Franklin
Career Academy Forced to close, a message
from Bill Grimm.
FRANKLIN CAREER ACADEMY
Will not be able to operate next year
For release on July 08, 2005
The Board of Trustees has concluded that the school cannot continue normal
operations without a reasonable and reliable plan to effect the timely transfer
of state adequacy aid. Our school has received less than 3% of the authorized
transfer of state funds from the sending districts this year. The Department
of Education continues to oppose the direct payment of state funds to state
sponsored charter schools. We want to thank the Newfound school district for
allowing the authorized amount of state money to follow the one student from
that district. All of the other sending districts, for our school, have transferred
none of state money designated to follow the students from their own districts.
The Department of Education has a total of zero dollars, in their current
two-year budget, for the support of the charter schools that they urged the
State Board of Education to approve for operation. During the recent budget
process, The Department of Education testified before the Senate Finance Committee.
In response to a question about a lack of a request for charter school funding,
The Department of Education responded that there had been a lowering of priority
for the charter schools. It would have been particularly helpful for all of
the charter schools to have been advised of that decision by The State Board
of Education immediately when that decision was made. If we had not attended
the budget hearing we are not sure when any of the charter schools would have
been notified of that change in project priority.
This announcement to not operate the school next year is made with great regret
of the original founders of the school, the board of trustees (past and current),
our Head of School and all of the staff, the parents and most importantly the
students. Having so many community members come together to work under very
difficult circumstances and never losing their commitment to the improvement
of public education in their community is deeply satisfying.
We thank all those associated with this school who gave of themselves and
demonstrated what public education can be. The school was designed to offer
real public school choice to parents and a clearly defined alternative approach
to public education for all area students.
The school is committed to reading excellence and to high academic and personal
expectations for all students in all areas. The school is committed to reporting
both the annual improvement achieved and the end of year performance level
(based on national standards) to the parents of their students in each core
subject (including reading).
The school is committed to providing each student with their own Individual
Development Plan (IDP). Each students’ plan was based on an in depth assessment
(including both testing and subjective analysis) of the student in the beginning
of the year. The IDP was then developed with the approval of the parents, reviewed
again in the middle of the year, adjusted if necessary and then an in-depth
end of year report was produced for each student and given to each parent.
We believe this is an example of real academic accountability in the true sprit
of leaving no child behind.
The school is committed to developing, in each student, an attitude and expectation
of academic and personal success. In addition to academic success for each
student we endeavored to help develop a personal confidence that would help
each student to have high expectations for their own personal success in life.
We wanted them all to learn how to think and then act like winners.
This project has able to bring in over $800,000 of new State and Federal money
to the community to foster, develop and deliver school choice in public education.
Several hundred thousand dollars will be returned to those sources if the school
is unable to continue. No local taxpayer money was ever intended, nor was any
local taxpayer money ever requested from the sending districts.
The school was able to operate at less than 80% of the full cost of the average
New Hampshire public high school this last year. We believe that the loss of
this school and these funding sources would actually cause an ongoing financial
loss to the community, particularly as the community grows and needs expensive
new buildings to meet a future increase in area students. This school was designed
and approved as a state sponsored public charter school. Local tax money was
never used or requested.
Even operating under a number of significant difficulties, we feel that all
of the commitments were met. Some of the commitments were met in an adequate
way and some were met in a spectacular way. The school is developing an in
depth end of year report that will detail the overall academic performance
and an average of the overall student progress in each core subject for the
entire school.
In addition, the report will have a section on lessons learned. The lessons
learned area will address the importance of parents, not only as supporters
and fundraisers for the school but their actual involvement in teaching under
the supervision of certified teachers. Other areas addressed will include in-class
behavior, the use of high technology embedded into the learning experience,
the mix of students with different current academic capabilities working and
learning together and perhaps several other areas as well.
We will provide copies of that report to all who are interested in seeing
and using this information to help improve public education in their own
communities. The bottom line is “ Do not be afraid of having high expectations
for your children and for the reputation of your local public education system.
When students know that much is expected, they will truly surprise you with
what they can and will do. They certainly surprised us.” This school may
ultimately have to close but we hope that the message will live on and encourage
others.
On behalf of the Board of Trustees
Bill Grimm, Chairman
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