Health & Fitness
Unfair Charter School Laws Threaten CUSD Finances and Carlsbad Quality of Life
Gov Brown are you listening? Unfair charter school policies will negatively impact our successful schools by taking funds from students who are residents of Carlsbad.
OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNOR BROWN
Dear Governor Brown:
On behalf of our parent-led, grass-roots organization, the CUSD Parent & Community Budget Task Force, I am writing to ask you to repeal unfairly written charter school policy that negatively impacts our school district. Also, local school boards must be given the ability to deny charter schools based on real negative financial ramifications.
Find out what's happening in Carlsbadwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Recently, a charter school filed a petition to establish in Carlsbad Unified School District (CUSD). In researching the charter petition process to educate our parent volunteers, our Task Force discovered unfair and severe financial consequences of establishing a charter school in a basic aid (BA) district.
- Charter Schools are only required to enroll a minimum of 50% of students who reside within a district.
- BA districts that authorize a charter school will receive no pass-through revenue for students from other BA districts.
- BA districts that authorize a charter school will receive only 70% pass-through for students from other revenue limit districts.
These do not represent vague financial consequences resulting from the authorization of charter schools. Our district has adhered to strict boundary policies to prevent this type of loss of local property tax dollars. These policies are unfair and financially punitive.
Find out what's happening in Carlsbadwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
It is important that you also know:
- CUSD enrollment has grown 6% since 2005-06.
- CUSD’s API has steadily grown from 828 to 881 since 2005-06.
- CUSD became basic aid in 2008-09; Fair Share cuts represent 107% of our Excess Property taxes (lowest revenue per pupil in SD County).
- Without Fair Share cuts, CUSD would not have a “qualified” budget.
When presented with legislation in the past to fix these unfair policies, you’ve written:
“While I understand the plight of school districts faced with fiscal challenges of declining enrollment and other management issues, I cannot condone allowing them to deny parents and students their rights to petition for the establishment of a charter school.”
The "fiscal challenges" of CUSD are a direct result of having the proverbial rug swiped from underneath it through Fair Share. However, despite the cuts, CUSD's enrollment and academic achievement have both continued to grow. Which is a testament to our teachers, staff, and families. Our school board has had to make strategic and politically difficult budget cuts to keep teachers in our classrooms, neighborhood schools open, and most importantly, our students learning and achieving. It is time to repeal these unfair policies and give school boards like ours the ability to deny charter petitions on the grounds of real negative financial impact. Our students and residents deserve better than this.
Sincerely,
Claudine Jones, Co-Chair
CUSD Parent & Community Budget Task Force
About us: The CUSD Parent & Community Budget Task Force is a grass-roots, parent-led group that was formed to educate the Carlsbad community about the on-going budget crisis facing our district.
Our mission is to identify new, non-traditional revenue streams to prevent further class size increases and fewer instructional days to enable our students to continue receiving a high quality education in world class schools.
