School board says eight is enough

The Clark County School District won't be sponsoring any new charter schools.

The School Board unanimously decided Tuesday to avoid the additional burden that more charter schools would place on district employees, who have to help launch the district-sponsored charter schools and then must monitor them for compliance with state and federal laws.

The vote was 4-0. Trustee Shirley Barber abstained without giving a reason for her abstention, and School Board members Larry Mason and Ruth Johnson were absent.

Charter schools are independent public schools that receive state funding, and they must be sponsored by either the state or local school systems.

Tuesday's vote means that any additional charter schools in Clark County will need state sponsorship.

There are eight district-sponsored charter schools in the county, and district employees spend hundreds of hours a year working with the schools at the expense of the employees' other responsibilities, said Edward Goldman, associate superintendent of the District's Education Services Division.

Goldman said his division has one employee who oversees charter schools, and that employee also has other responsibilities that she can't get to because monitoring charter schools has become a full-time job for her. He added that employees from various other divisions within the district also are called on to help with the charter schools.

He used the district's human resources personnel as an example.

"Only they can say whether a teacher is certified or not," Goldman said.

The vote against more charter schools came on the same night that the School Board considered shutting one down.

At issue was the 100 Academy of Excellence charter school in North Las Vegas. District and state personnel have been monitoring the school because it ended last school year $285,000 in debt.

The school, which is affiliated with the nonprofit 100 Black Men of Las Vegas, opened in October 2006 with 416 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. The majority of the school's students are black. Members of 100 Black Men mentor students at the school and bring in guest speakers to emphasize the school's theme of strong character development.

The School Board voted 5-0 against closing the school after Lucretia Glidewell, financial manager of the school, said the school finished the year in debt because it had a smaller enrollment than anticipated. School officials expected to serve more than 600 students last school year.

Glidewell said having fewer students made it difficult to pay off the school's rent of $1.2 million a year for a 45,000-square-foot building at Comstock Drive and Carey Avenue.

Goldman said state officials are concerned because 25 percent of the school's budget goes to its rent payments.

The landlord, Imagine Schools, a nonprofit group based in Arlington, Va., recently forgave the debt, Glidewell said.

"We balanced our budget. We're in compliance," said Ted Watkins, a member of 100 Academy's School Board.

The school was using its per-pupil allocation from the state to pay its rent, Goldman said. That's common, he said, because charter schools don't have the ability to open a school using public bond money and must either own or rent school facilities.

Now that the school has more than 600 students, Glidewell said, it won't be in the red this school year.

Next month, the School Board is to get an update of the school's current financial situation, Goldman said.