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Sponsors appealing charter school denial
By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK, Times Staff Writer
Powell Middle School teachers Nevin Siefert and Joe Gatti are hoping that a newly appointed panel in Tallahassee finds them more persuasive than the Hernando County School Board did when it rejected their charter school proposal this month. As expected, the teachers planned to mail their appeal of the School Board's denial to the state Board of Education today. Once the state board receives the inches-thick document, it will have 60 days to decide whether the School Board or Gatti and Siefert were correct. Its ruling will be final, according to a new state law. In the past, the state Board of Education would recommend a decision to local school boards, which could accept or decline the suggestion. "The state Board of Education was spending a lot of time researching the issues and making a recommendation, and the recommendations weren't being followed at the local level," often despite the evidence, explained Cathy Wooley-Brown, executive director of the Florida Charter School Resource Center at the University of South Florida. The first step in the process is the state Board of Education's Charter School Appeals Commission, whose 10 members were appointed just days ago. The commission will have its first meeting Wednesday to hear appeals of denied charter schools in Sarasota and Lake counties. Gatti was optimistic that the new panel would look with a clear eye at the Gulf Coast Academy of Science and Technology, a proposed specialty middle school for about 100 students that would be built near Mariner and Northcliffe boulevards in Spring Hill. "It sounds fair because they have an even mix of charter school advocates and conventional school advocates," Gatti said. The commission includes five charter school operators and five public school district officials. Siefert, meanwhile, relied on the arguments in the appeal. "I think the strength of our appeal speaks for itself," he said. In the document, they attack each of the School Board's reasons for denial. They begin with the biggest concern, that of adequate finances, saying that they had created a realistic budget with sufficient reserves for a variety of projected student populations. Anything left out of the budget, such as custodian costs, was done so purposely, they said. The board had blasted the financial proposal, in part, for its razor-thin margins, the absence of annual cost increases on several items and the applicants' seeming unwillingness to settle on one of four budgets presented. Finance director Carol MacLeod told the board she was uncomfortable with the proposal, as did superintendent Wendy Tellone. Gatti contended Thursday that if the Gulf Coast Academy budget was not adequate, no other publicly funded charter school would succeed, either, because the budget was based on all available public resources. The appeal runs through other issues of concern, including the school's proposed staffing, its articles of incorporation, transportation and delivery of special student services. Siefert said perhaps the strongest argument in their favor is that the district's curriculum supervisor, attorney and MacLeod all indicated during a workshop that most remaining problems in the application could be worked out in contract talks, if the applicants would agree not to open the school without at least 100 students. "That's the three people who (the board) appointed to review our application, and they say it's workable," Siefert said, noting that he and Gatti accepted the student enrollment requirement. Gatti noted that two School Board members, Robert Wiggins and Jim Malcolm, sided with the charter school. He said the board's narrow division also might help the proposed charter school's cause. With the paperwork on the way, Gatti and Siefert acknowledged that all they can do now is wait. They have not decided whether to use 30 minutes allowed to make a presentation to the appeals commission, saying they would watch how the new panel's first meeting goes. Vickie Marble, a charter school consultant and member of the Florida Charter School Review Panel, figured the oversight would be thorough and tough. "The bottom line is, it's truly about the kids," Marble said. "We don't doubt (many applicants) truly care about the kids. But you've got to be able to deliver. Because when a charter school fails, the kids lose. It's better that it's harder to get started."
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From today's Hernando Times |
