School Board, Charter School Agree to Meet

By DEBRA LEMOINE

GREENSBURG – The St. Helena Parish School Board agreed Monday night to meet with the Charter School of Pine Grove to begin discussing arrangements that could enable the charter school to open in August.

The charter school and the School Board remain locked in a legal battle over the board’s decision to rescind its approval of the charter school. However, a 21st Judicial District judge issued a preliminary injunction against the School Board that prevents it from stopping the charter school from opening.

The School Board had appealed the injunction, but the appeal was dismissed by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal.

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that operate under an agreement, called a charter, with either a local school board or the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Pine Grove officials and their attorneys attended the meeting Monday night to ask the board to meet with them.

The board rejected previous meetings because its attorney advised against it because of the lawsuit, Board President James “Bull” Baker said.

During the Monday night board meeting, the board’s attorney, Nelson D. Taylor, said he advised the board against meeting with the charter school because the charter school had not provided “requested documentation.”

Pine Grove’s attorney Charles Riddle replied that they had given copies of the student applications to the board’s previous attorney.

Riddle said that he will forward additional copies to the superintendent.

After a 45-minute executive session about the charter school lawsuit, Baker told Pine Grove officials that the board will meet with them after their respective attorneys talk first about the parameters of such a meeting.

Pine Grove President Joe Lombardo said the charter school wanted to set up a meeting with the School Board to begin talking about the relationship between the charter school and the School Board. For example, the School Board is charged with oversight of the charter school, and all the charter school’s state funding goes through the School Board first.

However, the School Board still stands by its decision to take back its approval of the school, Baker said.

“It’s just a matter that we can’t afford it,” he said.

A handout prepared by Superintendent Wayne Meadows’ staff in the spring was passed out at the Monday night meeting. Meadows said the sheet was prepared to illustrate that the school system can’t afford a charter school, and the figures remain relatively accurate.

The handout showed that if the charter school had 200 students, the school system would lose $1 million to the charter school in state funding and local tax dollars. The handout suggested the school system would have to lay off seven teachers, an assistant principal, two custodians and two bus drivers.

Baker said the school system really can’t predict how badly the charter school would affect its finances, but that the handout offered a potential scenario.

Typically, state funding follows the student, so St. Helena schools could lose money to the charter school.

The charter school contends that it will bring more state funding into the parish because St. Helena Parish students currently attending schools out of the parish would enroll in the charter school.

Lombardo said that 40 percent of its 280 applications come from parish residents not enrolled in the St. Helena Parish school system. Most of them attend public schools in other parishes, he said.