Pembroke Pines Charter-School Plan a Tough Sell

By Nirvi Shah and Amy Sherman, The Miami Herald

Jan. 19–Pembroke Pines’ renewed hope of getting more charter school money from the Broward County School District dimmed on Friday with the release of a negative recommendation from Interim Broward School Superintendent Jim Notter.

If board members agree with Notter, the city will likely sue the school district.

And Pines’ cash-strapped charter school system will need to find another way to balance its budget in the coming years as it runs out of reserves.

Pembroke Pines City Manager Charlie Dodge has argued that the city should get some of the district money that goes toward construction and other capital purchases, such as desks and computers.

The school district has tapped rising tax revenue to pay for new buildings. Meanwhile, the city’s charter schools — like all charter schools — rely on a lagging state fund.

Both school systems get tax dollars to support operational expenses such as teacher salaries.

School district officials have rejected Dodge’s requests for years, but Pines officials had hoped that with new School Board members and a new interim superintendent, the door would open.

FRUSTRATIONS IN PINES

Dodge said he’s disappointed.

“I thought perhaps there was some room for movement in the area of fairness and equity, but I realize he is an administrator and he has to make recommendations for what he feels is best for the district,” Dodge said.

During a recent meeting, Notter asked Dodge if the city would set aside some of its planned affordable housing in the future City Center development for Broward teachers.

‘I said, ‘absolutely.’ It’s something I would have to bring back to the commission,” Dodge said he told Notter. “I got the impression [Notter] was looking for things he could offer as a source to justify maybe giving the money.”

PREEXISTING PRIORITIES

But in a 20-page document, Notter said that the school district can’t afford to give Pines money. The district must use its money to meet class-size reduction rules. Also, the district’s five-year plan has $300 million of its own unfunded projects. The city should lobby the Legislature for more money instead, Notter said.

Dodge argues that the charter school system deserves some of the capital dollars because the city has saved the district money. If Pines hadn’t built the 5,000-plus student charter schools, the school district would have had to spend millions of dollars to build or expand schools. Also, charter school parents pay school district taxes from which their children don’t benefit.

BUDGET CRUNCH

Financial pressures are mounting for the Pines system, which has repeatedly dipped into dwindling reserves to balance its budget.

Broward has a total of 49 charter schools, and several are in severe debt because they borrowed money to build or refurbish sites.

Outside the limited pool of state money charter schools can tap for construction, the schools have no special source of money for building as public schools do. Instead, they count on adding students to pay off those debts. That’s a gamble in Broward, a district whose student population has shrunk for two consecutive years — by 8,300 students in the current academic year.

For example, Charter School Institute in Fort Lauderdale hopes to enroll an extra 700 students over the next few years to erase a $2 million debt.

Charter schools must also return to the district 5 percent of the money they get for each of the first 500 students they enroll, to cover administrative costs.

School Board member Stephanie Kraft says giving district money to the charter schools is a “sticky question.”

“I would have to look into what that would mean,” she said. “There are so many of them. It’s a limited pot of money. . . . I’m really open. I don’t have an opinion one way or another.”

After Tuesday’s workshop, the next step will likely be a meeting between the City Commission and the School Board.

The Pines charter schools remain popular despite the financial pressures. Parents say they just want equal spending for the schools.

“The tax dollars should follow the student,” said Karen Kramer, who is a member of the charter high school advisory board.

Kramer remains committed to the charter school system. Her fifth-grade son is on a waiting list; her other son graduated in 2005.

Kramer likes the smaller class sizes, quality of the teaching and selection of electives.

“They have a lot of flexibility of what they can do with the students there,” she said.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Miami Herald

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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