The anti-charter school contingency can blame charters for the system's financial crisis till it's blue in the face. But that won't change the facts.
Lafayette Charter Renaissance Academy
The anti-charter school contingency can blame charters and Superintendent Pat Cooper's support of them for the system's financial crisis till it's blue in the face. But that won't change the facts.
The charters were coming, regardless of whether the school board or the superintendent wanted them.
For nearly every education-related story posted by The IND, there's sure to be at least one reader comment claiming all the current ills of the school system can be traced back to the arrival of two charter school companies in Lafayette Parish. And those comments are typically followed by a bashing of the superintendent for his support before the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education before it voted for the charters.
Another common argument is that the charters are responsible for the school system's more than $20 million budget deficit, such as this recent claim by Layne St. Julien in a comment posted on a story regarding J.W. Faulk Elementary's need for more financial support from the school board:
[F]unds needed for renovations at Faulk would be much more likely to be found if LPSS weren't facing a $12 million reduction in funding because of charter schools, which Dr. Cooper championed in front of BESE.
That same claim was made in a comment posted in a separate story by her husband, John St. Julien, where he writes:
Since 12 million of the 18 million dollar deficit has been laid by the administration to a policy the board, [sic] opposed and the administration favored-opening charter schools-it would seem that their involvement has been proven wise in the past. We'd not be in this deficit fix if their policy position, which was always at least in part based on fiscal concerns, had not been overridden.
In Debbie Hargrave's opinion, Superintendent Pat Cooper's support for the charters shows he's undermining his own turnaround plan for the school system. She writes:
The Board members like [Mark Allen] Babineaux are trying to educate all children in the face of a very large deficient [sic] created by the Charter Schools that the Board turned down. It was Dr. Cooper who lobbied for Charters at a BESE meeting, so if anyone is undermining the turnaround plan - it's Dr. Cooper.
Now let's to get to the facts of the story. The school board had an opportunity to approve both companies as Type 1 charters. The board voted against that measure, prompting both companies to go before BESE, where they were sure to get approval for a Type 2 application, meaning the local school board would have no governing role over their operations.
"We knew BESE would approve and felt the best thing to do was work with them instead of making enemies with them" - Pat Cooper
While the anti-charter proponents like to call out Cooper for his support of the charters during BESE's approval meeting, what they always fail to mention is his reasoning.
"Yes, it is costing us some money, but we knew it would cost us money," says Cooper. "With the way Lafayette Parish is growing and the way the school board isn't willing to ask for a new tax, we're faced with not having a place to put all these children."
Repeatedly, the anti-charter group claims that BESE's approval of the two companies has resulted in $12 million being bled from the school system's coffers.
The group needs to check its math.
According to LPSS Chief Financial Office Billy Guidry, the school system will lose $12 million in revenue, but it will also save about $3.5 million in expenditures, bringing the impact on the bottom line to about $8.5 million.
Another important detail left out of the argument against charters is the school system's growing student population, which rose by more than 800 students last year and is estimated to jump again this upcoming school year by 1,000. How is LPSS supposed to deal with this influx?
Between the two charter companies, Lafayette Parish will get five new schools over the next few years. For the school system, it would cost about $200 million to accomplish that feat.
"People think we made that decision because we like charter schools, but no, it was a business decision," says Cooper. "Where else are we going to put all these new kids? We have this huge influx of people coming in; we don't have enough to buy more butler buildings or build new schools, so this is the only way we could be sure to house these kids."
Cooper says he was making the best of a situation that was already happening.
"We knew BESE would approve and felt the best thing to do was work with them instead of making enemies with them," explains Cooper, who notes that the spirit of cooperation is helping the local school system better prepare for the upcoming year. "They've given us their whole rosters: what grade, what school, and that has really helped us with our staffing. They were coming, and we knew they were coming."