Charter Duel

[March 25th, 2009]

Ari Strudler exudes a confidence you might not expect from a teenager.

But the 16-year-old doesn’t take full credit for her poise; she gives that recognition to LEP (pronounced “leap”) High, a three-year-old Portland charter school where Strudler is a sophomore.

Of course, Strudler has reason to deploy her charm these days. After leaving Lincoln High last year because class sizes were too big, Strudler faces the possibility of having to find a third new school in three years.

She’s among the 250 LEP students fighting to keep the Buckman neighborhood school open. Portland Public Schools has recommended LEP close at the end of this school year for “financial difficulties.”

The district says LEP, or Leadership Entrepreneurship Public Charter High School, has a $143,000 deficit and poses a risk to students because of its operational instability. LEP puts the deficit closer to $60,000, and says it’s on the verge of being paid off. More importantly, the charter school’s teachers say they’re helping kids prepare for college who might not otherwise graduate from high school.

If this seems like a straightforward story of a cash-strapped startup facing financial problems, it’s not. Similar to a divorce, it’s really about control. What’s best for kids is not being debated.

“This isn’t really a financial problem,” says Adam Reid, a LEP co-founder who teaches business at the school. “It’s a political one.”

For one thing, districts and teacher unions in Oregon dislike charter schools, which have operated in Oregon for 10 years. Charter schools employ non-union teachers, although the charters are public and, like every other public school, must accept all students. Critics also say charter schools siphon money from public school districts, although charters also draw state and federal money to districts and not all of that money follows students to their charter schools.

The school board is set to vote Monday night, March 30, on the recommendation to close LEP. And it is extremely unlikely the seven-member board, with the exception of members Martín González (who is running for re-election) and Sonja Henning (who is not), will oppose the recommendation, which the superintendent supports.

With the help of dozens of parents, teachers and an assortment of local musicians, LEP students have established a fundraising goal of $100,000 to keep it open. They’re already about halfway to the target. (Check the context at the end of the story for more info on a LEP fundraiser.)

But many of them (and their parents) are angry at PPS. They blame the district for LEP’s inadequate funding. As the economy tanked, the charter school lost about $60,000 in state support, about 4 percent of its annual $1.5 million budget.

LEP’s 13 full-time staff members agreed to a 10 percent pay cut (by comparison, PPS is pushing its teachers to forgo cost-of-living increases but has made no public indication of asking for pay cuts). When state officials came to the rescue recently with more money for schools, the district was not clear if it would pass any of that money to LEP. Under the law, it doesn’t have to.

“PPS receives funding for us, but PPS doesn’t give it to us,” Strudler says.

As outrageous as that sounds, it’s true in other cases as well. The state and the feds give money to local districts based on how many students are attending its schools. PPS’s 1,100 charter-school students count toward that total, bringing the district’s student population to 46,000. But state law says districts don’t have to pass all that money to charter schools. Of the $918,643 the state gave PPS for LEP students this year, the district kept $45,932—or 5 percent.

If students qualify as poor or live in foster care, districts get extra money for each of them. But PPS shares the money with charter schools based on formulas that don’t reflect the actual number of needy kids in their schools. Case in point: LEP says 8 percent to 10 percent of its students are in foster care, compared with a district-wide average of 1.3 percent. But PPS offered LEP less than $1,000 this year for foster kids. LEP says it should get $30,000.

One of the biggest expenses the school, located in a former warehouse, faces is its annual $180,000 rent. PPS—which has numerous empty buildings thanks to a recent spate of school closures—could help defray those costs by renting inexpensive space to LEP. But it chooses not to, even though the school teaches PPS students.

A 2007 bill in the Oregon Legislature, HB 3178, would have required districts to negotiate lease agreements with charter schools in good faith. But PPS urged lawmakers to delete that provision in the final version, signed by the governor (see “Hoarding Schools,” WW, May 23, 2007).

Next week, advocates for LEP will go before the school board to ask members to keep it open.

“By March 30, our finances will be strong,” Reid says. “If this is truly about our resources, then I’m looking forward to our renewal.”