IN 2004, Southeast Webster was awarded the first charter high school in Iowa called Iowa Central Charter High School. As the principal of the high school during the initial stage of the charter school, I remember the concerns the staff, parents and students all had regarding the taking of college courses on the campus of Iowa Central. At that time, the charter school was very innovative and very unique that high school students could take classes at the next level while in high school. There was overwhelming support one year later.
In the first four years of being Iowa Central Charter High School, funding came through the federal funds given to Iowa from the United States Department of Education. The funds were used to buy a bus for transportation, for paying of credits, for teacher training and other expenses needed to run the charter school.
In 2008, Southeast Webster-Grand applied to the Iowa State Board of Education for a renewal. Although I was not part of the application, I understand that the State Board of Education did approve the renewal. During the next four years, our testing data used to show the strength of the charter school began to slide downward.
Beginning in 2007 there were 50 seniors, all receiving college credit with the average number of classes was 8.4 and average number of credits was 27.9. In 2008 there were 47 seniors receiving college credit, average number of classes was 8.5 and average number of credits was 25.4. In 2009, there were 47 seniors, 45 of them received college credit, average number of classes was 8.7 and average number of credits was 26. In 2010, there were 34 seniors, 33 of them received college credit with the average number of classes being 8.8 and average number of credits was26.6. In 2011, there were 39 seniors, with 33 receiving college credit, average number of classes was 6.4 and average number of credits was 19.1. In 2012, there were 44 seniors with only 25 receiving any college credits. The average number of classes was 4.3 and the average number of credits was 12.9. As you can see there has been a significant drop in the number of classes, number of credits attained and number of students taking college courses.
What changed? Two things have changed. The first is the turnover in staff. Staff that we have lost in the past few years were high school teachers with credentials to teach college classes. Teachers need to have certain endorsements or degrees to teach at the college level. The second is a state mandate called Senior Year Plus. About three years ago, the state legislative passed a bill code Senior Year plus. This means that every student who wants to take college class in high school must be proficient in Reading, Math and Science according to the Iowa Test of Educational Developmental or ITED. The Southeast Webster Grand Board of Education passed a resolution stating that if the student was not proficient with ITED then another assessment may be used to check proficient and stating the COMPASS test would be an alternative. Both factors played a role in the decrease of participation in the college courses.
In January 2012, the renewal application was sent to the Iowa Department of Education for review and approval by the State Board of Education. On March 8th, Del Hoover and Janet Boyd of the Iowa Department of Education came to Southeast Webster-Grand for additional information gathering, conversation on the data and review goals of the charter school. Concerns that arose from the meeting were the data from the assessment testing, number of students not participating and the need to update the goals. After the meeting, I worked closely with the DE to update or improve the plan. After much discussion of the members of the Iowa Department of Education, their proposal was to renew the charter school for one year and allow the school district to work with the DE to work with the district to improve data and rewrite the goals. The final decision lies with the Iowa State Board of Education.
On May 10, 2012, I attended the meeting at the Iowa Department of Education with the State Board of Education. The same concerns were brought up during this meeting by the State board members. For the most part the board members felt that the district did not make enough gains in test scores, which include ITED and ACT, we dropped in the number of students enrolling in college classes and the charter school was not innovative enough to maintain the charter school status. According to the State Board of Education our status report from the Iowa Department of Education was dismal and lacked growth. In a five to three vote, the Iowa Central Charter High school will sunset on May 18, 2012.
What does this mean for our students? The district will continue to offer the students college courses at the high school and be allowed to attend classes at Iowa Central Community School. The students will still need to meet the senior year plus rule and will be limited to a total of 24 college credits per year. Students will be allowed to drive or take school provided transportation in addition there will be no cost for books or credits received.
Although I am disappointed that we can no longer be a charter school, the important item to remember from this experience is that whether we like it or not, testing of our students is a major component in judging of our district’s success in curriculum and instruction.
Launi Dane, Superintendent
