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Pasco School District officials say a new performing arts school might be enrolling too many gifted children.
By KENT FISCHER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 5, 2002
The Pasco County School District is investigating whether a newly approved charter school is living up to its billing as a school for troubled teens.
District officials say that the Infinity School for the Performing Arts looks more like a school for gifted and advanced students, not the school for kids with histories of low achievement, drug abuse and disciplinary problems that the School Board approved last November.
"If they're not enrolling a preponderence of at-risk students then they're not doing what they told us they were going to do," said Superintendent John Long.
Long said the district is asking the state for advice on whether it can close the school if it doesn't enroll enough at-risk students.
Janine Caffrey, Infinity's director, couldn't say how many of the 210 students who enrolled in her school meet the at-risk criteria that she outlined in her application to the School Board. All she knows, she said, is what students reported on their enrollment applications: that the vast majority of them were "bored" at their regular public schools.
"I'm reluctant to give out any types of figures," Caffrey said when asked how many of her students could be defined as "at risk." She added that she will compile the information as soon as possible and report it to the school district.
In November, the School Board unanimously approved Infinity's application to open a charter school this fall that would focus on the arts and theater productions.
Charter schools are public schools, and they receive state funding to operate. But charters are run independently of local districts through contracts -- or charters -- with school boards.
The charters spell out the details of how the schools will operate: where they will be located, what they will teach, what types of students they will serve.
Caffrey said she tried to recruit troubled students but ran into problems.
First, Infinity doesn't bill itself as a school for the "at-risk" because that term scares off potential students who don't see themselves as troubled. It also scares off other parents whose children aren't at risk but simply love the arts.
Secondly, Infinity had planned on recruiting kids through local high school guidance counselors but the district wouldn't allow it.
Infinity held open houses, ran ads in the newspaper and spread word around town through local community groups, she said. When it came time to enroll students, the school accepted anyone who applied, even if they weren't at-risk.
"I followed to the letter of the law the requirements for enrolling students," Caffrey said. "We don't get to choose our students, our students choose us."
That may be true, district administrators said, but Infinity still has a responsibility to find and recruit students that fit its niche. District officials are also troubled by the school's marketing brochures that mention nothing about the school's mission to serve troubled kids.
"When (the application) says that their primary mission will serve at-risk students then that is something that the parents should be made aware of," said Assistant Superintendent Sandy Ramos. "If those types of students aren't being recruited, then there's an inconsistency there."
Those organizing Infinity have received a $150,000 grant from the state to get the school running. Once open, it would receive about $5,500 per student from the state to pay for operating expenses. The school is to be located in an old supermarket at the corner of Grand Boulevard and Trouble Creek Road.
Clouding the enrollment issue is the fact that the district and Caffrey have yet to agree on a contract that would allow the school to open. That could happen this week, both sides said.
Regardless, Caffrey said, the questions being asked by the school district shouldn't affect the school's opening.
"Parents," Caffrey said, "shouldn't be concerned about any of these issues."