http://www.dublin.k12.ca.us/vnews/display.v/ART/4b91eb0ab96a0

Thanks for admitting the mistake, don’t worry about it people have mistaken some anon. posts in the past for my entries as well. Rest assured, anytime I comment you will see my name at the top.

I am very familiar with ed code. I realize that the law says charters are open to everyone; however, there is a very large discrepancy between special education students served in charter schools and non-charter schools. Charter schools must offer the same services as non-charter districts, that is the law. Once a charter school establishes itself, they are required to offer these special services to students who qualify or contract out the services if they don’t have the required professionals in-house.

Many charter schools simply can’t afford these services due to their small size. As we all know, anytime you contract out a service, it costs more than if you could hire the specialist as an employee. Therefore, charters passively discourage parents with special needs from enrolling due to lack of professionals to begin with. However, if a student does qualify for services, the charter has to scramble and figure out how to meet these federally required needs of the child while still trying to run their school.

This scenario sends the charter in search of a provider. The larger the provider, the more specialists they will have. This provider is usually the local school district. The local school district bills the charter school for the professional services a student requires. Services are driven by assessment in special education, nothing else. There is no sinister plot by school districts to make charters look bad. A school/district would be foolish to deny a service that showed up as a need on an assessment. Likewise, if the student is a charter school student, the charter would be foolish to not seek out the service. That is lawsuit land waiting to happen.

This is where many charters try to cut corners and provide the services, at the cheapest rates, sacrificing quality along the way. This negotiation of services is where some feathers may be ruffled. Parents who have students in Special Education understand this tradeoff really well. Please understand, the parents of special needs children are the best advocates for their child. If charter schools could offer a quality education for their child with special needs, I am sure they would rightfully seek out the best placement for their child regardless of the barriers put in their way. As parents, don’t we all want the best for our own children?

Bringing it closer to home, what would happen if a student with a disability would enroll at TPHS? They may require an aide, occupational therapy, speech services, psychological services, and special equipment in order to access the curriculum. These services would encroach on the general fund of the school. Without getting too technical, this means there is less of the general fund monies to support the other classes that TPHS would like to offer. Therefore, due to the small scale of the school, this particular student could present a funding challenge that will diminish the overall course offerings at the school. Let me be clear, this isn’t the students fault at all. They have rights to services based on their disability. It is the school’s short-sided vision of wanting to create a narrow band of classes with less funds from the state that impacts everyone’s ability to access a wider variety of challenging coursework.

Plain and simple, the more kids you have on one campus the more options all of those kids can have. Size matters, especially when you are talking about serving the talented students as well as the students with learning disabilities.

However, the fact is the law is very clear. A few points taken from surveys doesn’t change the law or the fact that the schools are open to everyone. If there’s a disparity between the enrolled population and the general school age population, we can look at possible reasons for that. Granted, there are many. But as LVCS Parent noted, many charter schools exist in hostile community environments. Perhaps that scares away some groups. My view is that’s the intention of that adversarial stance, but I recognize that’s just an opinion, not a fact. Some districts make it very difficult to access Special Ed resources, again , maybe with the intention to cause the charter school problems. I know its happened, though its not possible to prove intent. Nonetheless, it creates issues with parents of Special Needs children.

My point it very factors play into who enrolls, but enrollment is open to everyone.