Valley Charter School Exceeds Expectations

Less than a year after plunging into the uncertain waters of public school reform, the San Fernando Valley’s first charter school appears to be succeeding beyond even the most optimistic expectations with a projected surplus of $1.2 million, an unheard-of accomplishment in the cash-strapped L.A. Unified School District.

The Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima will use the surplus to begin buying properties neighboring the campus to make room for a cultural center, a library and more than a dozen classrooms.

The performance of the school has prompted disbelief, praise and curiosity from officials in a district that has cut more than a billion dollars from its budget over the last several years and slashed employee salaries up to 10%.

“It’s really hard for me to imagine how they could do it,” said Mark Shrager, director for budget services for the school district. “If they are finding a way to do that, more power to them.”

Vaughn--considered the most financially daring of any of the state’s 33 operating charter schools--receives the same amount of funding per student as other elementary schools in the district, but can use the money as it sees fit.

Principal Yvonne Chan said most of the savings come from reduced administrative costs. Vaughn hires its own teachers, for example, rather than paying the district for personnel services.

But the school also raised attendance rates to 99% to increase funding, and kept gifted and special education students on campus to raise revenues. Public schools are funded according to a daily student attendance rate. By calling home every time a child was absent and offering incentives to students with perfect attendance, Vaughn was able to bring in more funds.

Using its budget flexibility, the school was able to hire four new teachers, reduce class size from 32 to 26 and add a 27-computer lab and a teachers resource center.

But for Chan, nothing speaks louder than the $950,000 already left over from this year. “Last year, I was going to mortgage my house,” said Chan who considered using her own money during the school’s rocky start. “Now we don’t have to borrow from the district anymore.”

The state Charter Schools Act was passed in the fall of 1992, with the goal of improving student performance that was often hindered by the voluminous state Education Code. Under the law, up to 10 schools in any one district and up to 100 in the state can achieve charter status. Charter schools continue to receive public funding, but are free from state and local education regulations to write their own rules.

Vaughn and the district locked horns over the amount of funding the school deserved throughout the school’s start-up last summer and fall. Chan accepted the district’s offer of about $2,900 per student with disappointment, but still hopes to receive the $3,100 per student the state gives the district. Vaughn also receives federal Chapter 1 funds for educating economically disadvantaged schoolchildren, raising the per student amount to about $4,200, like other schools in the district.

While some charters are more radical with their classroom reforms than Vaughn, the Pacoima school took a greater financial risk than many others by taking its budget into its own hands. Peabody Charter School in Santa Barbara, for example, pays its district $500,000 of its $2-million budget for administrative items that Vaughn does itself or hires private firms to do. At Bowling Green Elementary in Sacramento, teachers voted against complete fiscal autonomy for fear of the unknown.

“It’s scary to a staff to be in charge of millions of dollars,” said Bowling Green Principal Dennis Maw . “They just weren’t ready.”

On the other hand, Fenton Avenue School in Lake View Terrace became a charter school with similar fiscal freedom in January and early projections show that school will end the year with a $200,000 surplus.

While unfamiliar with the particulars of Vaughn’s budget, district officials said that if the numbers prove accurate, the mammoth district may have something to learn from the 1,150-student school.

“If there are certain practices or systems or procedures that have produced similar services for less cost, it’s incumbent on us to look at those systems or practices or procedures,” Deputy Supt. Ruben Zacarias said.

But Shrager is more skeptical.

“Vaughn is a school, we’re a district,” Shrager said. “I just don’t think it’s a fair comparison.”

Nonetheless, Shrager said his office is studying Vaughn’s budget to understand where the savings came from.

“The charter is working at big advantage in terms of being able to manipulate the numbers,” he said. “I would be downright curious to see how they are doing it.”

The teachers union has long held that the district spends too much on administration. But United Teachers-Los Angeles Vice President John Perez believes charter schools are not the answer.

“I don’t think we should run around and say making every school in the state a charter is going to solve the education crisis, because it’s not,” Perez said. “A big school can probably fund itself, but smaller schools are uneconomical.” Perez said charter schools do not pay their share of district costs for federal- and state-mandated programs such as special education and student integration.

But others say the charter’s experiment was proved long before Vaughn opened its doors.

“It is not news to people in the private sector that you can be more effective with less bureaucracy,” said Bob Scott, president the Valley’s movement to break up the school district. “But I think Vaughn is proof of more than a fiscal issue. It’s proof of the effectiveness of a local community school.”

For most of the parents and teachers at Vaughn, the school’s financial success spells a better learning environment. Many parents want the school to return to a traditional schedule to give children a more consistent education. Like many schools in the district, the campus does not have enough space for all of its students and operates three rotating schedules to accommodate them.

With some of the extra money, Vaughn plans to eventually add more than a dozen classrooms.

“Our main concern is that our kids grow healthy and capable and strong in academics,” said Elsa Rojas who has two daughters attending Vaughn. “With the land we can build the future.”

Chan already bid on a 25-by-27-foot lot next to the school. She wants to tear down the run-down house on it to make room for a community auditorium and cultural center. She hopes to obtain five others--if the owners are willing to sell, as a few have already indicated they are--for a library and the extra classrooms. She wants to hire local contractors and employ high school students from the community to keep the business in the neighborhood.

Not everyone views the Vaughn Street program favorably.

Stephanie Moore, a teacher who brought the charter idea to Vaughn, is leaving this year, after six years of teaching there. She is disillusioned, she said, by the lack of focus on improving instruction.

“I do believe we have made progress,” Moore said. “But all that glitters is not gold.”

Chan admits the school has areas that need improvement, but she points to the money in the bank as proof of the enormous potential of public education.

“It’s a snowball rolling down a hill,” Chan said. “We can do anything that we feel is in the best interest of our students. The charter school is no longer an experiment.”