State Places Charter Schools On Probation

Three local school districts within the Achievement First charter network are on probation, after repeatedly violating the state’s ground rules for operating a public school.

The Connecticut State Board of Education unanimously cast those votes at its monthly meeting Thursday in Hartford.

The decisions affect three top-scoring local schools in the Achievement First network: Amistad Academy, Elm City College Preparatory and AF Bridgeport Academy, which all feed into Amistad High School.

The three schools, which together have over 2,900 students, will be under extra state scrutiny for up to a year, as Achievement First puts together a corrective action plan by Mar. 6, 2020, to comply with state laws and regulations.

If Achievement First doesn’t carry that plan out, state Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona can choose to withhold state grants from the schools until it’s fully implemented.

Cardona will also have to notify all parents next week of their schools’ probational status. He will need to approve any future plans by Achievement First to expand student enrollment or recruit new students.

The state board Thursday voted to renew the three Achievement First charters that allow the schools to stay open. But the board voted to do so for only two more years until June 30, 2022, far sooner than the five-year maximum allowed by state law.

Five families with relatives in the network’s New Haven schools turned out to ask for a five-year renewal. They said that the state’s urban public schools had failed them, and that their children jumped by whole grade levels once they transferred in to Achievement First.

“While I understand and welcome oversight, knowing it is necessary, it is also true that our schools are under the highest regulations of any other schools in the state,” said Claudia Phillips, a Bridgeport parent whose son is an Amistad High School senior. ​“The State Department of Education is more focused on creating roadblocks for the very schools that are succeeding and helping our brown and black children in our communities like mine.”

“It is high time for our public charter schools to be recognized and supported for the tremendous work they are achieving year after year amid crazy challenges,” she added. ​“AF is not failing our children.”

“Rules Everybody Else Is Following”

State officials said they recommended placing the three school districts on probation because, after a half-decade of requests, Achievement First hadn’t done the basic things a public school needs to do.

“You cannot argue with the outcomes for those kids. But you’re also not a private school. You’re a public school that’s getting public money,” said Robert Trefry, an ex-oficio, non-voting board member. ​“The state board can’t say, ​‘Well, you get a pass.’ That’s not fair to those kids.”

“These are the rules that everybody else is following,” he added.

Charter schools like Achievement First’s are largely operated privately (with periodic reviews by state regulators) and largely funded publicly (with supplemental money from donors).

In evaluating the charter renewal application, state education officials praised Achievement First’s academic program and school culture. They pointed out that AF boasts higher test scores and lower chronic absenteeism than the state average.

Officials said that Achievement First’s disciplinary system still isn’t where it needs to be. After Amistad’s then-Principal Morgan Barth was caught on video shoving a student, a state investigation found ​“ample evidence” that the charter schools have work to do on ​“accountability, cultural competency, trustworthiness, effectiveness, and fairness” in the way network and school policies are written and applied, they said.

But they added that, over the last two years, Achievement First had met every target in gradually lowering its suspension rate to be more in line with surrounding public schools.

Mostly, state education officials took issue with other legal requirements that the schools hadn’t met over the last decade. They said Achievement First needs to take routine steps: certify its staff, mentor its new teachers and offer classes for its English learners.

Lisa Lamenzo, the bureau chief for the state’s turnaround office, said their concerns had been ​“longstanding.” Board member Estela López, the vice chair, said she had been ​“sitting here for many board meetings when we have asked you to do this.”

“There are a number of charter schools that have outstanding student achievement data that are also in compliance in these areas,” said Desi Nesmith, the state education department’s deputy commissioner. ​“This is something that is not common to all charters.”

First, state officials said Achievement First needs to comply with state laws on teacher certification. Charter schools need only half their staff to have a teaching certificate, but the other half also need to have some kind of temporary permit too.

At year’s end, 94.1 percent of the staff at Elm City College Preparatory and 87.7 percent of the staff at Amistad Academy had the right authorization, the state reported.

Dacia Toll, Achievement First’s co-CEO, said that her network’s educators do well teaching their assigned subjects, but they’ve struggled to pass other exams that test a wider range of content. Principals said the director of school operations in each building have been helping teachers prepare with study sessions.

Toll added that the network is changing its hiring practices to require all new employees to already have a certification or be in the final stages of an education program.

State officials also said that beginning teachers aren’t completing a state-mandated orientation, known as the Teacher Education and Mentoring (TEAM) program, that pairs them with an experienced teacher for 20 hours of mentoring each year. The schools doubled up on assigning mentors, and teachers weren’t logging hours, they said.

As of November 2019, Amistad Academy had 34 beginning teachers, 20 of whom hadn’t received any mentoring this year. Elm City College Preparatory had eight beginning teachers, only one of whom had received any mentoring — for just 35 minutes — this year.

Toll said that Achievement First is working on changing perceptions of the TEAM program, which is seen as an ​“add-on” to the network’s own training, rather than a ​“requirement.”

She said she plans to work with the state to adjust the many hours of professional development that are already happening to count towards the mentoring program’s requirements.

Finally, state officials said Achievement First needs to provide a ​“transitional bilingual program” with certified instructors for students who grow up speaking another language besides English at home.

Currently, the network doesn’t have certified bilingual teachers to teach those classes. Instead, it provides after-school supports. Even then, students who stay won’t have a bus ride home.

Toll said that Achievement First plans to pay for scholarships for a cohort to enroll in an alternative certification program next year.

“Some of these problems are not ​‘snap-your-fingers’ problems,” Toll said, after taking questions from board members. ​“While I realize that there’s dissatisfaction with not being 100 percent, I do hope it’s also clear we have put tremendous time, effort, money and attention into improving this situation. We will really keep working at it.”

Commissioner Cardona said the network’s repeated non-compliance with state regulations made it seem like Achievement First thought of their oversight as ​“somewhat of a nuisance.”

He said he hopes the Achievement First network will take up the department staff’s offer to help them stay on the right side of the law.

“Commit to working with them, and you won’t have an issue,” Cardona said. ​“We want to support you so that you can get to the great work of helping kids. You have to commit to that partnership if you’re a public school, and you are.”

Investigation To Come

During the presentation to the state board, Toll referred to a story published that morning in the Independent, in which multiple Amistad High School students said their out-of-school suspensions were recorded as absences and officials are faking statistics on reduced disciplinary measures.

She assured the state board that Achievement First administrators trust that their data is accurate.

Before the votes, she passed out a packet with updated statistics about Achievement First’s progress toward meeting state regulations.

It said that, at month’s end, the suspension rates are 6.1 percent at AF Bridgeport Academy, 7.2 percent at Amistad Academy and 7.2 percent at Elm City College Preparatory — comfortably below the 13.0 percent maximum target in a state-mandated corrective action plan.

Toll promised an investigation into the high school’s suspension data.

“I will tell you we will be aggressively looking into it,” Toll said.

“I do appreciate the transparency and acknowledgement of the article,” Commissioner Cardona said, ​“and I look forward to the investigation.”

Toll said she’d been on the phone that morning with Amistad’s leaders, who she said are ​“certainly disputing” the Independent’s reporting. After the meeting, she criticized the story as ​“another attack article” and declined to specify what she believed was inaccurate.

“Let me find out what happened,” Toll said. ​“I don’t want any more hearsay. I don’t think that’s productive.”