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Charter school fights for autonomy
By BARBARA BEHRENDT, Times Staff Writer INVERNESS -- Armed with state law saying that Citrus County's only charter school does not have to follow School Board policies, the head of the Academy of Environmental Science's governing board said Tuesday that all the school wants is autonomy. Using different statutes, however, superintendent David Hickey said state law requires that the academy submit its employees to the same scrutiny all school system employees face. Hickey and academy board president Bob Gill agreed to ask the state's general counsel how to resolve the dispute. Hickey said he would try to set up a conference call soon involving all sides in the debate. The School Board, in a workshop session, could take no formal action on Tuesday. But the board members could and did ask questions about the issue. Gill said his board was adamant about maintaining its independence. Key to that, he said, was overseeing all activities involving the school's employees, from evaluations to hiring and firing decisions. The district maintains that state law requires evaluation by a district administrator and recommendations by the superintendent to the board on all employee decisions. "The charter school is to be totally independent," Gill said. "You can't have two drivers driving the buggy down the road." He argued that in the private sector, an employee can be employed by one company and be assigned to another for a period of time with the second company being in complete control. But board Chairwoman Pat Deutschman said that might not apply here. "Your employees are still our employees no matter where they work. I'd have to expect all of our employees to be treated the same way," she said, noting that all district employees are under the state system and the local teachers union. Gill said that if the issue is not resolved, the school's employees may seek leaves of absence from the district, which would allow clear control by the academy board. That has not been the employees' first choice, he noted. Among other items discussed by the board and expected to be settled at a June 4 meeting were the proposed pay raises for administrators and the creation of new quasiadministrative jobs at the high schools to help with testing and discipline. Personnel director Steve Richardson spoke on how the decisions were made to allocate the raises out of the $94,000 set aside this year. He said that the assistant superintendent's pay was 20 percent lower than the state average. That means Linda Kelley, who currently holds the job, has been proposed for a pay raise of $3,750. High school principals were also well below comparable salaries from similar counties and the state, he said, and their raises will amount to $2,650, including a bump to a higher grade on the salary scale. Other administrators would see increases of $1,050 or $1,150. Board members quizzed Richardson and Hickey on how they made those decisions. At the end of the discussion, only Patience Nave said she still was struggling with approving the proposal. As for adding assessment specialists and deans at the high schools, the board agreed to reduce the number of days that would be worked by the assessment specialist from 216 to 196. When asked whether the high schools could live with that, Crystal River High School principal Steve Myers responded: "Yes, ma'am. I can live with that a whole lot better than nothing."
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