Thoughts on the Druid Hills Charter Cluster Vote

Monday night was an excellent example of how the DeKalb County Schools administration interacts with stakeholders.  The coordinated misrepresentation of the Druid Hills Charter Cluster (DHCC) budget and refusal of the staff to provide direct answers to questions were painful to watch. Dr. Beasley's reversal of his written support of the DHCC petition was laughable.  Mr. Thurmond's immature mischaracterization of  Mr. Orson's questions as argumentative was a perfect example of  attacking the questioner in order to avoid the question.    

However, upon reflection I have to say the BOE and superintendent acted much more professionally than the people who previously sat in those seats.

As I understand the concern raised by Dr. Bell, the DHCC petition asks for approximately $11 million dollars in revenue that the school district currently supplies to the schools in the cluster.

I looked at the DCSD FY 14 budget for the schools in the Druid Hills Charter Cluster (DHCC) and come up with a total of $29,379,664 going to the schools. Using the enrollment numbers from August, there are 4,841 students in the cluster. Simple division shows the schools are getting $6,069 per student.

Then, I looked at the budget posted on http://www.druidhillschartercluster.org/  Monday night's speaker from DHCC stated they used the DCSD FY 14 budget to create their budget. 

DHCC shows assumed FY 15 enrollment of 4,964 and revenues of $41,571,778 from which is subtracted a 3% administrative fee (money the DCSD central office keeps).  Simple division shows DHCC is expecting revenue $8,375 per student.

My assumption is DCSD is anticipating $8,375 per student in FY 14. 

On a per-student basis the district takes in $8,375 and the schools get $6,069. The difference of $2,306 multiplied by 4,841 students is $11,163,346. That is the source of the mysterious approximately $11 million that Mr. Bell would not explain. 

My best guess is the $2,306 per student is spent on things such as the central office, utilities, transportation, and facilities maintenance (AKA overhead) which the county allocates to all schools. That is 27.5% of the revenue.

I do not know if the DHCC petition spells out if they were going to assume these overhead expenses. It would be an extremely gross oversight if they did not.

If the petition does explain how these overhead expenses are going to be handled by the DHCC, then the district staff who spoke on Monday night, including Superintendent Thurmond, Dr. Bell, Dr. Beasley, and Senator Ramsey, were intentionally misleading the BOE and the audience.


*Disclaimer - This post reflects only my personal observations and opinions.