I promised that I would talk about last week's board working meeting on charters. I'm not sure if anyone who reads this blog is really interested, but I'll throw out some quick links and thoughts just in case.
The meeting agenda is here, and a link to the powerpoint that was presented can be found here (you might have to click the + sign next to 06/07/2010 Non-Traditional Schools Worksession and then the + sign next to Meeting Documents to see the link).
The meeting room was packed and both the board and the general public seemed engaged. That's a good thing, I guess. What's not so good is that even in this presentation with mainly history, there was a lot of political posturing going on. I'm not sure how the next meeting, that's supposed to actually discuss changes to policy, will end in decisions being made.
I also worry that statements based on what some charters do, are going to end up making things harder for all charter schools. Maybe I worry too much.
The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, July 13th 7:30 pm‐8:30 pm.
The meeting room was packed and both the board and the general public seemed engaged. That's a good thing, I guess. What's not so good is that even in this presentation with mainly history, there was a lot of political posturing going on. I'm not sure how the next meeting, that's supposed to actually discuss changes to policy, will end in decisions being made.
I also worry that statements based on what some charters do, are going to end up making things harder for all charter schools. Maybe I worry too much.
The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, July 13th 7:30 pm‐8:30 pm.
I'm interested! What sort of "statements based on what some charters do" were there that caused you to worry?
ReplyDeleteA few board members made comments implying that charters don't take special needs kids or that charters kick out kids that have behavioral problems. I am not going to argue that this isn't true for any chater school - I just don't know enough about many of the charters. On the other hand I know that the charter school that msk has been going to doesn't do either thing. I also know that there were several charters that we toured that said they weren't like that and I did see special needs kids in the school and behavior issues, so I tend to take them at their word.
ReplyDeleteI will admit that if a school has a reputation for not doing well with special needs kids, or when I say IEP they roll their eyes, I don't have much interest in looking into them (that was the case in one out of the 4 charter 6th grades we looked at this spring). I'm also not too interested in looking at schools across town. So, I won't say that I know what charters generally do, but I do know there are more than a few charters that don't act this way.
Those are the types of generalizations that make me nervous.