Continuing the conversation on local control and statewide correspondence schools (SWC) here is a hypothetical example comparing a SWC in Galena, namely IDEA, with an in-district charter school, namely Frontier which is part of the Anchorage School District (ASD).

A charter school’s administration is subject to the Academic Policy Committee (APC) which is then accountable to the ASD School Board. The APC at Frontier is made up of parents, a non-staff teacher, a student and a member of the business community. Budgeting and financial priorities are the responsibilities of the APC.

So, let’s say an Anchorage parent in each of these programs notices that $4.3 million dollars of the annual budget is not being used for student accounts and services but for a rainy day slush fund. They rightfully think that is unfair. The state grants this money per student in a Base Student Allocation (BSA) and the students are not receiving the full benefit of that money. What are the recourses in each of these schools?

Here are the layers of hierarchy for an IDEA parent in Anchorage:

1. Field Reps
2. Local (Anchorage office) school staff official
3. Local (Anchorage office) school administrator
4. School official back in the home district
5. School administrator in the home district
6. A member of the school board back home to sponsor the initiative
7. Majority vote by the board of Galena City Schools (Board majority influence)

So, the IDEA parent goes to the Anchorage office and points out to the field rep that there is a problem in how IDEA is spending its money. The complaint must work its way up through the chain from Anchorage to Galena. If any one person decides that the policy issue isn’t important then the process ends. In fact, I suspect that most policy issues never make it to individual board members in Galena. They would not know there is a problem particularly since an Anchorage parent will never, ever, ever vote in a Galena School Board election.

If a Frontier parent finds a $4.3 million dollar slush fund item in the budget here’s what happens. Parent calls any member of the APC. Parent requests the issue be placed on the agenda for the next meeting (against the principal Mr. Scott’s wishes). At the Thursday night meeting the APC decides that yes, indeed, that money should be used to provide tutoring services, parent training classes and increased student accounts and directs Mr. Scott to do so. On Friday morning, Mr. Scott will rewrite his budget to provide the services to the students and their families or Mr. Scott will be fired.

The difference is huge! For local control to be effective there must be clear, clean communication channels and board majority influence. Neither IDEA nor any other SWC has these. Only in-district programs have local control.

I stated at the beginning that this example is hypothetical. I was not being entirely truthful. Galena City School District does have $4.3 million dollars from SWC state allocations that are not spent on services and accounts for IDEA students. So, what is an IDEA parent to do when their child is not receiving the full benefit of the state’s BSA? Effectively, there is nothing that can be done. The motive for the Galena administration is to maximize enrollment to maximize the amount of money they have in the ’slush’ fund. They are not motivated to use the funds to increase services for their IDEA students. This is what happens when local control is removed and replaced with a motivation to maximize profit.

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