WORRIES DON'T FAZE CHARTER SCHOOL
The Polk School Board had turned it down, saying it was likely to
fail.
By Julia Crouse The Ledger
LAKELAND -- A charter school deemed too risky by the Polk County School Board will soon offer Lakeland's dropouts a new chance for a high school diploma.
Polk's School Board voted 5-2 in October to deny the charter school because members said the state's current school grading standards make it unlikely that it will remain open for more than three years.
Board members Margaret Lofton and Hazel Sellers voted in favor of the school.
Charter schools that receive two F's under the state's A+ grading plan must be shut down or reorganized. The state started grading at-risk schools on the same scale as traditional high schools two years ago.
Based on the track records of Polk's at-risk charter schools, Polk's board thought Life Skills could not make passing school grades under the state's A+ school grading plan.
"It was statistically improbable that (Life Skills) would get a grade less than an F," said Carolyn Finch, district director of the Office of School Choice.
Life Skills appealed to the state Board of Education, which unanimously approved the charter school at its Tuesday meeting.
Now, Life Skills should open in Lakeland in August.
Three of Polk's four at-risk charters earned failing grades last year. Haines City High's Literacy Learning Academy wasn't graded because it opened in August 2004.
Lake Gibson High's ARCS earned double F's and was reorganized in August in a last-ditch effort to keep the school open.
Approving another at-risk school serving about the same population as ARCS sends mixed messages to the community, said board member Jack English.
Catering to similar students in about the same area, Life Skills could share ARCS' fate in three years, he said.
"We're in a policy-making Catch-22 right now," English said.
But Life Skills' supporters say the school won't fail because students will make learning gains every year based on a solid and proven curriculum.
The Life Skills Centers, operated by Ohio-based White Hat Management, offer a different type of education for students who have already dropped out of traditional schools, said Cathy Wooley-Brown, senior executive director of White Hat Life Skills of Florida.
At Life Skills, students are taught individually through a Web-based curriculum. Students, who must also hold down a job, attend throughout the day based on their schedules.
"We're trying to make (school) doable for kids who have other issues in their lives," WooleyBrown said.
White Hat Management, a forprofit company, operates 24 Life Skills Centers across the country serving more than 10,000 students, Brown said.
Since it started in 1998, White Hat has opened alternative education schools for at-risk students in Ohio, Arizona, Colorado and Michigan.
The schools have awarded 5,500 high school diplomas and are on track to graduate 1,000 students every year, she said.
Five Life Skills Centers will open their doors in Florida in August. They will operate in Polk, Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Pinellas counties, Wooley-Brown said.
"It's an exemplary program to take students who have no hope of graduating and graduate them, get them a job and make a difference in their community," she said.
The school will be Polk's first school run by an education management company.
Polk's other 24 charter schools were organized and are run by local boards, whether conversion or start-up.
Management companies set up similar charter schools in different communities, much like a business sets up a franchise.
The schools give a percentage of their funding to the companies in exchange for certain services, such as curriculum or materials, Finch said.
There are several advantages to having a company set up a charter, she said. These include up-front capital, experienced leaders, an established curriculum and a proven teaching method.
Originally published in the
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