Middle School Drops Plan for Charter

A San Fernando Valley middle school Tuesday dropped plans to convert itself into a charter campus, agreeing instead to a plan giving teachers greater control over curriculum, finances and hiring.

“It gives charter-like control to local schools without forcing them to go through the burdensome and cumbersome process of becoming a charter,” said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

Duffy praised the arrangement at Parkman Middle School in Woodland Hills, saying it will spark “new models that are every bit as creative as charters, and in some cases take the best practices from charters.”

Charter schools are publicly funded but independently run and are free to try innovative teaching techniques to raise student achievement. Schools must apply to become charters and receive approval from the district, county or the state Board of Education, which can take months or years.

Relinquishing central management of schools is typically an unwelcome alternative for the Los Angeles Unified School District, and not everyone is convinced that charters lead to improved academic achievement. The teachers union also has concerns about charters, which for the most part are not unionized.

So the Parkman plan appealed to both the district and the union as a way to give teachers greater authority while maintaining some control of the campus.

Under the plan, Parkman will be renamed “Woodland Hills Academy.” School staff will redesign the campus into three academies: Humanities and arts, law and government, and medical science. It will also bring back a counselor and the music program it recently lost because of budget cuts.

“The goal was to bring more resources and funding to the school,” said Colleen Schwab, one of the Parkman teachers who pushed for reforms because the school was losing students and staff. “This way we don’t have to worry about the management part of it, so we can actually work on the instruction.”

Schwab said teachers applied for charter status several months ago, submitting a 245-page application to the district.

Concerned that the breakaway effort would spark similar campaigns at other schools, district officials came up with the compromise.

Los Angeles Board of Education President Marlene Canter said Parkman is an example of how schools can work with their local superintendents to create plans to improve, rather than abandoning the district.

Teachers at the school “were not feeling empowered,” she said. “They came to the table with a proposal of how they can really help to make their school great.”

The district has approved 100 charter schools since its first in 1993. It has 86 operating charter schools, with 14 more set to open.

Duffy said UTLA would like to expand the Parkman model to other campuses, so more teachers can gain control over their schools’ bell schedules, professional development, curriculum and budgets.

“It’s time to stop putting money into charters, and let’s really study them and let’s see where we can level the playing field,” Duffy said. “We’re looking at creative models that may just grow out of their own.”

District officials say they will consider similar requests for site-based autonomy on a case-by-case basis.

Caprice Young, president of the California Charter Schools Assn. and a former L.A. school board member, said the agreement accomplished what charter schools are pushing for: more autonomy. She said the growth of charters across the state has put pressure on the district to give in to the desires of teachers and administrators.

“The charter school movement isn’t about charter schools,” Young said. “It is really about providing the freedom and accountability that school sites need to do the right things for kids.”