Prospective West Seattle charter-school operator moves to ‘home-based instruction’ for its first two Washington schools

Summit Public Schools, the California-based organization that wants to open a charter school in a former church/supermarket building in Arbor Heights, has announced what it calls a “stopgap measure” for the two schools it opened this fall in the International District and Tacoma: “Home-based instruction.” Regional director Jen Wickens e-mailed this announcement:

Summit Public Charter Schools Offers Free, Personalized, High Quality Home-Based Instruction to Enrolled Families
This is a stop gap measure as the legislature works to find a permanent fix to keep public charter schools open across state

Summit Public School’s mission is to prepare a diverse student population for success in a four-year college, and to be thoughtful, contributing members of society. Everyone at Summit has been working hard to continue to provide the personalized, high quality education promised to our families despite the court’s decision this fall ruling our state’s public charter school law unconstitutional.

After exploring all possible options, we believe the best way for us to be able to offer the same high quality academic experience to our students is to transition to Home-based Instruction (also known as homeschooling).

We are able to do this because Washington law allows parents the right to choose to homeschool their children and parents can also choose to have their children attend academic programming, tutoring and classes offered by certificated teachers.

Summit Olympus and Summit Sierra will officially become “tutoring centers” and our students will be enrolled in Home-based Instruction. Despite the shift in educational program category, we will continue to offer the exact same Summit experience to each of our families – a free, personalized program with our outstanding and dedicated faculty.

We will also continue to work toward a long-term legislative fix to keep public charter schools open across the state. Students and families are entitled to a high-quality education, and they should have a choice of where they attend school. Students and parents deserve this choice and the voters supported them.

Summit originally intended to open a middle/high school called Summit Atlas next fall in the former Freedom Church/Safeway building at 35th and Roxbury that Washington Charter School Development purchased for $4.75 million last summer to redevelop. After the state Supreme Court ruled the 2012 charter law unconstitutional in September, Summit announced last month that it would postpone its hoped-for opening until fall 2017. The building is currently vacant; Freedom Church had leased it back for a while but has now moved to a new site it bought in Skyway. We first discovered the 35th/Roxbury school plan almost exactly a year ago, after documents were filed with city planners.

Brian January 6, 2016 (8:48 am)

I read this multiple times and it keeps screaming “this is a huge scam” at me. Anyone else?

Rev. Dr. Richard Curtis January 6, 2016 (8:52 am)

Profiting at the expense of children simply because the legislature allows it is not a good argument — it is merely an observation that kids are being taken advantage of. What Washington needs is an income tax that will allow us to fund all education. If we want good schools and quality education then we have to pay for it, mostly to reduce class size. Simply pretending that a private company profiting from this lack of a coherent tax policy helps no one but those who own the company. Private profit has no place in education — education is a human right!

Chris January 6, 2016 (10:03 am)

Yes, Curtis, because the answer to government schooling is always more money. Never mind the waste and bloat in both the public and charter school industries. I hope more parents take back their responsibility to their children and hold themselves accountable, not others. If our children aren’t doing well, it is our job to fix it. To think the government will ever do this is wishful thinking.
Our school district is terrible, with the TERC math failing kids every day. When we discovered this and had no ability to change the school, we fixed it ourselves by spending our own money on good curriculum and teaching our children. More parents could and should do this!

Ivan January 6, 2016 (11:08 am)

Thanks to WSB for continuing to cover this issue, and for not repeating Summit’s oxymoronic usage of “public charter schools.”
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Right now there is nothing “public” about these operations, and we should all be grateful that none of our 34th District legislators favor giving these operations even one nickel of our tax dollars before the state comes into full compliance with the Supreme Court’s McCleary directive — and probably not even afterward.

Melissa Westbrook January 6, 2016 (2:39 pm)

Chris, what school is using TERC? That got changed years ago.

Also, OSPI says these are “former charter schools” and “contractors.” Not so much schools, public or otherwise.

Evergreen January 6, 2016 (7:25 pm)

Interesting, but for how long? Unfortunately, this doesn’t sound sustainable or doable for most families. How sad.

Charlie Mas January 7, 2016 (5:34 am)

@Chris – You raise critical issues.
Could you please provide specific examples of the “waste and bloat” in our public schools?
Also, who’s children are not doing well?
What families are not taking responsibility? What do you think can be done to make them take responsibility?
What do you think we, as a society, should do for those children whose families will not take that responsibility? And if we, as a society, are to take that action for those children, wouldn’t it be a government action, as the government is the elected representatives of the people?
Which school district is terrible? Which school district is using TERC math?
If the district math curriculum is “failing kids every day” and you think that families should spend their own money on “good curriculum”, what about the kids whose families don’t do that? What about them?

Charlie Mas January 7, 2016 (5:45 am)

Charter school advocates have found an ally in the Mary Walker School District.
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They have found a law intended for a specific purpose and they are using it for their own, very different, purposes.
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The net consequence is interesting.
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First, it shows that we never needed a charter school law – and still don’t.
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Second, it created charter schools that have all of the charter school features super-sized. Charter schools have limited oversight; tutoring services have none. Charter schools have a limited ability to select their students; tutoring services have absolute ability to select their students. Charter schools must comply with reduced regulations; tutoring services have no regulations. Charter schools had relaxed requirements for teacher qualifications; tutoring services have no requirements for teacher qualifications. Charter schools have limited accountability; tutoring services have no accountability. It’s a great move for them.
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Third, if any family has a problem with the school there is no one at Mary Walker School District who is going to listen to them because no one with a child at any of these schools is a voter in the Mary Walker school district.

Ms. Sparkles January 7, 2016 (10:51 am)

While I disagree with Chris’s basic sentiment, I can give you several examples of “waste & bloat”:
* Superintendent Nylan’s $276,000 salary
* The addition of 28 jobs to the SPS centeral administration payroll – not raises to existing employees, new positions
– those 28 jobs include adding another Deputy / Assitant Superindendant, 8 “Other” District Administrators and 10 Director / Supervisors. Only 72.5% of the total SPS budget is spent on teaching & teaching support (classroom aides), with another 6.1% spent on School Admintration (principals & school office staff).

My sources are Seattle Times for Nylan’s salary and the SPS 2015-2016 Adopted Budgets downloaded from the SPS website.

Dora Taylor January 7, 2016 (10:54 am)

It’s still a charter school and will receive tax dollars so it is still illegal.

Dora Taylor January 7, 2016 (10:57 am)

For more information on this scam, see The charter school shell game in Washington State: Money laundering at its best (or worst?) by way of OSPI, https://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2016/01/03/the-charter-school-shell-game-in-washington-state-money-laundering-money-at-its-best-or-worst-by-way-of-ospi/.

NO 1240 January 7, 2016 (11:48 am)

Funding for charter schools will flow through a small district in eastern Washington called the Mary Walker School District. The Mary Walker school district has approximately 500 students.

The Superintendent of the Mary Walker School District is Kevin Jacka and he resigned from the Charter Commission on December 2, 2015. The Mary Walker School District has received $2M in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and have been financially compensated for this scheme.

The flow of dollars through Mary School District and into charter schools is nothing short of money laundering.

The state is under a court order to fund public education and State Representative Chad Magendanz claims that the biggest obstacle to funding public education is a charter fix.

This guy gets it right:

http://billsblog-wasa.weebly.com/blog-entries/archives/12-2015

Chris January 7, 2016 (10:47 pm)

For the 2015-2016 school year, our district (Sedro-Woolley) is still using the TERC Investigations. It was so bad the principal informed us at a PTA meeting that the exiting 6th graders would all need remedial work. This was based on performances from the then 7-9th grade classes. The problem many of us parents faced 3 years ago is still a problem right now. The school board won’t change its math curriculum and, right or wrong, only the kids who have parental support or are very gifted mathematically are gaining a strong foundation.

Charlie, you raise fantastic questions. I wish there were simple answers, but if I had one then you’d know I was full of b.s. Our district has a relatively high free lunch crowd and many students don’t have the resources at home to purchase curriculum. I cannot change this as much as I’d like to. We have so many free resources at our disposal too that some kids will never encounter. All I can hope for in our tiny community is to continue the discussion and get all the parents who can and will fix the problems together. We have succeeded in a small subset of families here with our kids in Art of Problem Solving texts, Beast Academy, Singapore Primary Math, and lots of very old books from the net. This has, however, created quite the disparity in class and some boredom, too.
As a society, Charlie? It seems impossible, doesn’t it? How do we reach the kids who don’t have the access? Common core and extra funding (levy) hasn’t solved our small community educational woes thus far. I cannot speak for other districts though. What would you suggest?
As far as waste, yes salary for the superindentents and higher ups perhaps seems a bit high. I do think the amount spent to test our kids (SBAC), and the fees paid to consultants is rather out of control. I probably should drum up statistics…at 10:30, maybe tomorrow.

Linda January 8, 2016 (1:11 pm)

First of all homeschooling is not a charter school. It’s also not a public school. It means that parents provide home-based instruction to their children. People very successfully do this and there are lovely groups of people who cooperate to provide educational and social experiences for their children. I know about this as I homeschooled my son until college!

Charter schools want to use the funds available for public schools for their own profit. It’s a business model that wants to mine the deep pockets of our public school budget and undermine the public school system. Why would anybody support that?

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