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Charter school to launch second appeal to state

Eric Cravey
Posted 7/19/17

ORANGE PARK – The State Board of Education has denied a request by Orange Park Performing Arts Academy as it sought a reprieve from being shut down after earning its second consecutive “F” …

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Charter school to launch second appeal to state


Posted

ORANGE PARK – The State Board of Education has denied a request by Orange Park Performing Arts Academy as it sought a reprieve from being shut down after earning its second consecutive “F” grade from the state.

However, because the school has a second appeals option, the Clay County School District has agreed to take no action until the appeal of its “F” grade is reviewed again by the Florida Department of Education. Orange Park Performing Arts Academy was two points shy of making a “D” letter grade based on its 2017 scores on the annual Florida Standards Assessment.

“A school subject to this level of accountability may request from the State Board of Education a waiver from automatic termination if it can show that the learning gains of its students on statewide assessments are comparable to or better than the learning gains of similarly situated students enrolled in nearby district public schools,” stated Audrey Walden, press secretary for the Florida Department of Education in a prepared statement. “Such a waiver is valid for one year and may only be granted once, and may only be granted to charter schools that have been in operation for fewer than five years.”

OPPAA had spent the last year on a state-mandated turnaround plan and now, Walden said, it is up to the Clay County School District to monitor progress of the second appeal before terminating its contract with the privately-operated school.

“OPPAA was eligible to seek this waiver, but they were unable to demonstrate that their learning gains were comparable to or better than the learning gains of similarly situated students enrolled in nearby district public schools. Therefore, the State Board denied this waiver request,” Walden stated.

Clay County School District officials held a conference call on July 18 to discuss its contract with OPPAA and decided to take no action until the school hears back on its appeal.

“It is disappointing whenever you hear that a school is struggling and failing to meet the needs of our community and the students they serve. OPPAA is currently reviewing their options in terms of filing any appeals with the state but at this point, the state is automatically revoking their charter for receiving two consecutive F grades,” said Janice Kerekes, chairman of the Clay County School Board.

“This is completely out of the hands of the Clay County School Board. I am committed to doing whatever is necessary to protect our students and ensure they receive a quality education,” she said.

Meanwhile, OPPAA Founder and Board Chairman Alesia Ford-Burse said she remains optimistic. She said the school is in the process of collecting data to appeal the school’s test grade, which she is confident could change the results to a “D.”

“We feel very strongly we have a good chance in this appeals process because we have students who performed very well on pre-tests but we saw they didn’t have the same values in the testing process. So, we are pursuing the appeals process,” said Ford-Burse, who spearheaded the creation of the school in 2012.

Deadline for appealing the school’s grade and submitting any collateral documentation is July 31.

“When a charter school receives a grade in general, they can always appeal it,” Ford-Burse said. “We felt the grade didn’t look right based on all of the hard work our teachers had put in. We were two percent from a passing grade.”

Ford-Burse said OPPAA students performed better in English Language Arts than students at nearby Montclair Elementary and better than both Montclair and Grove Park Elementary in Math. Under appeal rules, the charter schools can use such data to show how it stood up against similar schools in its geographic area within the district.

“When you look at the total gains, our school had more total gains than the three comparative schools[including W.E. Cherry Elementary],” she said.

In its original design, OPPAA was to have 275 students upon its debut in the fall of 2014, however, today it has 170 students. The school got its final approval, not from the Clay County School Board, but the Florida Charter School Appeal Commission in a unanimous 6-0 vote on April 4, 2013. The Clay County School Board voted down the proposal at regular board meetings in October 2012 and January 2013.

Ford-Burse said the school spent the 2016-17 school year on a turnaround plan that involved bringing in an interventionalist and spelling out how it would improve its grades in a 400-page document prepared for the Clay County School District, which funds the school.

“We’re very optimistic. We have definitely identified students who haven’t been counted towards our grade,” Ford-Burse said.

She said if the school does not win its second appeal, the board will re-open as a private school.