Envision is really, really mad at Novato
Envision Schools' Bob Lenz keeps lobbing bombs at Novato Unified School District officials, whom he claims had it in for Marin Arts & Tech from Day 1.
I gotta say, Envision is not totally the wronged victim here. Remember, till fall '06, Novato had to fork over $800 more per student to MSAT than it provided to its two other high schools, and the more I read about MSAT, the more it sounds like it was serving a lot of out-of-district students. So Novato students had to sacrifice to subsidize those MSAT students. I'll bet Novato officials wish they'd never heard of Envision Schools.
Novato Advance
School board defends itself on MSAT issue
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 3:06 PM PDT
Most people expect the last day of high school classes to be a day where students and teachers breathed a collective sigh of relief - this was not the case at the Marin School of Arts and Technology (MSAT). The Envision Schools charter school announced at a Novato school board meeting June 5 that it planned to close its doors for good. Furthermore, students attending the school would have to travel to San Francisco to attend Metropolitan Arts and Tech High School to continue their Envision education. Last Friday, teary eyed students presented equally weepy teachers with flowers and individualized speeches expressing appreciation for their teachers during an assembly, the last one students would have as a school.
The library at the school's Indian Valley College campus was filled with a camaraderie and an almost familial feeling. Students seemed to actually enjoy coming to school.
“The teachers here aren't your basic high school teachers,” said MSAT student Rose Fry during the farewell meeting. “They really try to connect with you through learning.”
Since it's inception, MSAT and its governing organization, Envision Schools, have clashed with the Novato Unified School District (NUSD) over the school's financial reporting, fiscal solvency, educational program issues, timely and accurate reporting and most recently finding a new facility. Some of these issues required the district to initiate a corrective action plan mandating the school act in compliance with NUSD's demands, much of which the school complied with; however the school failed to meet the district's demands of having a three percent budget reserve. Despite these shortcomings, trustees of the school board renewed MSAT's five year charter late last year. Two weeks prior to the school's closure announcement MSAT looked into breaking away from Envision Schools to start a charter with the NUSD.
At a school board meeting May 30, NUSD legal counsel told the school that trustees can't move forward until Envision Schools sends the district a formal proposal detailing the charter revision.
According to MSAT principal Stuart Fox, the school was under the impression that the process would be quick. “We had done everything we were asked to do,” he said. “(NUSD trustees) wouldn't answer any questions and they made it into a process. The response in the board meeting was a surprise for us and a continuation of a pattern.”
Trustees didn't give the school enough time to inform them that revising a charter could be a time consuming process, he added. “Stuart's characterization of expecting one kind of a meeting and getting another is fair,” said NUSD board president Jennifer Treppa. Treppa maintains that had members from Envision Schools attended more NUSD meetings the situation might have gone differently. MSAT and Envision School's decision to close genuinely was a surprise, Treppa said. “This district always supported choice. Our district has the most educational options in the county. It's not true that this district does not support alternative forms of education.” Bob Lenz, founder of Envision Schools and founding principal of MSAT, described the situation differently. He said it was typical of the governing board's dealings with the school district. After meeting with MSAT's attorney and the California Charter School Association Lenz said he was under the impression that revising the charter was not a difficult process and it wouldn't require creating a different charter.
“Their attorney had interpreted the process differently. Renewing the process would take three months. School starts in three months,” Lenz said. “This was set up as a political ruse that they were following a process. They can act surprised. They can set up a process but they didn't want the school in the district.” Lenz alleges that NUSD was against MSAT since its inception. “There were fears that they might have to consolidate the high schools if it was successful. It's not about what's best for kids its all about money.” If the district wanted the school to succeed they would have found a way to do it, Lenz said. “Words are cheap.”
— Caroline
Labels: Charters
5 Comments:
Caroline, let me add my comment here. I realize you are less than sympathetic to charter schools, but bear with me.
I am one of those Novato MSAT parents who will be sending my son to Envision's Metro this fall.
If you had told me a year ago that I would be sending him from a suburban, middle to upper-middle class Marin County community, on a 20 mile freeway trip into a high school in the San Francisco Unified School District, I would have said you were crazy.
Now try 140 (the latest number) Novato families that will be doing the same, and maybe you can get some idea of the enormity of what Envision has started.
We gathered together last night at Metro's new facility off of Fillmore, and it was like a homecoming. All the familiar faces were there. Huge challenges lie ahead: there will be the transporation issues, there will be the merging of student bodies with two very different demographics -- which Envision is completely honest and open on, by the way.
We're doing this because of Envision. We saw what they were able to do in Novato, and it was the most exciting thing going on in high school education. We're taking a huge leap of faith coming to San Francisco, but we trust Envision. We parents are all committed to making a new and combined Metro work, and that what a charter school is all about.
And finally let me add that the situation with the Novato Unified School District was not the fault of Envision, it was all about a small town that didn't know a good idea when it was right there, staring them in the face.
- Jim
I understand that you're happy with the school. It's other issues around this that raise my concern -- the impact on other schools and their students, and on whole districts.
You have surely seen my comment about the inequity in funding that was only remedied last fall when Carole Migden's SB319 took effect.
Previously, state law required school districts to fund charters at a certain level. That level meant that in botn NUSD and SFUSD, charters got $800 per student per year more than non-charters. In NUSD, that inequity was more stark, because there are only two other high schools. So the students at Novato High and San Marin were sacrificing to subsidize MSAT -- which, it also appears, serves many out-of-district students. SB319 changed that as of Septebmer 2006. But would it be understandable that NUSD wouldn't feel warm-n-fuzzy about MSAT under the circumstances (and I know there was a series of other bureaucratic hassles as well)?
Also, MSAT serves either zero or one socioeconomically disadvantaged student, depending on which report we look at; Novato High serves 172 and San Marin serves 95. Yet Envision got Gates funding based on its commitment to serve low-income students, but all the low-income students ended up at the non-charter high schools. What's that about?
Again, I understand that the parents are happy with the school, but there are greater issues here -- and silence when I ask about them.
And I'm curious -- how do parents view the fact that that's a temporary site for Metro/MSAT? Previous discussion was that Metro would be located in the Bayview, which is more representative than Pacific Heights (to put it mildly) of the community Envision has committed to serve. So is the long-range plan to wind up in the Bayview?
Also, this is from Envision's website:
"Recruitment strategies are designed to enroll a majority of students who are First Generation College Bound (FGCB), low-income, and live in neighborhoods served by low-performing public high schools."
... so how does that jibe with the MSAT demographics?
Caroline, I hear you.
The funding imbalance was a real issue and you have it right -- it was about $800 per student. I will grant that NUSD (and a lot of other districts) had valid concerns about that until it was resolved. That was a fault of the charter law.
I think that the facilities impasse that we had with the NUSD was made worse because MSAT was at 50% out-of-district students, which of course NUSD was not required to pay for, but Envision couldn't afford to pick up the rest either. In hindsight the charter should have been held at the county or state level.
(By the way I have three other children in an NUSD elementary school -- I'm not an NUSD hater by any means.)
Envision has been honest with us in that the lease for the Jackson St. facility is for only one year. They told us that up front. Not quite what we really wanted to hear, but they told us. It's a risk we're taking. They also told us about the Bayview site offer, and before the Jackson St. site was offered had instead planned to stay in Bernal Heights, which would have limited their growth because it is too small.
Regarding demographics -- METRO's principal pesented us three multi-colored pie charts: MSAT's demographics (85% white), METRO's current demographics (50% black), and a combined school pie chart, which looked a lot like a multicolored beach ball where all these different wedges were almost equal size. (Which is also what their other SF high school CAT looks like.)
So in an interesting way, neither school alone was truly "diverse".
I think all the concerns you raise about burdens on the sponsoring district are valid, but reflect on weaknesses in the charter laws. We should work together to insure that kids in public schools are not shortchanged -- that is what we did to help correct the $800 imbalance in years past.
- Jim
Actually, the California Charter Schools Assn. opposed SB319 -- it's not correct that the charter lobby "worked together" with anyone to remedy the inequity.
And surely Envision could have refused, renounced or returned the extra $800 per student.
Given the subsidy that Novato's other students were providing to MSAT students, isn't it rather ungracious to be attacking and bashing NUSD now over MSAT's failure, including in a full-page I-J ad?
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