School board to discuss contracts for charter schools
The operating contracts for two of Lee County's 24 charter schools are up for renewal at Tuesday's Lee County school board meeting. They are Pivot Charter School, which serves middle and high school students in Fort Myers , and The Island School , a K-5 elementary school on Gasparilla Island.
According to board documents, Pivot Charter School is being brought before the board for expedited review because not enough students at the school sat for state assessments, which are used to generate school grades from the Florida Department of Education . As a result, the school has earned an incomplete rating from the state during the past two years of operation.
Pivot was the district's first charter school to blend online instruction with traditional face-to-face instruction time, and it was originally approved by the board in October 2009 for a period of five years.
Jeff McCullers, the liaison to the charter schools in Lee County, stated in an email that Pivot has an "enrollment sufficient to have qualified it for a school grade, and so the failure to earn a grade meant that the school was unable to show that it had met the academic goals that had been agreed on at the time of the last charter."
Schools must have 95 percent of eligible students sit for each of the state's exams in different subject areas in order to earn a grade, McCullers stated. Although the school reported an enrollment of 187 students in December, McCullers stated this number only represents the amount of students who were enrolled in the fall and spring semesters at the same school. Therefore, it doesn't include students who may have transferred into Pivot throughout the school year.
"After taking all of this into account, the school was left with just a few scores too few to calculate a valid grade, so no grade was issued," McCullers stated.
As part of its contract renewal, the school has submitted a corrective action plan "that should result in the school earning a grade next year," McCullers stated.
Among the changes included in the plan are increasing communication to parents and students; creating a partnership with Lutheran Services to offer services to students facing difficulties outside of school that may cause stress or truancy; revising test preparation methods; and replacing staff members, including the executive director, principal and faculty members. The complete plan can be found online.
Attempts to contact Pivot Charter School for comment were unsuccessful.
McCullers stated, "The recommendation before the board right now gives this unique school a second chance at success." If approved Tuesday, the charter contract for Pivot will continue for one year. If the school is able to meet the academic goals School board to discuss contracts for charter schools: