Charter Schools Anyone?

[Ms. Mom]

I've posted before about Charter Schools. My son is on yr. 2 at a Charter School.

I'm looking for anyone to 'compair notes' with! I have so many questions and concerns.

All, in all, it's working out well. We're pretty happy with his teachers and the school. But, we continue to questions policies and practices.

Anyone?

[Forest Sage]

I've been having a difficult time researching charter schools, ms. mom. I'm very interested though. Nobody seems to know what I'm talking about!
Do you have any links?
Amie

[mountain]

I'm researching cooperative schools for a newspaper article, had read your post & came across this.
Let me know if it helps, & if you know anyone that's in a parent participatory school, please let me know

charter schools (http://www.cde.ca.gov/charter/)

[sunmountain]

Dh and I came in on the ground floor of creating a charter school out of an existing Montessori school. The school districts were vicious and the legal/paperwork overwhelming. We are currently waiting for an appeals process to give us the go ahead. If you want details, I can post more on this, I just can't get into all of it, no time right now...at least Tom Ridge was good for something while he was governor!:thumb

[Forest Sage]

Hello all you dedicated moms,
I just thought I'd update. Thanks Mountain for the link. I've just discovered that there are 1700 public charter schools in the U.S. and only TEN in Canada, and they're ALL in Alberta...
Man I'm depressed!

[gilnikche]

Ms mom,

I thought this link would be helpful in finding more info & contacts for your state:

http://www.gomilpitas.com/homeschooling/regional/Michigan.htm

I am in California. My local & HS e-mail groups discuss charter schools quite often.

[mommy22]

My children have attended Montessori school since they were 3 years old. This will be our 5th year, and our first as a charter school. We got approved last year. It was really quite easy, just alot of paperwork. I love the idea of charter schools, especially Montessori charter shcools. I was always sad that so few children got to have the wonderful experience of Montessori due to lack of tuition funds. Now, so many children will get to have this experience. There is alot of information on the www about charter schools. Just do a search, and you will be overwhelmed with the information available. Good luck.

[momosmama]

Ms Mom
Do your children go to a "waldorf inspired" charter school? I know there is one in our area (Southfield)and I am trying to find more info about it as well.

[lorrielink]

ok so can i get away with just asking here what exactly is a charter school instead of doing a search on the net?

i dont know what it is at all though i hear alot about them:confused:

can someone shed the light?

[lorrielink]

ok so i just read a little paragraph that i suppose tells me what it is, but can i get a little more detail about it, as in what exactly its for and why its better then a ps? thanks

[sunmountain]

In our state, charter schools are run by the community/parents or a private organization. The local school district receives the $$$ per student, and passes along 75% to the charter school. But the school district doesn't have any say in the running of the charter school, they just have to give up some cash:D But in our case, we are a private school, so they aren't getting any $$$ for our kids to begin with. We would actually be increasing their take from the gov't every year.
This has been a grueling process. We hope for a more final decision in October, wish us luck:thumb :love

[lorrielink]

wow, your opening your own school? thats fabulous, i wish you the best of luck with that!:love wanna share a little detail about it?

[sunmountain]

Opening my own school?:eek That'll be the day when I do something so constructive:thumb
No, the school my 2 older ds go to IS a private school (the tuition is KILLING us:( ). And a couple of years ago they had the bright idea of forming a new school, a charter school, so that the kids around here didn't have to fork our $2,000-$3,000 for a Montessori education. One of the school districts just put in a bunch of Montessori classrooms amongst their various grade-schools, but they aren't the same. They are pseudo-Montessori, they have all of the materials, but not the well-trained teaching staff we have. Well, until they enticed two of our teachers away from us with the bigger salaries they were offering, they didn't have much in the way of certified Montessori teachers.

All of the school districts turned down our application, but that is to be expected. At that point, we went out and collected over 4,000 signatures from two of the school districts we want to serve. The intent is to open it up to the whole county, about 14 school districts in all. But there was a precedent set in another PA county where the charter application was OK'd on appeal after they collected the required amount of signatures from only two school districts, not all of the ones they intended to serve, just the largest ones, which is what we did, too. We were turned down by a lower court and are awaiting the decision of an appeal's judge. If he/she turns us down we are SOL, but if he/she ok's our effort, we get to then appeal to the State Charter Appeals Committee, who will ultimately decide our fate.

How's that? Any clearer, you goofball? (And you know I say that with all the love in my heart...:love )

[mommy22]

Our Montessori charter school started as a private school. This is actually our first year as a charter.

We applied and were accepted for a charter within a matter of just months. I think one reason for this was that there was only one other charter school in our county. The adjacent county to us, only a few miles away, did not accept any new charters for this year because they already had so many charter schools. So maybe you could go to a different county.

[sunmountain]

There is only one other Charter school in our county, it takes kids with behavioral problems out of one school district. Trust me, that one went through with flying colors:rolleyes: as they were very eager to remove those kids from their classrooms. But we pose more of a threat, being an established school, at least that's how they percieve it. I'm so glad it's not like that across the board. One of the problem PA Carter schools are having is that they aren't recieving the money from the districts. Our teachers' union is very one-sided about this issue, and they are doing everything they can to sabotage any effort. Poor babies. Maybe if they did their freakin' jobs, it wouldn't be such a threat to them?;)

[lorrielink]

my bad :D can i claim milk brain even though im not nursing nemore, perhaps residual effects?



well best of luck to what your doing, i think thats fabulous.



affectionatly,

goofball :bouncy


p.s dont push your luck though, i just might be temped to post on your water yoga thread again :wink

[loved]

My Kindergartner is starting school this year at charter school. It's a neat school, I think. I researched them pretty well - there are 6 in my city. His is an "ABC" - type shcool, dedicated to excellence in the basics, along with music and two foreign languages. They also require uniforms - which I really like, and have strict guidelines for lunches, TV viewing, computer usage and bedtimes. And a no tolerance policy on any "gun or shooting" type play.
I feel pretty good about. There are parts that bother me also, and I will figuer it out as I go, I'm sure.
It's really exciting to have alternatives and to get to choose what you think is right for your kids. I am very grateful.

Lesley

[sunmountain]

How on earth do they moniter BEDTIMES?:confused:

[GruppieGirl]

I used to teach at a charter school. :) Charter schools are public schools of choice for students. Instead of the "regular" public school recieving the per pupil expenditure, it goes to the charter school. Many charter schoold are non-profit and run by a parent's group. The school I taught at was a for-profit school owned by a company in the UAE.

Each charter school has a different philosphy. My school had a longer day, started teaching Spanish in K andhad small group tutoring sessions if a child fell behind. The birth of this new school caused area school districts to really up their standards. For example, most of the kids from town X had substandard reading and math skills. That town revamped their curriculum and better trained their teachers.

My school was very academic and structured. This theory worked well for some children. Others did not thrive there. You really have to look at your child's individual needs.

I would be more than happy to answer any questions about charter schools. :D

[sunmountain]

averysmom, I think that is what is so great about them, they give parents a CHOICE! No more one-size-fits-all classrooms. I am so impressed you worked for one. We have had a for-profit try to set up a Charter school here, but there are some strong political forces at work in our school districts, a real polarity between the public and private/religious schools/teachers. It just seems like nobody is really thinking about what is good for the children. It's all about the adults. They just don't get it.

[GruppieGirl]

Sunmountain- I compeletly agree with you. As parents we are lucky to have a choice in public schools!

There was a lot of political "stuff" at my school too. I think that many people felt threatened that their public school wasn't good enough. That wan't the case. It all came back to choices.

In RI where I live now, the charter schools seem to only be in the inner city and have very specific populations that they cater to. I hope by the time my dd reaches school age we too will have one more choice.

[mommy22]

I didn't realize how lucky we were until reading all these posts. Getting our private school chartered was easy compared to what I've been reading here.

In Florida, where I live, charter schools are very popular, and we have a very large number of them, and I don't get the feeling that other "traditional" public schools feel threatened at all. It seems more like they are greatful to us for keeping their student population at a more manageable level.

It is wonderful to have a choice in public education. But not all charter schools really give you a choice, unless you are under privledged or have a learning or emotional disablility. But more charter schools are going up that meet the requirments of charter schools because they have a "non-traditional" approach to learning.

I'm actually surprised more people don't look into charter schools. Most people I meet don't even know they exist. I just hope we can keep building the charter population, and put ourselves on the map, so to speak. Maybe then more politicians will stand up and take note of what wonderful things can actually happen in a classroom!

[loved]

Sunmountain,
They don't "monitor" bedtimes, of course that would be impossible. Just like they can't monitor TV viewing. They have guidelines that they expect parents to follow. In this case they want kids to be in bed by 7:30 (school is 8:45 to 4:30). They can often tell which child has a good early bedtime and which don't. For TV, thier guidelines are 2 hours per week. Again, children who are not following those guidelines foten show it in thier behavior. That does not mean they'll boot you out of school for it, but we do sign a contract saying we agree with the guidelines and will follow them. I really like that. It means that - hopefully - all the parents are on the same page.

With love,
Lesley