2 Charlotte charters pose NC challenge: Time to pull the plug?

A struggle over the survival of two long-standing Charlotte charter schools could shape the future of the burgeoning movement in North Carolina.

Early next month, the N.C. Board of Education will vote on whether Kennedy and Crossroads charter schools can stay open after the end of this school year.

For board members, the question is whether to keep pouring public money into struggling charter schools – hoping for a turnaround – or whether to pull the plug.

Leaders of both schools say they’re working on solutions to the academic and financial issues that led the state’s Charter School Advisory Board in December to recommend letting their charters expire. When the Board of Education met Jan. 6, some members seemed receptive to giving Kennedy another chance as it transitions from an alternative school to a regular school in playing a role in the revitalization of the Johnson C. Smith University area.

But they also heard Alex Quigley, a Durham charter school operator who chairs the advisory board, argue that it’s important for the state to take a stand against long-standing academic failure in schools that were created to offer better alternatives to traditional public schools. The Charter School Advisory Board voted in December to recommend that the state not renew either charter.

“We have to ask ourselves where our bar is,” Quigley told the Board of Education. “We would like to maintain our autonomy, but we need to be held to a high standard.”

In the past two years, Charlotte has seen three startup charter schools fail in their opening year, beset by academic and financial problems. But this is a new twist: Kennedy and Crossroads have been around for more than a decade.

Both schools serve the type of students who tend to struggle in traditional schools as well, with most coming from impoverished homes. Both received F grades from the state based on 2015 test results.

The two schools combined serve only about 500 students and got about $6.5 million from taxpayers last year.

But questions about financial and academic oversight loom large in a state where charter schools are rapidly expanding. North Carolina has 158 of the independently run public schools. They serve almost 82,000 North Carolina students and will get $394 million in state money this year.

And Charlotte has been at the center of charter-school growth.

Local school districts are required to pass along millions of dollars in county money to charter schools – almost $38 million from Mecklenburg County is budgeted this year.

While academics are the main issue at Kennedy, Crossroads faces questions about its management and finances as well. In a July letter to Crossroads, the state demanded reimbursement for almost $28,000 in “questioned costs” paid from state money in 2013-14. The letter from Alexis Schauss of the N.C. Department of Public Instruction also said almost $54,000 in payments from local money lacked proper documentation, which “will be referred to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools for determination of repayment.”

“This is probably the first time we’ve done this,” Schauss said. CMS and the state are waiting for a 2015 audit to work its way through the system before deciding what must be repaid.

David Jean, chairman of the Crossroads board, said Friday that the school has provided documentation for the state expenses and does not owe the state anything. He offered no information on the questioned local spending.

In November, a consultant hired to get Crossroads back on track said the board and administration would have to be immediately reconstituted for the school to survive.

Jean said new members have taken over the board and Principal Gentry Campbell left Crossroads after the state advisory board’s December vote of no confidence. He declined to discuss details – including when and how he came on board, his own occupation or his connection with Crossroads.

Kennedy’s leaders say they believed they were on track to start a new mission in a new home on Johnson C. Smith’s west Charlotte campus, where the believe exposure to college life and enrichment activities will spur achievement. They’re eager to tell their story to the state board and news media.

“We’re still scratching our heads,” Kennedy board Chairman Brad Gilliam said of the advisory board’s vote. “Things are going so great with the transition to Johnson C. Smith.”

This story was originally published January 19, 2016 at 6:24 PM with the headline "2 Charlotte charters pose NC challenge: Time to pull the plug?."