Council debating filing for charter high school

Published in The Islander News May June 5, 2008
kjosephsen@islanderews.com

The Village Council will vote next week on whether to spend $20,000 to file paperwork to open a municipal charter high school in the community.

The vote is set for the Council's meeting Tuesday, June 10 at 7 p.m. in Village Hall, following a lengthy discussion at a Tuesday, May 27 meeting.

At issue is whether to file an application by the August 1 deadline to open a municipal charter school in the 2009-2010 academic year — or to put off the filing until a recently-hired consultant can educate the Council on municipal charter schools, which are linked to and often funded by the municipality in which they are located. The latter option would mean opening the school for 2010-2011 at the earliest.

Council members had voted earlier in May not to pay a consultant $20,000 to oversee the application process, noting they need more facts before deciding if they'll go forward with efforts to open a school.

Following that decision, dozens of residents — many of them seventh grade students who want to make up Key Biscayne High

School's first freshman class in 2009-2010 — c-mailed Council members, urging them to reconsider and go forward with the application this August.

That led Council member Michael Davey to put the issue on the May 27 agenda as a discussion item.

Mayor Robert Vernon told the kids and parents who packed Village Hall last week he would entertain public comment on the item — something not generally done for non-action items — but couldn't call a vote.

"Without it being noticed on the agenda as an action item, it doesn't give the opportunity for somebody who may not want this to come and speak against it," Vernon explained.

At that, half a dozen parents and even one seventh-grader stepped forward to ask the Council to file the application this August, meeting with loud applause from the crowd. At the end of public comment period, Vernon noted over 30 more parents had signed up to lend support but didn't wish to speak.

Those who did cited a number of reasons to support the application and the school itself.

Angel Martin, who is spearheading the grassroots effort to open a high school in the Village, stressed the application is nonbinding, meaning it doesn't require Key Biscayne to open a high school in 2009-2010 or at all. "It just gets us into the pipeline," he explained.

If the Village does not file the application, however, it loses the opportunity to open a school during the 2009-2010 school year —even if it's ready to do so.

Martin said filing the application can be a purely bureaucratic exercise, meaning it won't jeopardize the quality of the school or rush important decisions about curriculum, facilities, etc.

The overall message from parents: "Don't let another year go by."

Doing so, they said, means more kids will be taken out of their hometown and forced to make a long, dangerous commute to schools off the island. Furthermore, parents said, building a school in the Village will increase property values anywhere from $50,000-$150,000 per house.

Council members have said all along they like the idea of a local high school — but need much more information before they can decide to use taxpayers' dollars to pay for one. Previously, they said they didn't want to spend money on any official steps toward creating the school —i.e., filing the application — until more information is available this fall from consultant Fielding Nair International.

However, several local leaders indicated last week they may be ready to reverse course June 10

Vernon said the Village has already budgeted the $20,000 to file the application, so he sees no reason not to file, and Council members Pat. Weinman and Enrique Garcia made similar remarks.

Weinman said the Village can access up to $20,000 in federal funding by filing an application — meaning it could cover the cost of doing so with outside money.

"I think we should go for it," she said. "I think we should go ahead, as a Council, and say to our staff and consultants, 'Let's see if we can do it."

Garcia agreed, but said he still wants specifics about curriculum, location and the cost of running a school. He also warned the seventh-graders who e-mailed the Council that filing an application carries with it no guarantees: "I don't want to create false expectations," he said. "It doesn't mean the seventh graders will be able to go to high school there. I don't see it happening."

Still, the sponsor of last week's discussion, Davey, said he's pleased with the progress that was made.

He promised to put the application on the June 10 agenda as an action item; and encouraged parents to continue doing their part to raise support for the school, suggesting they put together a petition to give a clear picture of how many families would send their kids to a local public high school.

"One issue that has come up is whether we are going to have enough kids to come to this school," he remarked. "You can show there is a large majority of people on this Key who really want this.

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