Sun Staff Reporter
Sunday, July 27, 2008
*To see this story as it originally appeared in the Daily Sun, click here
A small charter school formerly housed out of a Flagstaff Unified School District campus is looking at new digs.
Mountain English Spanish Academy is a bilingual middle school that, until recently, operated out of two leased classrooms and an office space inside Killip Elementary School, 2300 E. Sixth Ave.
FUSD announced its decision earlier this month not to renew the lease agreement with MESA, which had been in place for about five years. This is in concert with a mutual decision to sever all ties the district has with the self-governing, incorporated charter board that runs the academy.
Although MESA officials have a lead on a new site and are hopeful they will move in before their anticipated start date on Aug. 14, the recent events have left a sour aftertaste with one active charter board member.
"Everything looked to me and to many of us like FUSD was really working to create a situation where MESA couldn't have a transition of any kind," said Guy Senese, a Northern Arizona University education professor and member of the charter board. "And it was only through the last-ditch, heroic efforts of some staff and some parents that allow us to think that we might have a chance at this new (site) -- it's basically a little storefront. But FUSD sure did not make that any easier. In fact, almost made it impossible."
KILLIP CLASSROOMS NEEDED
Senese serves on the FUSD Charter School Board, Inc., which oversees MESA. The 35-student school is the only institution the board runs.
The charter board is loosely affiliated with FUSD, though less than its name would suggest.
The charter board was created several years ago with the input of a previous FUSD Governing Board. The school district has board members that serve on both the FUSD and charter boards, and has the authority to appoint charter board members, but does not have a hand in the charter board's operations.
Charter schools, like traditional district schools, are public, tuition-free institutions. They are publicly funded but privately and independently run. Charters do not necessarily follow the same rules and regulations as traditional district schools, but are held to the same federal and state accountability standards on student performance.
As such, the Flagstaff Unified School District Charter School Board, Inc., is autonomous. The charter board is governed by the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools and FUSD cannot change the charter board's bylaws; the school district stresses that the two bodies are separate and distinct organizations.
But where FUSD was involved -- as a source of board members and a landlord -- is about to come to an end.
It is the latter aspect that has raised Senese's ire.
He contends the request to vacate was rushed and poorly handled, leaving the school scrambling to find accommodations with just a few weeks left in the summer.
FUSD representatives respond that the severance had been broached before, and the school district needed the classroom space.
Senese said the district's official decision to reclaim the Killip space was jolting, sloppy and negligent.
"It's one thing to have that conversation in March and give people a chance to make a plan," he said. "It's another thing to have it happen in July and have it be executed within less than a week."
District officials said Killip needed the rooms, and quickly -- the school, which is on a modified, year-round schedule, resumed classes last Thursday.
FUSD Governing Board President Paul Kulpinski said the district's maintenance department had deemed Killip's portable classrooms unsafe for student instruction. The lease termination, he said, was driven by the need to reclaim the main building's rooms.
BOTH WANTED TO SEPARATE
The decision to generally part ways came from both sides and was not a new conversation.
Senese said the charter board wanted to break away from the FUSD governing board, but wanted to do so "in an orderly fashion."
Kulpinski said he has participated in previous discussions about severing ties with the charter board. The topic has been around, he said, since January 2007.
Fellow governing board member Deborah Harris, who also sits on the charter board but will resign once the restructuring is complete, said she had also thought "a long time ago" that a separation was the way to go.
Minutes from a June 10 FUSD governing board meeting show Harris' mention of a prior charter board recommendation to close MESA.
The vote was nullified on a technicality, but Harris said the FUSD board still wanted to follow through on the desire to sever ties.
And it just made sense to part ways, she said.
"It just didn't make any sense to us as a board that we do this, and we just said, 'It's time for us to sever these ties because this does not make sense. We're a public school district governing board and why are we connected with a charter board?'" she said. "We're not connected to any other charter board so why would be connected to this one? It just didn't make sense for us to do that or to be involved to this extent."
Harris disputed Senese's "11th hour" characterization of the lease termination.
"It wasn't like we woke up one morning and called a special meeting and did it," she said.
Kulpinski said the charter board initiated the general split, and the FUSD board has not taken formal action beyond the lease termination.
He said the charter board will revise its bylaws to remove the FUSD connections, submit them to FUSD's legal department for a review, and then vote to adopt the changes. FUSD will not have any direction in the process.
"The desire to keep the school going and to restructure is coming from the MESA parents and the folks who are involved in the charter board," he said. "FUSD is a willing participant in making the separation. It's an amicable separation is really what it is. It's not one of these things where we're putting the hammer down on MESA."
Harris rejected Senese's criticisms.
"This is not an adversarial issue," she said. "We (FUSD board) have a responsibility to do what we think is best for FUSD ... it does not mean that we do not care about those students in MESA."
NEW SITE IN WORKS
The school started as a dual-language, English-Spanish program. Subsequent changes to state law requiring English-only instruction necessitated that the school alter its original mission. Senese said it evolved into a community school, one for students who had struggled with FUSD.
He conceded that he's biased toward the kids, with whom he works closely in a partnership with NAU.
Senese said the school is considering a suite at a strip mall on East Seventh Avenue, a few blocks from Killip. Staff and supporters want to move in this week.
The school has also posted an advertisement for a teacher and principal -- MESA operated without an administrator last year -- and Senese said that so far, no families have pulled their children out of the school.
"We're gonna move forward and try to accomplish something with those kids if we can," he said.
Hillary Davis can be reached at 556-2261 or hdavis@azdailysun.com.
