. Any preference based on ability or performance is supposed to be expressly forbidden. Screening prospective students based on a need for services is also against the law.
While it is often difficult to prove that charter schools are overtly breaking these rules, the data does show that these publicly funded private schools serve children with special education needs at rates lower than public schools. This discrepancy is even more pronounced for those with moderate to severe disabilities. During a candidate debate in 2015, Scott Schmerelson shared his experience as an LAUSD principal who would welcome students into his school who had been "counseled out" of charters, usually right before testing time.
Lax oversight by the LAUSD Charter School Division allows charter schools to manipulate their enrollment in other ways. For years, the LAUSD ignored Granada Hills Charter School's violation of the rule prohibiting schools from requiring that IEPs or 504 plans be submitted prior to enrollment. Despite the fact that charter schools are supposed to enroll every interested student, the Citizens of the World charter school chain is one of many that invite parents to "apply" to its schools. The regulators at the LAUSD insist that despite this wording, there is no "information showing that CWC [East Valley] is not admitting all pupils who wish to attend, denying admission for any student, or has any discriminatory admissions policy." The data comparing the charter to a public school that is a half mile away from it shows something different:
As the North Valley Military Institute (NVMI) gets closer to failing, the charter school has embraced exclusionary policies. While announcing an ill-fated attempt to turn the school into a "Middle College" program, "Superintendent" Mark Ryan threatened to eliminate special day classes for children with moderate to severe disabilities if enough students did not enroll to make them financially "viable". He also told parents that IEPs, which are supposed to be legally binding, would not cover college classes, even though these classes were being offered as part of the high school program.
At a meeting of NVMI's Executive Committee last weekend, one of the school's trustees went even further in her comments. Julie Ward, who is also a parent at the school, stated that NVMI should be selective in the students who are allowed to remain at the school, particularly with the classes that are held on the Los Angeles Mission College campus. She went as far as to suggest that "if you can't perform right now in the college program that you're in, you don't need to be in our program. At all."
Knowing that there were "members of the press" and representatives from the authorizers at the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) attending, Mark Ryan was quick to say that, despite what he had stated about students with special education needs at the previous meeting, Ward's comments were not the official policy of NVMI. In doing so he threw other charter schools under the bus by declaring that "we are not one of those charter schools that cherry-picks, that says 'if this kid doesn't want to do it or can't do it' then they shouldn't be at our school.'" He went on to acknowledge Ward's viewpoint as a parent's "opinion," ignoring the fact that Ward is a Trustee and helps to set policy at the school.
Ryan's statement is one of the rare times when someone from within the Charter School industry has admitted that there is a problem with "some" of these publicly funded private schools using enrollment practices to cherry-pick their students. It should be a call to action to those held responsible for oversight to investigate and severely punish those schools who are violating the law. It is the only way to ensure that the competition between public schools and charter schools is conducted on a level playing field.
Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs. He was elected to the Northridge East Neighborhood Council and is the Education Chair. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD's District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him "a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles." For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.
