Charter Parents Say They’re Left Out

DRAPER — Parents in a Draper charter school say they are being left out of the loop in a school where they were told their voices would be at the helm. They say school leaders are going against the very philosophies that drew them to the charter — a parent-run school.

Charter schools are free public schools and many are established and run by parents. The draw to charter schools for many families is that they are crafted for high parental involvement.

But under new reauthorization Summit Academy, a K-6 school chartered through Jordan School District, would be run by founders and appointed members instead of the former board elected by parents. This will be the school’s second year in operation.

“We feel like we’ve been duped,” said Mark Reese, a Summit parent. “We were told there would be lots of parental involvement, lots of teacher input and the founders would be more of an advisory . . . but the rug has been pulled out from under us, and to me it’s bait and switch.”

Last spring district leaders started getting complaints from parents about the school’s operation, which spurred a district investigation and financial audit.

Among the complaints were that school leaders unlawfully dissolved Summit’s elected school board, which meant founding members were exclusively running the show.

Some parents said that throughout the year they knew little about what was going on and were not kept in the loop about meetings, decisions and activities. And they said even before the elected board was dissolved it was treated more like an advisory board than a governing entity.

The financial check came back clean but Jordan found the school was out of compliance with their charter or state or federal law on 12 other issues — the big ones being governance, open meetings laws and communication.

“Most of the compliance issues were procedural, it’s a new school, compliance issues are expected and can easily be worked through,” said Janine Bowen, Jordan’s charter school specialist. “Summit Academy is a good school, the parents are very pleased with what their children are receiving in terms of their education — the key issues are trust and communication.”

The report was released early last week. Under Jordan’s recommendation the school would have until the end of the school year to be in full compliance — including reinstating the elected governing board called for in their charter, posting and holding monthly meetings, improving communication and keeping adequate records — or their charter would be revoked.

However, last week the State Charter School Board approved Summit leaders’ request to be reauthorized under the charter board, thus taking compliance issues out of Jordan’s hands. The conversion awaits approval from the state school board Sept. 2.

Summit director CherryLee Morgan said school leaders sought reauthorization with the charter board because they were getting all of their training from the state anyway. Plus, last fall, the school received a letter from Jordan encouraging them to seek reauthorization through the state.

But David Moss, charter board chairman, said the approval was provisional and Summit has a year to fix areas the charter board finds out of line. He said they will looking closely at Jordan’s recommendations and identify which issues need to be fixed in the immediate future.

“We will be holding their feet to the fire to make sure they fix these things but at the same time we want to allow them to move forward in the areas they are succeeding,” said Moss.

Reese and other Summit parents say they are OK with the state working to fix compliance problems, but it won’t fix issues in governance.

Under the new charter, submitted to the state by Summit leaders, the school would only have one governing board — the board of trustees — that would consist of the founders and a few appointed members.

“There’s a certain qualified training that board members need to have to help the school move forward successfully,” said Morgan. “The (founders) already have that training.”

State Charter Director John Broberg said there is a chance the charter board could organize the school’s governance so that a few elected members would be on the board, but it is too early to say.

And parents are skeptical.

“This is just going to be more of the same with parents being left in the dark,” Reese said. “It’s nice the (charter board) will be monitoring things but given the nature of the charter it will be back to business as usual.”

Summit parent Dianna White said parents are lobbying state board members to reject the charter board’s recommendation, thus keeping the school a district charter that must meet Jordan’s recommendations.

“This is a great charter — there are feelings and rumors out there but the bottom line is we are trying to save a good school but that’s not going to happen overnight,” Broberg said.

E-mail: terickson@desnews.com