The closures of charter schools have been a pressure point for the newly seated Chicago Board of Education.
Some board members are concerned that last week’s vote to keep open five of seven schools in the Acero Charter Schools network could signal a troubling trend between the district and charter schools.
In an email obtained by the Tribune, District 1 board member Jennifer Custer, who voted against last week’s resolution, said the board’s decision “will set a new precedent for the district moving forward.”
“Charter schools will now see this as an option for them for potential future closings or school failings,” Custer said in her email about the board’s vote last Thursday. “While we want to keep school communities whole, the unintended consequence is a thinning of budgets for others around the city to do so.”
The board plans to vote later this month on the renewal terms of 15 charter school networks that operate 43 campuses in Chicago. The charter networks that are up for renewal are not affiliated with Acero.
School boards have not historically stepped in to help charters financially, and doing so, according to board members, could muddy the waters for the relationship between the district and charter networks.
Last week’s vote followed an emotional board meeting, during which distraught parents pleaded for the board to keep open five of seven schools in the Acero network. The meeting was the culmination of a monthslong battle over the fate of the charter schools, which were originally slated for closure last October. The board amended a resolution to meet the parents’ demands despite financial warnings that doing so would be unwise.
Custer said keeping five of Acero’s schools open next school year may put CPS in danger of breaching the 103% funding ceiling for charter schools placed on the district under state law, a cap the board was warned about by Alfonso Carmona, CPS’ chief portfolio officer, last week.
“This could potentially put the district in serious liability, which seems to me our most important job to protect,” Custer said in the email. “Any lawsuit takes money away from children.”
Board member Angel Gutierrez, representing District 8, voted in favor of the resolution to save the Acero schools.
In another email obtained by the Tribune, Gutierrez told board members last weekend that the last-minute change to amend Thursday’s resolution and keep the schools open created “unnecessary disruption and confusion.”
He urged board members to “recommit” themselves to the principles of “good governance, respect and professionalism.”
Paz and Cruz
However, the board’s vote to retain some of the Acero schools slated for closure wasn’t enough for Acero parents and teachers.
At a preliminary monthly board meeting Wednesday, Acero parents and teachers expressed mixed emotions about the prospect of closing the two campuses — Paz and Cruz — that weren’t laid out to be saved in last week’s resolution. Wednesday’s meeting, known as the “agenda review meeting,” invited the public to share their opinions with the school board about issues that will be voted on at their monthly meeting scheduled for March 20.
School supporters told the board at Wednesday’s meeting the decision to not save Acero’s Octavio Paz School in Little Village and Cruz K-12 in West Ridge was made by charter leadership that isn’t held accountable by the district,
Micha Thurston, a teacher at Paz, said the school’s community was given “false hope.”
News of the potential closure of seven of 15 schools in the Acero network emerged in early October. Students, parents and staff believed their school would remain open following a board resolution passed in December, and Thurston said they are now left scrambling to figure out plans for next year.
“We are a small school, we are in a high crime, low income, Latino neighborhood. … We’re struggling to explain to our kids why our school doesn’t deserve to stay open,” Thurston said. “The resolution states the district will support our transition. What will that look like? When will we know?”
Charter schools are authorized and overseen by the district. They receive funding from CPS but are responsible for managing their day-to-day operations with those funds.
When charter schools close, CPS said they typically work with the charter to confirm closure rationale, collect student information and provide personalized family support. The school board has not offered financial support to charter operators closing schools for financial reasons in the past, according to CPS officials.
Charter renewals
Amid the Acero fallout, the board will vote on renewal terms for 15 other charter networks at its monthly meeting in two weeks.
CPS may recommend non-renewal for a charter school if it doesn’t meet academic performance standards, exhibits financial mismanagement or has other issues that impact student learning.
According to state law, charter schools can be renewed for up to 10 years. But recently, charter schools have received shorter renewal terms because of increased scrutiny.
In an interview with the Tribune, Andrew Broy, president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, called shorter renewal terms — which can be two or three years instead of 10 — an “administrative treadmill” where schools are so focused on meeting standards that they can’t “focus on the details of improving.”
“The biggest misperception some people have (with 10-year renewal terms) is that the board can’t hold charters accountable,” Broy said. “In between the charter terms, there are many mechanisms in state law and board rule that allow charter schools to be reviewed on an annual basis.”
Charters operate independently from the district, so they make their own financial decisions. Because of that disconnect, there is debate about whether they should be the main lever for giving students access to quality schools in underserved neighborhoods.
CPS’ new roadmap for success, a 47-page, five-year strategic plan called “Together We Rise,” doubled down on its commitment to strengthen neighborhood school options. But it also backed off from creating policies that would affect the admissions criteria or funding for charter schools.
Gordon Hannon, CEO of the Catalyst Schools charter network, said Wednesday that short renewal terms run counter to the mission laid out in that strategic plan to “create anti-racist solutions that address systemic disinvestment.”
“Given the performance and the impact of our Catalyst schools, anything less than a five- to seven-year renewal would be perceived as an actual disinvestment in these neighborhoods,” Hannon said.
He said the network’s two schools, located in the Austin and Chicago Lawn neighborhoods, whose enrollment is 71% Black, have “earned” longer renewals.
During public comment Wednesday, several speakers testified about the importance of charter schools in offering diverse CPS learners a sense of safety, inclusion and belonging.
“Many of our students in our charter schools have experienced severe trauma and carry the heavy burden of violence, loss and displacement,” said Kikanza Harris, director of community impact at the Illinois Network of Charter Schools.
“Our charter school leader staff … are unwavering in their commitment to meet (student) needs.”
