Charter schools are expected to have to pay for their own expenses and usually are in private buildings they have to pay rent for. They receive a much higher per student allotment every year to meet those expenses. It is up to them how they spend their money.
When a charter school moves into a public school building, they are double dipping the taxpayers. They are still receiving the high allotment per child but aren’t paying anywhere near the going rate for space, supplies or service people. That is how Fireweed Academy is able to keep their pupil-teacher ratio so low.
Right now, Fireweed students comprise approximately 20 percent of the student body at West Homer Elementary. They do not pay anywhere close to the going rate for the square footage they use. They do not pay anywhere close to 20 percent of the costs of custodial service, cafeteria workers, nursing or supplies. They are able to use that extra money they are saving to pay for more teachers, aides, and extra enrichment opportunities for their students.
In the past, Fireweed supporters have claimed that if you added the resource teachers and specialists housed at West Homer along with the regular classroom teachers our pupil/teacher ratios would be about the same.
What they do not say is that they have access to those same resource teachers and specialists, and some of their students see them regularly. I have never seen them use those same staff members to figure into their pupil-teacher ratio.
It is frequently pointed out that West Homer only uses 60 percent of its capacity. Nobody mentions that Fireweed is only using 50 percent of the capacity of the rooms they are using now. When you remove the five rooms Fireweed is currently using (four classrooms and one office), West Homer is closer to 75 percent of it maximum capacity. Why is it that a negative for West Homer but a positive for Fireweed Academy?
When charter schools are allowed to set up in a public school, I think they should have to stay within the age group housed at that school.
Personally, I do not want my 12-year-old attending school with high school students. There were schools around with extra room when Flex High School was looking for space and it was decided they should have their own building instead of bunking in with younger age groups. Why should it be any different for Fireweed Academy?
No student group is invisible within a school. They may have separate classrooms, but they will be sharing the lunch room, hallways, bathrooms, juice machines, drinking fountains, etc. If Fireweed expands to include high school, they should be in their own space or at Homer High where they can be an asset to the High School band and choir.
If Fireweed wants to expand to include kindergarten to second graders they should be housed at Paul Banks Elementary where the facilities, procedures and playground equipment are appropriate to that age group.
When a charter school is allowed to use space in a public school it should have to pay for all the expenses comparable to the percentage of its student body. They should also be limited to bringing in the same age group as the school they are moving into.
Karen DeVaney is a longtime Homer resident.
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