Jonny Bottino, a 17-year-old at the NEXT Charter School in Derry, stands in a classroom at a table displaying three posters and a trove of artifacts, including a dusty 8 mm film camera and a high fidelity turntable, all representing various decades of hipster culture.
It’s “Exhibition Day” at NEXT, and six students are presenting their independent research projects under the theme of “The Things We Wear.” As teachers, parents and other community members walk around the room, they stop to chat with Bottino about crooner Bing Crosby, one of the first Caucasian hipsters to pedal bebop music to a mainstream audience.
As Bottino describes it, the project is emblematic of the school’s mission to let students learn independently and develop confidence in speaking. “The teachers give us space to persevere on our own.”
Devony, a third year student at NEXT, investigates the impact of culture on wrapped clothing as part of the school’s “The Things We Wear” presentations. Photo Courtesy of NEXT.
NEXT is one of 26 charter schools in NH (a 27th will open in the fall of 2017) that offer students an alternative to traditional public schools. The first two opened in 2004, and there are now 3,196 students in grades K-12, or 1.7 percent of students attending schools in NH.
No NH data is available on student success at charter schools versus traditional public schools, but as the number of charter schools has grown, so have the critics accusing them of siphoning resources from public schools. Proponents, many of whom enter competitive lotteries to gain their child a spot in a school, say these schools offer an alternate path to success, something they couldn’t find in the public schools.
Bottino’s grandmother and guardian, Susan DeStefano, says Bottino spent his freshman year at Pinkerton Academy in Derry “but he had challenges staying focused and organized.” After exploring the instructional approach at NEXT, which eliminates time-oriented deadlines, they both decided to transfer him to the intimate setting of the NEXT charter school, which now has 60 students and 11 teachers.
DeStefano says her grandson is now thriving.
Charter History
New Hampshire lawmakers first sanctioned charter schools in 1996, but close to a decade elapsed before two charter schools, the North Country Academy in Littleton and the Seacoast Charter in Dover, opened in the fall of 2004.
Despite struggles with capital funding, the champions of charter schools received a major boost in 2010 when the state received $10.8 million in federal start-up funds. That allowed 17 new schools to open between 2010 and 2015. Only $600,000 of that money remains.
That momentum almost stalled when a $4.9 million budget shortfall compelled the NH Board of Education (BOE) to place a moratorium on approving any new applications in September 2012. The freeze, however, was lifted in July 2013 when a law changed allowing the board to approve charters, whether or not the House and Senate pass a state budget.
Legally, either the state Board or the local school district can authorize a charter school. With the exception of the PACE Career Academy in Pembroke, all NH charter schools have sought state approval.
New Hampshire’s charter landscape looks different than that of other states. A 2013 study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, its most recent, found that 56 percent of charter schools are urban, while only two fall in that category in the Granite State. It also found that 39 percent of charter schools nationally were elementary schools, while in NH only 19.2 percent were in that group. The study covered charter schools in 27 states, which accounted for 95 percent of charter students nationwide.
While many charter schools in urban areas were created in response to failing public schools, NH charter schools often offer a different approach to education or serve a segment of students not succeeding in traditional public schools. New Hampshire’s charter movement includes Montessori schools, those focused on math and science, those focused on the arts and schools for kids who need a competency-based model that is geared to individual needs.
The Funding Conundrum
Since schools in NH are primarily funded by property taxes, residents pay close attention to dollars coming into and going out of town. This puts charter schools under tight scrutiny as they remove students from public schools along with the state adequacy aid towns receive for each student.
Towns recieve $3,561 per student in state adequacy funding. Additional funding comes from the state for students who require special education services, English as a second language and those who qualify for a free or reduced lunch. However, statewide per-pupil costs average $14,000, which means town taxes cover most of the cost.
Charter schools have a completely different formula. Under the current formula, charter schools receive $5,597 per student and must make up the rest of the per-student cost through donations, grants and other fundraising activities.
Keeping Doors Open
At Mill Falls in Manchester, NH’s first Montessori-based charter school, young children lie on the rug moving number cards and blocks, while others are measuring sand into vials at child-sized tables. By intention, the class looks more like a living room than a classroom.
Meryl Levin, executive director of Mill Falls, says the state provided $550,000 in start-up funds for the first three years. She then set out to raise about half a million dollars more for the first five-year charter period by establishing a nonprofit organization for the sole purpose of fundraising. As of the end of the last fiscal year, the nonprofit had about $300,000 in its coffers. Rent alone is $120,000 annually. The school has 168 kids in mixed-grade classrooms for first through sixth grade. Kindergarten, the only stand-alone classroom, has 24 spots like other rooms, and there are usually more than 150 children vying to get in through the annual lottery. The school’s wait list has 400 students.
Children working with Montessori Math Materials at Mill Falls Charter School in Manchester. Photo by Meryl Levin.
The Academy of Science and Design in Nashua on Amherst Street moved into its current location in 2012 after outgrowing its first home in Merrimack.
With 525 students, it is the second largest charter school in the state behind the Virtual Learning Academy, which only offers online classes. Virtual Learning Academy has 190 high school students, 29 middle school students and about 10,000 part-time students.
Jennifer Cava, director of the Academy for Science and Design, says the $34,000 per month rent is one of the biggest line items in her $2.5 million budget. The other is personnel. Cava says there is a separate page for donations on the school’s website, but due to recent funding increases donations “have always been appreciated” but are not necessary.
In the fall of 2014, Nashua dentist and parent Scott Bobbit pledged $30,000 to build a chemistry lab. Cava says that level of generosity is infrequent and she doesn’t expect more one-time gifts of that magnitude rolling in the door. Cava adds many parents do make donations.
Charter schools typically request, but don’t obligate, parents to do more than contribute financially. Parents are asked to volunteer in the classroom. Levin of Mill Falls says we “hope for 15 to 20 hours per year,” though she says not everyone can commit that time. She often suggests other ways parents can help out, such as volunteering at evening events or working on projects outside school hours.
Matora Fiorey has directed the Surry Village Charter School since its inception in 2006. When the bell signals the day’s end, kids don’t run out the door to a parked car. Instead, teachers request that parents enter the classroom, and greet their children. “We want them to stay connected to the school,” says Fiorey.
Surry Village asks that parents commit to 20 volunteer hours annually. “I never came across a parent that didn’t want to do that,” says Fiorey.
Students work on assignments at Surry Village Charter School. Photo courtesy of Surry Village.
Most charter schools find success, but four charter schools in Concord, Franklin, Goffstown and Rochester have closed between 2006 and 2010 in part due to financial concerns.
Low enrollments also contributed to these closures, notes Department of Education (DOE) Commissioner Virginia Barry. She points out that, in particular, charter high schools are at risk of decreasing demographics because it is not unusual for parents to transition their kids back to the traditional public schools in their junior and senior years as they get closer to applying for college.
Special Education Tensions
For the most part, charter schools collaborate well with colleagues at traditional schools. But tension arises when it comes to serving kids with special needs because the responsibility to assist kids with individual education plans (IEPs) falls on the district of residence, and not the charter school.
Alan Pardy, executive director of the NH Association of Special Education, says, “New Hampshire has this funny hybrid model. It approves them [the charter schools], but doesn’t fund them adequately. Then they throw the special education dilemma into the mix where in many cases public schools are subsidizing special education in charter schools.”
In Nashua, speech pathologists are stretched thin, says Janet Arcaro, who recently retired as assistant special education director for Nashua. The district provides services to around 30 students across four charter schools. “They [the therapists] have to [make] time in their schedules to travel to the charter schools and come back,” says Arcaro—and all at the home district’s expense.
Arcaro also says that therapists who work on social skills—like making conversation and reading non-verbal cues—work best in groups. That’s less likely to occur at a charter school where there are fewer students, in the same grade or at the same level, making it necessary to work one on one. In some cases, for students with significant disabilities, says Commissioner Barry, “It may be better to stay at the residential district.” But ultimately, the choice remains with the parent.
What worries Arcaro about the complicated relationships between charter and conventional schools is “that the parents are caught in the middle.” To address the concerns of Arcaro and other special educators, a state commission is studying how to improve these working relationships. The group, which includes educators and parents, will report its recommendations to legislators by November.
A Model of Partnership
Tensions surely exist, but some charter schools have established strong relationships with their host communities. The success of the state-approved NEXT Charter School in Derry stems from its partnership with the local district. After moving from West Running Brook Middle School in Derry, the trustees at NEXT spent $200,000 renovating space in the Gilbert H. Hood Middle School. The rent is a dollar a year, an arrangement that becomes more costly, but more permanent, when residents vote in March to transition NEXT to a 10-year lease.
Dan McKenna, chair of the Derry Cooperative School Board, says the district was instrumental in developing the charter to support an avenue for kids who, for a variety of reasons, are underserved in a traditional high school setting. The town of Derry pays the NEXT charter school the same $11,477.63 tuition fee it would pay for its students to attend Pinkerton Academy, minus the adequacy funds the charter receives from the state.
Like every other local school district, Derry funds special education for resident students. At Pinkerton, fees for these services run from anywhere from $7,500 to $25,000 per student. But at NEXT, McKenna says the personalized instruction diminishes the need for some of these services, ultimately saving the town $300,000.
Similarly, the K-6 Surry Village Charter School in the small town north of Keene is housed in the former Surry Elementary School, which the school district shuttered a decade ago. Wanting to preserve a village square landmark for resident students, charter proponents worked with the town to lease the former elementary school for a new charter school with multi-grade classrooms. The annual rent is one dollar. Tim Peloquin, school board chair, says when Surry students attend the charter, the town saves money it would otherwise pay in tuition to send kids to school in Keene. In 2010, the charter extended its reach to include seventh and eighth graders at a facility in Keene. At $20,000 a year, the middle school’s lease is considerably higher.
Working Their Own Way
As a chemical engineer at Thermo Electron in Massachusetts, Karen Legault developed systems for detecting trace explosives and chemical warfare agents and travelled frequently to many war-torn countries in the Middle East. She decided her second act career would be as a math teacher at the Academy of Science and Design. While she values her contributions as an engineer, she says she’s “thrilled” to draw upon her knowledge of real-world scenarios to teach beyond textbooks.
Students work on calculus problems at the Academy of Science and Design in Nashua. Courtesy of the Academy of Science and Design.
For instance, in her geometry lessons on arcs and circles, she asks students to calculate optimum heights of multiple communication towers on the moon using NASA specifications. The high schoolers react with enthusiasm, discussing how to make the towers mobile, how and what type of building materials to transport to the moon, and where to place them. Legault says she often has to remind her students to move on to their next class.
It’s not that teachers at conventional public schools don’t create innovative projects based on real-world scenarios. They do. But they don’t get the charter school perks: smaller class sizes—which every parent covets—and the absence of administrative red tape and contentious school board policies.
For teachers, working in an autonomous environment comes at a price. As a rule of thumb, teachers at charter schools don’t earn as much as their traditional counterparts, particularly as they move up the ladder. But you won’t hear any complaining from Legault about this. She says she’s working toward her certifications and graduate degrees in math and education while teaching at ASD. She and others, like science teacher Emily Whalen of NEXT, say they brainstorm ideas “outside the box” and implement them quickly.
Whalen likes the range of projects. To probe the evolution of prey species, she asks her students to explore the ethics of bobcat trapping in NH. An assignment on the inner workings of the body’s most important muscle led to a dissection of a sheep’s heart.
Each of these lessons is a module. Unlike a conventional public school where students pass or fail a year of physical science, NEXT students are reassessed every 20 days. They either move up or meet the competency requirement for that module in another way.
“There’s no penalty for doing that,” explains Whalen.
As the only science teacher in a school of 59 students, Whalen generates a variety of lessons based on current events. “The downside is I don’t have science colleagues to bounce ideas off of.” But on the other hand, “I don’t have to get 10 people on the same page.”
Professionals who are otherwise ineligible to work at conventional public schools are also attracted to charter schools. Many charter school teachers are on their second or third careers and don’t have teaching degrees. According to DOE Commissioner Barry, federal law requires only half the staff at charters schools to have a certification or three years of teaching experience while public school teachers must have a teaching certification. She adds that 75 percent of charter school teachers have a teaching endorsement from the State of NH.
The Future of Charters
Without local district governance, trustees at charter schools also set their own rules. Proponents say they innovate new approaches to learning, cherry-pick staff, engage parents who proudly wear the badge of school choice, and provide personalized instruction.
But the big question is: do they push students to succeed in ways conventional schools can’t? Anyone delving into the topic comes up short on answers. This is not because of lack of research. In fact, reams of literature explore the subject, but the results are often contradictory or inconclusive. If anything is clear, charter schools are here to stay in NH, though DOE Commissioner Barry doesn’t expect a cascade of new schools to continue.
In 2015, the state DOE applied, but did not receive, another round of federal start-up funds worth $5.8 million. More than $600,000 remains from the 2010 grant, which allowed the state to approve one more charter school: the LEAF Academy in Alstead, focused on a STEAM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Arts-Math) curriculum for high school students. The state has enough funds left to approve one more charter school, Barry says.
The rejection from the feds doesn’t arrest the momentum. “We will continue to apply [for federal dollars],” says Barry. “I’d like to see more activity north of Concord.”
Current Issue - May 2024