I’ve received written notice from Lowell’s attorney on our proposal approval. I’ve forwarded it to Kate Pattison.
Learn MoreI emailed Kate Pattison with the ODE asking her if we can email her a copy of our written notice of approval from Lowell. She said that would work and to also include the timeline for projected opening. I also asked her the following.
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Kate,
We are getting ready to enter into contract negotiations with the Lowell School District. I’ve read through the May 2013 released version of the Charter School Handbook and ORS 338, but I’m having trouble figuring out what exactly is negotiable from the sponsors perspective. For example the proposal sets the contracted payment at 95%, can the sponsor attempt to change this after the proposal has been approved?
The main question I have is what does it mean that they agreed to our proposal? Does this commit them to the items listed in it? Or does it mean that they have agreed to start contract negotiations?
Thanks,
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Here is her response:
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Congratulations!
Good questions. Generally when a board approves a charter proposal they are stating a certain level agreement to details within the proposal. However, everything can be negotiated. Nothing is final until signed.
The law states a minimum, so the district cannot pay less. But they don’t have to pay more. You probably have a stronger case for what you proposed if the board is not on the record with any concerns or questions about financial stability at a lower rate. However, the negotiations will determine the outcome.
If you don’t have a knowledgeable charter school lawyer, I highly recommend that you get one for this process. The initial charter contract will set the trajectory and tone for the future of the charter school. There are a few that have a lot of experience and will help guide you through the process. Two that come to mind are Matt Lowe or Deborah Dyson.
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This means that the proposal is basically just a proposal, and approval of the proposal means that the school district is agreeing to enter into contract negotiations with you. Either side can negotiate changes in the proposal during contract negotiations.
Learn MoreI’ve listed out the details for our proposed admissions and enrollment process that was explained in the Admission and Enrollment post.
- The Academy board sets the capacity of the program, class, grade level, and building.
- The Academy board sets the content and format for the admission application.
- The Academy board sets the start and end date for admission application submission.
- The Academy board decides on the format for the following email notifications sent to parents.
- Admission application submitted successfully.
- Student has been placed on the waiting list. There was a lottery for their class and they were not selected.
- Student has been accepted for enrollment.
- The application is posted to the web site.
- The application is submitted by the parents/guardians of prospective students after the start date.
- The application is removed from the web site after the end date and applications are no longer accepted.
- Our school management software application performs the following tasks
- Generates class enrollment lists based on age.
- If the number of applicants exceeds the capacity of a class, students are selected through an equitable lottery selection process.
- The following students are waived from the lottery process and automatically added to the enrollment list
- Children of founders, staff, and board members.
- Were enrolled in the school in the prior year.
- Have siblings who are presently enrolled in the school and who were enrolled in the school in the prior year.
- Places students on a class waiting list if a lottery occurred and they weren’t selected.
- Sends enrollment accepted and waiting list emails to parents.
- Generates class enrollment lists based on age.
Our proposal and budget contains an enrollment estimate of 135 students. It also states that our current plan is to pursue using the back wing of Lundy for classrooms. In its current state the back wing has seven rooms that can be used for classes. Six of these rooms are large enough to accommodate our class size cap of 15 students. The other one is large enough for 5 students. Using this data I’ve come up with the following numbers for next year.
| Room | Maximum Students | Projected Students |
|---|---|---|
| 12 | 15 | 11 |
| 14 | 15 | 11 |
| 15 | 15 | 11 |
| 16 | 15 | 10 |
| 17 | 15 | 10 |
| 18 | 15 | 10 |
| Bonus Room | 5 | 5 |
| Total | 95 | 68 |
The number of projected students is calculated by taking 70% of the max students. This will allow us to account for not filling up all of the rooms to capacity. The projected number of students for the bonus room is kept at 5 because we are confident we can fill it to capacity.
This gives us a projected number of students for the current layout of the back wing at 68 students and 7 teachers (1 for each room). If I update our current budget with these numbers we have a deficit of $112,687.40. To balance the budget we would have to reduce the teacher salary to $27,000, the administrator salary to $40,000, and remove the aide. If we reach our maximum capacity of 95 students we will be able to keep the proposed salaries and staffing with a surplus of $45,404.95. We need at least 88 students to keep our ideal salaries and the aide.
| Students | Teachers | Surplus | Teacher Salary | Administrator Salary | Aide |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 68 | 7 | $4,247.20 | $27,000.00 | $40,000.00 | No |
| 88 | 7 | $5,106.90 | $34,000.00 | $68,000.00 | Yes |
| 95 | 7 | $45,404.95 | $34,000.00 | $68,000.00 | Yes |
I’m going to recommend to our board that we initially cap our enrollment at 95 students. This will require us to do minimal interior changes to the building during our first year of operation.
Learn MoreI’m going to start formalizing our admission/enrollment policy. ORS 338.125 contains the requirements from the State. Here is my proposal:
- The children of founders, staff, and board members are waived from the lottery process (dependent on the ODE accepting our waiver).
- Our board will annually decide on and approve the following items
- Capacity of the program, class, grade level, and building.
- Admission Application
- Content and format.
- Start and end date for submission.
- Content and format for the following email notifications sent to parents
- Submitted successfully.
- Placed in the lottery and was not accepted. Currently on the waiting list.
- Accepted for enrollment.
- Application will be submitted using our web site.
- Notifications will be sent out from the web site.
- The lottery will automatically occur once the application submission end date passes. The selection will be performed automatically by the web site software.
Learn More
I’ve updated the RONR Guidelines page to include information on resolutions. This information was taken from Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised 11th Edition.
Our compensation policy has been added to the web site.
Our Conflict of Interest policy has been added to the web site.
Our next step is to forward written notice of our proposal being approved to the Oregon Department of Education. I emailed Walt asking him about this and he said we should receive it later on this week.
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