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Charter schools get tips on how to succeed

At a workshop, charter school representatives get advice on how to flourish and stay focused now that the novelty has worn off.

ORLANDO - A lot has changed since Academy DaVinci Charter School opened in Dunedin in 1997.

Full-time enrollment has grown from 40 to 100. About 100 homeschooled students are taking courses. Employees have come and gone. New board members have come aboard.

Now comes the hard part.

Many charter schools encounter their greatest hurdles four to six years after they open, when the excitement has worn off, said Debbie Pepin, a charter school consultant working with the Charter School Accountability Center at Florida State University.

"We're past the founding stage, definitely," said Reina Mora-Blackwelder, an administrator at Academy DaVinci. "But we're ready to move on."

Pepin led representatives from about 20 Florida charter schools in a daylong workshop Wednesday on charter school governance. The event was part of the state's Eighth Annual Charter School Conference.

Since the Florida Legislature authorized charter schools in 1996, the movement has grown to include 240 schools with about 70,000 students. But the average charter school board, Pepin said, still receives less than 10 minutes of training and orientation.

Though publicly funded, charter schools are privately run and have greater flexibility than traditional public schools, especially when it comes to rules of operation. That freedom, however, can cripple a school if it translates into a lack of structure.

A school's leaders must be diligent, Pepin said.

"Most charter schools in the country start around a kitchen table - people with awesome dreams about what is possible for kids," she said.

But as schools rush to be approved for state funding, they often open without adequate preparation, spend the first few years trying to get their feet under them and then lose touch with the vision that got them there. "That makes our public wonder if we really know what we're doing," Pepin said.

Pepin and Jennifer Rippner, executive director of the Charter School Accountability Center, helped the 40 or so charter school representatives in attendance review their schools' policies and practices to see how they fit with the law or other good practices.

Many of the questions board members asked dealt with procedures that long ago became entrenched in traditional public schools: Should charter school principals also be voting members of their boards? Is it the principal's job to award contracts to vendors, or should the board make those decisions? Who sets the board agenda? What constitutes a violation of Florida's sunshine laws?

Boards need to set policies to handle these questions before they become problems, Pepin said.

The bulk of Florida's charter schools are now at a critical stage, Rippner said. They are moving into their adolescence, a time when they need help to stabilize and grow. About 20 Florida charter schools opened and closed between 1996 and the end of the 2002-03 school year, Rippner said.

Just last week, Pasco County's Deerwood Academy Charter Middle School closed because of funding problems.