The state's first charter school, Franklin Career Academy, began operating this school year. And already, school district and charter school officials are arguing over state education money. But as New Hampshire Public Radio's Amy Quinton reports, the dispute highlights an even bigger debate, how to fund charter schools in the long run.
Franklin Career Academy Charter School opened its doors last fall to students in grades seven through 12.
A charter school is a public school that is free from some state regulations but has a special mission, or charter.
Franklin Career Academy was originally designed for dropouts or at-risk students -- but has now expanded to include any student who wants more control over curriculum.
That individualized learning is why Pat Grimm enrolled her 8th grade son.
74 I wasn?t pleased with what was happening at the middle school, and I really enjoy the aspect of the individualized scholastic planning for the children, they can all be at different levels in the same grade and they can do an indivdualized plan for each student
The closest high school in the district ? Franklin High School ? has about 500 students.
Franklin Career Academy has only 40 students.
9th grader Jerrin Downs was home-schooled and was attracted to the charter school?s smaller class sizes.
Downs says he also liked the ability to learn at his own level.
48 It sounded really good like you could change your courses if you weren?t caught up or if you were really smart they would give you harder courses, so it sounded better than regular high school.
Teachers don?t teach based on a student?s grade or age.
Franklin Career Academy Director Carol Sideris says the customized approach gives the student a sense of accomplishment and is a measure of the schools success.
35 We have parents who have written us letters saying ?my child no longer calls themselves stupid or retarded or incapable. It think that?s a measurement in terms of self esteem.
A federal start up grant helped open Franklin Career Academy.
The school also received money from the Governor?s Charter School Fund.
State law says the charter is also supposed to receive a share of the state?s adequacy aid from the school district.
Franklin Career Academy founder Bill Grimm says he didn?t ask the district for that money when the school opened because it came in the middle of a budget year.
12 :29 we said we wouldn?t proceed if the money was taken from the school system within the budget year because myself and others with experience with school budgets knew that would just not be fair.
But when the city of Franklin recently transferred 146-thousand dollars in state aid to the school district, Grimm says the time was right to ask for their share.
He says that money was additional aid that wasn?t in the school district?s approved budget.
Grimm says the charter needs the money.
12 :10 we?ve been working very hard to try to find some other way of getting money so the city wouldn?t have to pay anything, we weren?t able to do that.
Franklin School District Superintendent Robert McKinney did not return repeated phone calls.
But he has said the district was expecting that money to pay for teacher salaries.
Mark Joyce, with New Hampshire?s School Administrators Association says the dispute is not surprising.
He says legislators were shortsighted when they wrote the law that created charter schools.
2:07 They were just blinded by their goal of establishing a charter school
wihtout carefully analyzing the impact and the relationship of their decision to existing school finance law.
Many districts have rejected charter school proposals because of the expense.
Joyce says the legislature sidestepped local voters when it created the pilot charter school program.
5:44 The legislative body of Franklin never voted to approve the school or appropriate money, period, secondly, the school district of Franklin has not received the adequacy grant for the kids this year and won?t for two years.
The State Department of Education says a school district can issue anticipatory notes to charter schools if it doesn?t have the money.
That may be a solution in Franklin for now.
But Scott Johnson, with the Citizens Voice Project, says the lack of a separate funding mechanism for charter schools may put their future in jeopardy.
Scott 4 The amount the state uses for adequacy aid is now between 3400 and 4000 for its public schools, and the oversight committee for charter schools has acknowledged that charter schools could not survive or do the things they needed to do on that amount.
The Charter School Advisory committee will meet next month to discuss the future of charter school funding.
And Franklin?s City Council will discuss how to resolve the dispute next month.
There?s legislation pending for an additional million dollars to help charter schools operate.
But that may have a difficult time passing, given the looming budget shortfall.
For NHPR news, I?m Amy Quinton.
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