Wednesday, February 29, 2012

How Many Districts Does It Take To Fill A Charter School?

Amir Khan's Regis Academy was approved in September of 2011.  He has had five months to reach out to parents and recruit students from the four sending districts for which he was approved, namely Cherry Hill, Lawnside, Somerdale and Voorhees.  At his last public information session (where Khan threatened concerned citizens in attendance with calling the police before the meeting even started), he announced that the NJDOE had given him approval to open enrollment to other districts.  I blogged about it an wondered why they had allowed him to open enrollment.


No need to wonder anymore.  I filed an OPRA request for the initial enrollment data submitted by Regis Academy.  Guess what I found out?


In the five months since gaining approval, Regis has enrolled a whopping 37 kids.  That's right, 37.  And here is the best part.  While the form doesn't say where each individual child is from, the districts they represent are listed.  And they aren't limited to the four sending districts.  They are also from Williamstown, Deptford, Lindenwold, Berlin, Erial and Camden.  In five months, Regis has only managed to enroll 37 kids from 10 districts.  Guess those ValPak ads aren't so helpful afterall.


Here is the Preliminary Enrollment form submitted by Lead Person Christian Barnes. Check it out for yourself:


Regis Prelim Enrollment


I also requested any documents related to Regis' request to expand their region of residence.  Here's what that request turned up:
Regis Request to Change Region of Residence


There is so much here I don't know where to begin.  I think I need a list.  


1.  On January 26th an email was sent to Deputy Commissioner Smarick from Amir Khan.  Note that while the letter was written by Amir Khan, the email was sent from someone working at Khan's church, the Solid Rock Worship Center.  Why wasn't the email sent by Khan, the President of the Board of Trustees or Christian Barnes, the Lead Person?  This certainly raises questions regarding the separation between Regis Academy and Solid Rock.


2.  Amir Khan asked to expand his region of residence to include four (Lindenwold, Clementon, Pennsauken and Camden), possibly five (Berlin) additional districts.  Somehow between that request on January 26th and Regis' initial enrollment submission on February 15th he pulled students from three more districts (Williamstown, Deptford, and Erial.)


3.  Why aren't the racial demographics included?   The charter school regulations state that "the (Acting) Commissioner shall assess the student composition of a charter school and the segregative effect that the loss of the students may have on its district of residence. The assessment shall be based on the enrollment from the initial recruitment period…"  How is this assessment to be conducted if this information isn't provided?


3. 23 of the 37 students, or 77%, are in Kindergarten or First Grade.  This says to me that very few parents have actually been willing to pull their children out of the public schools in the original four districts.  


4.  The projected enrollment for Regis' first year is 250 students, 50 in each grade from K-4.  Regis only met 15% enrollment in the first 5 months, and had to expand from 4 to 10 districts in order to do so.


Charter proponents are constantly taking about the waiting lists for charter schools as evidence that there is incredible demand for choice.  Isn't the reverse therefore also true?  If five months of recruitment produces only 37 students from 10 districts, isn't it time for Acting Commissioner Cerf to admit he made a huge mistake in approving Regis Academy in the first place?  Haven't the parents of these districts clearly "voted with their feet" by NOT enrolling in this charter?  


The NJDOE allowing Regis to expand it's region of residence when next to no demand has been demonstrated in the original four districts makes a mockery of the application process.  Why bother having districts respond to applications or appeal approvals if once approved charters can pull from anywhere and everywhere?  Cherry Hill has expended resources fighting a projected enrollment of 169 students.  Now Amir Khan has scaled that back to 50.  I betcha Cherry Hill has not received a revised bill...


Shouldn't the Acting Commissioner let the districts of Cherry Hill, Lawnside, Somerdale and Voorhees out from under Regis' $2.7M price tag?  


The almost 2,000 people that signed a petition asking the Governor and Acting Commissioner Cerf to deny Regis their final charter on July 15th certainly think so.  I might add that it has taken less than 2 weeks to get almost 2,000 signatures compared to 37 students in five months.  Hmmm.  


If you agree that Regis should not receive their final charter, please sign and share.


20 comments:

  1. Keep making your voice heard! Your legislators are listening.

    See: http://www.pamlampitt.com/regisacademy

    I find it especially telling that they support "getting tough on charter school applications that contain fraud."

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  2. I wonder how many enrollees are children of Solid Rock members...I'd bet most.

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  3. One other note, Khan already runs a private school called Children of Promise which we believe has about 90 students. Khan has said that he will be closing Children of Promise but will be leaving the daycare portion open. What happens to those 90 students? Will they all go to Regis? According to his enrollment numbers, they will not so I guess they will go back to their respective public schools.

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    1. Wow! That really says something about the quality of their program if people who are currently paying tuition to attend the private Children of Promise choose not to enroll in the "free" Regis Academy (and by free, I mean on the taxpayer dime).

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  4. Regarding JFM14s comment: At the last "public" meeting Kahn told the parents of students in the Children of Promise school that they should enroll their children in their local district and apply to the charter. In theory so they can pull their kids from their local district and put them in the charter at State and Local taxpayer expense.

    To me this sounds more like a way to get taxpayers to foot the bill for a private school than creating a charter to provide "options" to public school students.

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  5. I really wonder if the 37 are truly students that have signed up, and completed the application with supporting documentation. Could it be that these are only names of students that have inquired? I hope all districts requiring to pay for Regis student ask for the enrollment information and do a thorough residency investigation.

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  6. Cherry Hill has almost 12,000 student (approx 1000 per grade level). If Regis Academy is such an innovative program and a great option they why it only draw 37 kids (which are not all from Cherry Hill)?

    In the last public meeting Kahn "sweetened" the deal saying that each student would get a tablet PC. I think he would have to be giving away cars to get more kids from Cherry Hill.

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  7. I agree with your question about the lack of racial demographics because while Kahn has criticized Cherry Hill and Voorhees for their lack of diversity, the Regis Academy does not look to be very diverse if the info session of Feb 16 is any indication. Almost everyone in attendance whoe seemed to support or have an interest in attending appeared to be African American. So if his school only pulls minority students, won't that exacerbate the lack of diversity he has complained about in the sending districts?

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  8. Speaking of the free tablets for all --- I was at that meeting as well and Kahn spoke of getting various grants and donations to support the install of free wifi, higher teacher salaries, tablets, etc. Can anyone confirm he has received these grants or donations? I think he mentioned Sprint as the grant provider to cover the cost of making the school completely wifi.

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  9. Is it possible to OPRA the actual applications to verify they exist? Is there any way to do that and redact info so privacy is not violated and yet there is enough info left to verify they are real?

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  10. At the Feb 16 Regis Academy Informational Session, Kahn indicated that they had 50 students enrolled (not 37 -guess he rounded up!). He also indicated that they hadn't even really started their advertising/recruiting campaign. He mentioned that they did the ValPak thing because they had a coupon or something, but he promised the real media blitz was just around the corner. If he had to sumbit enrollment figures around Feb 15th -- why wait until after that date to start the advertising and recruiting? Is it possible he's just trying to spin the fact that people have "voted with their feet" and it isn't for Regis Academy!

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  11. Would the promise of free tablets to all students constitute a bribe? Is that how Kahn will enroll students --- bribes of technology as opposed to anything of real merit?
    The only thing they seem to have to offer (as per their website) is the microsociety model. However, emails to the company confirmed Regis does NOT have a contract with Microsociety (guess he can't get contract until he gets money from sending districts since his financial house doesn't seemt to be in order). Even if he did have the Microsociety in place -- that is not a curriculum for Math, English, Science or History. How will they address those areas? He has not addressed instruction of the NJCCCS or the new national Common Core Standards. Good thing his school only goes to grade 2 so that means no state tests that could hold him accountable! By the time he phases in the grade levels that will be assessed, he may have collected enough to pay his mortgage for his church and won't care if he gets shut down!

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    1. Your last sentence is a very interesting point. Thank you.

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  12. Darcie,
    Thank you for all you are doing to keep this information out there. Any suggestions on more ways the public can get involved to help stop this farce? I want to be involved and do more, but I don't know what else to do -- I have made the calls (repeatedly) to legislators and signed the petitions (and nagged my friends and neighbors to do the same). Would more OPRA requests help? Given this system is so heavily in favor of the charter school, I feel helpless. However, I don't want to back down because the system is not fair. I would welcome ideas or suggestions!!!!! Since it seems Cerf is the Charter approval Czar, how do we get our message heard by him so that he does the right thing here?

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    1. Join our Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/178517092250185/?bookmark_t=group.

      You can contact us through that and we will be happy to find something for you to do.

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    2. Sorry, last person on planet Earth not on facebook :(

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  13. Maybe someone smarter than me can take this on---If I remember correctly, Amir Kahn wrote a letter to the editor that was critical of Cherry Hill schools specfically for not meeting the needs of the African American student by spouting some data (incomplete and biased if you ask me - thanks to Cherry Hill schools for a more accurate follow up). Why didn't he make the same attack on Lawnside? Seems there scores are far worse than Cherry Hill. Is Amir Kahn making this about race only when it serves his best interest?

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  14. That is because in Amir's own words" they are not the ones going after me". That is why he is leaving Lawnside alone!

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    1. Given that his original application only had them down for about 5 or 6 students (if memory serves me correctly), they don't have much to respond to. However, wonder if that changes since his new estimate (email above) bumps that number up to 20. I wonder if a bill going from 45K up to 180K is enough to get Lawnside concerned.

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  15. I removed the comment regarding the 2009-2010 Lawnside test data. The Lawnside Superintendent has the following message on the districts website:

    "The Lawnside School District was recognized by the New Jersey Department of Education as one of its “Distinguished Schools for 2010”. Now we must guard against the desire to become complacent and satisfied with our achievements. Excellence must be our guiding force. We must now seek to move from the status of “Good” to “Great”. The school district will need the assistance of every community member, staff member, and local organizations to achieve this goal. We must always remember to place what is in the best interest of “our” children first."

    If the district of Lawnside chooses not to actively oppose Regis Academy, that is their right. Posting their test data does not seem pertinent to the discussion of Regis Academy and it's suitability for the four sending districts. Turning district against district is not helpful.

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