Arts Charter School Gets State Agency’s Nod

By ANNE CONSTABLE

The state Public Education Department is recommending that one of the two proposed charter schools in Santa Fe be approved and the other denied.

Don Duran, assistant secretary of education for the Charter Schools Division, said the Public Education Commission should approve the application of the New Mexico School for the Arts, a four-year statewide residential charter school aimed at serving students with artistic aptitude. But he said PEC should deny the application of The MASTERS Program, an early college high-school program for students in grades 10-12 to be based at Santa Fe Community College.

PEC is scheduled to vote on the charter applications Friday.

The New Mexico Charter Schools Act allows the commission as well as school districts to authorize the independently designed and operated public charter schools.

The School for the Arts, which withdrew its application last year, seems headed for authorization this year. The Legislature removed one of the school’s major stumbling blocks by passing a bill earlier this year to exempt the school from the state’s lottery process and allow it to admit students based on talent.

Duran’s recommendation included some conditions. Although he described the school’s goals as “well-articulated,” he said “they are not measurable.” Seven days prior to PEC’s October meeting, the school must deliver approved goals to the Charter Schools Division. Other conditions were mostly technical formalities.

The school must also comply with a planning-year checklist documenting governance, financial management, enrollment, student assessment, staffing and other basics.

No one from the School for the Arts could be reached for comment Wednesday.

In his recommendation to PEC to deny a charter for The MASTERS Program, Duran said the application was “inadequate and incomplete.”

Although the application identifies a mission, Duran said, the model to support the mission is “contradictory and confusing.”

“Several different strategies are interwoven with little connection to the educational plan. It is unclear if the founder truly understands the public education philosophy,” Duran wrote.

John Bishop, the school’s founder, said he isn’t giving up. He intends to “get full input” from PEC at the Friday meeting. And “if (the application is) not approved this year, I will work toward next year. Absolutely. I think this is too valuable of a model.”

The MASTERS Program students would be enrolled in community college courses and could earn up to two years of college credits along with their high-school diplomas. Tutors would help students master the content of the college courses.

Duran’s final recommendation expressed concern over the proposed school’s plan to place students who do not score high enough on placement exams in the college’s transitional studies courses, assuming these courses meet high-school course requirements.

Bishop said any missing content — identified over the course of the planning year — would be taught by highly qualified homeroom teacher/tutors “pursuant to (state) benchmarks and standards.”

The application didn’t provide written evidence the college was prepared to provide all ancillary services for special education students either, Duran said. But according to Bishop, his school will have the money to provide “the best special education services in the state.” Some could come from rent savings. He said he budgeted $84,000 a year, but the college would only charge him $6,000.

Bishop also said he would hire an educational consultant to help rewrite the application if it is not approved this week.

Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com.

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