San Antonio Independent School District and its Superintendent Pedro Martinez have opened their arms and campuses to charter schools as solutions to the high-poverty district’s problems.
The district serves 53,000 students, 92 percent of which are economically disadvantaged, and sits squarely in the middle of San Antonio’s urban core. The most recent 4-year graduation rate indicates roughly 82 percent of students matriculate on time.
In January, SAISD trustees approved the district’s application for New York-based charter group Democracy Prep to take over operations at chronically failing Stewart Elementary School this fall. If approved by the Texas Education Agency, this action would allow Stewart to evade state intervention that is normally imposed on campuses that receive consecutive and repeated failing grades.
Now the district is negotiating another charter solution with Texans Can Academies to address low graduation rates among students at two struggling high schools: Lanier and Highlands high schools.
The district has been in talks with the Dallas-based charter operator that touts itself as offering “a second chance to any students who have struggled in a traditional high school setting.” While no formal agreement has been drafted, SAISD has conducted three interest meetings with parents from both schools and has solicited further feedback via phone discussions with families.
SAISD spokesperson Leslie Price said the charter program would likely be geared toward students who are behind one or two years via an opt-in program.
Price described the possibility as a “school within a school.”
Texans Can Academies Chief of Schools James Ponce said the partnership would allow the two entities to “extend services to students on the verge of dropping out.”
Dropout rates at Lanier and Highlands high schools have been higher than at other campuses in the district. In Highland’s class of 2016, 81.5 percent of students graduated, while 14.5 percent dropped out. Four percent of students continued high school after the majority of their class graduated.
Numbers are similar at Lanier, where 83.1 percent of the class 0f 2016 graduated and 14.5 percent dropped out. Roughly 2.4 percent of the class continued high school.
The district’s average dropout rate is 12.9 percent for the class of 2016.
The “who, what, and how many” are decisions SAISD will make, Ponce said, adding that Texans Can Academies was not involved in picking which schools the partnership might include.
Ponce said the timeline moving forward has also been driven by the school district, but added that if the two entities want to open the Texans Can Academies extension on the high school campuses in the fall, SAISD must approve a decision by the spring.
The partnership could be modeled on an existing one among Spring Branch ISD in Houston, KIPP Houston Public Schools, and YES Prep Public Schools, he said. The so-called SKY partnership launched in the 2012-13 school year in middle schools. It offers Spring Branch ISD students, who enroll in a lottery process, instruction through KIPP and YES Prep curriculum and opportunities to participate in school district extracurriculars.
One distinction between the proposed program in SAISD and the existing one at Spring Branch ISD is this: Texans Can Academies would operate a campus charter or “school within a school” catered to specific types of students, whereas KIPP and Yes Prep operate program charters with lottery-style enrollment.
Ponce said he did not know what staffing would look like – whether Texans Can Academies would use charter staff or district teachers – because it is too early in the negotiation.
The conversation between SAISD and Texans Can Academies became “more serious” toward the end of 2017, he said, and “once the partnership rolls out, we will have a lot more detail.”
The discussion was initiated mutually, Ponce said, but was sparked by the passage of Senate Bill 1882 during the 85th Texas Legislature. The bill, sponsored by State Sen. José Menéndez (D-San Antonio), incentivizes collaboration between school districts and charter schools with a potential increase in state funding and an exemption from accountability interventions.
SAISD plans to capitalize on said incentive at Stewart Elementary School. In January, trustees advanced Democracy Prep’s application to take over operations. Stewart is on the verge of facing state intervention after receiving a number of consecutive failing grades from the state’s accountability system.
The district plans to review a more detailed performance contract with Democracy Prep later on this month.
Some community members and SAISD employees have voiced opposition to the recent trend of partnering with charter schools. San Antonio Alliance Teachers & Support Personnel President Shelley Potter criticized the district’s decisions in an e-mail to district employees earlier this week.
“By handing off the operation of Stewart and part of these two high schools,” she wrote, “is the district administration effectively admitting they do not know how to fulfill their core mission of educating our district’s students?”
This is first step down a slippery slope to the full privatization of public education in Texas. Very disheartening.
We will be saddled with these agreements long after Pedro has packed his bags and left town. It’s a bad deal. Aren’t we paying him to fix these situations, not contract them out? That takes the blame off him, but his salary continues. That’s one of the problems with hiring a superintendent that has zero experience as a classroom teacher.
Would HEB hire a competitor to try to bring up sales at a low-performing store? I doubt it.
Hundreds of kids are dropping out each year, with very limited life prospects.
It’s not the teacher’s fault, but a lot of these kids come to school with lots of side issues related to poverty.
It would be negligence if SAISD weren’t out looking for best practices and programs to help these kids stay in school.
Also, Bexar County has among the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country. I would be surprised if this wasn’t related to the dropout rate. Hopefully SAISD and CAN can address that.
Our schools are lacking so much support. We need on site crisis counselors, behavior specialists(not traveling ones from school to school), academic specialists in all fields, teacher assistants per teacher, family crisis support etc.
We do not need an outside agency to come in and take over!! We have some amazing, committed hard working teachers in our school. Our students are suffering not just because of possible poor instruction, but due to circumstances we, the teachers, have no control over. LISTEN TO THE TEACHERS, WE MAY KNOW SOMETHING!
SAISD already has a campus that deals with overage and students in danger of dropping out. Navarro Academy, now known as Cooper-at-Navarro, brings in students who have struggled at traditional high schools. It features smaller classes, more individualized attention, and an online curriculum that allows students to earn credit at their own pace. Why isn’t the district using this resource it already has? Which, by the way, is a stone’s throw away from Lanier High School. Navarro has saved hundreds of students from dropout and has a highly dedicated staff whose mission is to provide these students with the tools they need to be successful in and out of the classroom. I’m all for innovation and doing what is best for our students, but why are we looking outside for an answer, when we already have one??
It is time to stop reinventing the wheel. Years ago people were poor, they walked to school, and they took their lunch to school. There was no breakfast or free lunch the parents provided the food for their child. Parents provided their child’s needed supplies. Usually only the dad worked and worked two jobs. Mom made sure the kids did their homework everyday. There was no music or TV until homework was done. Teachers posted the grades in class for everyone to see. There was no excuse for not working in class or for not turning in homework. There were just as many family problems then, but it was not an excuse for not learning. Parents supported what the teachers taught. If a teacher had to phone home the student was in trouble with their parent. Today parents do not want the phone calls and believe the teacher is wrong. They believe the work is to hard and there should not be homework. With these attitudes what do you expect to happen? Until parents says enough fail the student who does no work and discipline the student who disrupts there will be no change. SAISD is headed for failure because the district and the parents do not hold the student and the parents responsible for learning.