Steve Brown’s Public Comments to the SCCOE 5-20-20 Board Meeting
The Board and the staff have devoted a great deal of thought preparing this revised policy. Thank you for your dedication and leadership.
The new Ed Code provisions and revising SCCOE policies present an opportunity for charter schools, local school districts and SCCOE to work together to serve the entire community.
A core value and a key governance issue is: “What are the Board’s expectations for charter schools to serve economically disadvantaged students?”
There is not a clearly stated emphasis on serving economically disadvantaged students in the revised policy. Apparently, this draft has been impacted by an arguable position that economically disadvantaged students are not identifiable or specifically included in the enforcement code sections.
An alternative view is that economically disadvantaged students ARE entitled to “special emphasis”:
“Academically low achieving” students are included for special emphasis within the original (1992) expression of the Legislature's intent, which is a codified statement of the goals for the entire legal framework.
There is a great deal of CDE data and research that concludes the number one predictor of academic test scores is the economic circumstances of the student’s household.
Historical enrollment preferences (e.g. neighborhood, siblings, founders, employees, etc.) result in student populations that do not reflect the entire district, particularly FRPM-eligible students.
There is a provision in Education Code section 47605(e)(2)(B)(iii) that indicates enrollment preferences "shall not result in limiting enrollment access for...[among others] pupils who are economically disadvantaged, as determined by eligibility for any free or reduced price lunch program."
A narrow focus on the letter of the Ed Code vs. the SPIRIT and INTENT of the charter act risks missing the forest for the trees and de-emphasizes the importance of serving economically disadvantaged pupils.
I encourage the SCCOE Board to specifically add economically disadvantaged pupils to the list they are targeting to serve, and state this intent in various sections of the policy, as a concrete expansion of learning opportunities for academically low achieving students.
It is hard to imagine SCCOE being criticized for emphasizing service to economically disadvantaged pupils.
Specific suggested policy edits are available upon request.