Is A Charter School Coming to Pinole?

After having three private board meetings, the Pinole Alliance for Charter Education held its first public meeting on May 5 to discuss a plan for a charter middle school. A dozen or so attendees that included parents, grandparents and a middle school teacher joined Pinole Community Services Commissioner Jeff Rubin and Pinole City Councilmember Debbie Long to talk about a three-year plan to make it all happen. 

Currently the process is in the research phase. Successful and unsuccessful schools are being examined as well as gathering finance information as part of the process.

"The success of a charter school is all about the administration, teachers and curriculum, " said Rubin.

A charter school is an innovative public school that allows choices for families and ideally makes students more accountable. It operates with more freedom from many of the regulations that apply to the traditional public schools. This type of school is still funded with the per-student average daily attendance amount of $5,900 per year from the state, which is not nearly enough. Grant money and fundraising will be considered to supplement the financial needs of the school.

A charter is written to specify many elements of education. Discipline, curriculum, parent volunteer hours and other activities are some of the details specified in the charter for students to adhere to. If a student not comply to these criteria, he or she can be eliminated from the school but the feedback from the group was that some local students have no fear of discipline here.  Non-performing teachers can be eliminated as well, if that criteria is written in the charter.

Long wants to build a partnership with other schools and teachers. She has met with the principal of Pinole Valley High School, Sue Kahn, and the President of the West Contra Costa Unified School Board, Charles Ramsey. The only two schools that have their API scores from STAR testing lower than Pinole Valley High School are Kennedy and Richmond high schools.

"The disconnect absolutely happens at the middle school," said Long. "There are no identification of the students' needs when they go in or when they go out.  The end result, when hitting high school, is a real needs deficit. Middle school is where the disconnect begins. One of the goals for the charter school is to have students enter as successful students and continue on as such."

The model of the charter school that is being examined is one that would offer spaces for 60 seventh-graders and 60 eighth-graders. The spaces are made legally available to those who enter into a lottery for them and that is open to any student within the state who enters. As an example of a possible scenario, the movie The Lottery was viewed to show the situation of more applicants than spaces.

Currently, the board has few location ideas for the possible 120 students, but it has to be considered that those locations could change in three years down the road. The board needs an interested group of parents and others that are committed to pursuing this venture to the fullest or else the board won't be making this happen on its own.

Would you place your student in a new charter school? Tell us in the comments.