Juana Rivera-Vidal, director of the ACORN Charter School in the Little Village neighborhood, arrived to work one morning recently with a single goal in mind: to fulfill her role as principal and write out the budget for the upcoming school year.
But after only 10 minutes at work in her cramped “office”–which also functions as the school copy room, admissions center and teachers lounge–Rivera-Vidal was sidetracked. First, there were the calls to make in search of a new building. Then, she had lunchroom duty.
“I’m trying to develop a plan while putting out fires and handling the day-to-day situations,” she said.
Rivera-Vidal was hired by ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, to run the new dual-language school. It’s temporarily on the third floor of the former Our Lady of Tepeyac School, 2414 S. Albany Ave.
Now that their doors are open and the school year is well on its way, many directors of the Chicago Public Schools’ six new charter schools say the day-to-day reality of running a charter is quite different from the long-held dream of one day starting a new school.
Some students have already transferred out of the charter schools that started in the fall, and some officials have hinted that the district may close two or three of the charter schools if they do not make budget and management improvements in the next one or two school years.
At the same time, the track record of charter schools nationwide is good. Few have closed, and of those that did, in most cases it was at the behest of the founders–not state officials charged with monitoring the schools’ performance.
Many charter school officials, including Rivera-Vidal, said they are reaping great rewards in seeing their educational philosophies come to life. But most also acknowledge that managing a charter school can be grueling, and that staying afloat on a limited budget requires long hours of work and fierce dedication from every staff member.
Student frustration with experimental, small schools also can worry directors. In just four months, the new schools have seen several dozen students transfer back to regular public schools, although they have been offset by other students who have transferred into the charter schools.
For instance, Hareder Jackson, 13, a student at Perspectives Charter School, 1532 S. Michigan Ave., said most of her schoolmates seem to like the small classrooms that the school provides. But some want to transfer to a traditional high school because of the extracurricular activities and social life it offers, Jackson said.
“Some of them say, `I want to go to this high school because I’ve been looking forward to going to this high school since the 5th grade,’ ” said Jackson, whose school goes up to 10th grade.
In the last few years, charter schools–independently run public schools that are free from most local and state regulations–have become one of the hot new alternatives to traditional public education. Fans range from President Clinton, who last fall promised them millions of dollars in federal funding, to civil rights matriarch Rosa Parks, who is working to launch a school in Detroit.
Since charter schools first appeared in Minnesota in 1991, their numbers have climbed to an estimated 800 across the country.
In April 1996, Illinois legislators passed a law allowing for charter schools in this state. The charters run for five years and can be renewed.
Eight charter schools operate in Illinois, but only six–all in Chicago–are new: the Academy of Communications & Technology, 4319 W. Washington Blvd.; the ACORN school; Chicago Preparatory Charter High School, 4731 S. Ellis Ave.; the Perspectives school; SABIS Charter Schools, 2235 N. Hamilton Ave. and 9530 S. Throop St; and Triumphant Charter School, 4953 S. Seeley Ave. The other two are an alternative education school in Peoria and a charter school for the Chicago district’s 26 programs for dropout students.
Last month, Chicago school board officials approved charters for six additional charter schools, with five expected to open in the fall.
Schools CEO Paul Vallas said he will watch the schools closely to see if they show more stability. And, of course, the future of those schools, along with the others, will be closely tied to standardized test performance, part of the state’s charter agreement.
Joe Nathan, author of “Charter Schools: Creating Hope and Opportunity for American Education,” said, “Many of these schools have had to spend an enormous amount of time on the politics of getting approval. Much of the time that should have been spent on curriculum development and preparation . . . has been devoted to politics.”
The idea for the Peoria Alternative Charter School was conceived before the charter school option became available in Illinois.
The 45-student school primarily serves recent dropouts. Spokesman John Day said the Peoria Public Schools applied for a charter for the new school because officials wanted more state support and funding.
“We had intentions to create this type of school and then the charter legislation came along, and we saw it as a perfect match,” Day said.
The ACORN school in Chicago emphasizes daily counseling of students–almost all of whom come from low-income homes in the Little Village and North Lawndale areas–and a familial atmosphere in which teachers and students are on first-name basis. All five teachers are bilingual.
But Rivera-Vidal, the teachers and her office coordinator have not been able to develop those ideals as much as they would like because of the crush of administrative duties. These include an especially consuming search for another building in the densely populated Little Village neighborhood.
The school, with 88 freshmen, is slated to become a four-year high school, and directors hope to add 100 freshmen in the next school year. But that will not be possible if Rivera-Vidal does not find a larger building.
“If we don’t find a new building, I don’t know what we’re going to do,” said Rivera-Vidal, an experienced principal and former bilingual educator director for the Waukegan Public Schools.
Not all charter schools are under quite as much pressure, though.
At the SABIS school’s north campus, teachers enjoy the relative comforts of a well-lit, carpeted school building that previously housed the Chicago International School, a private school that emphasized French culture and language.
The 51-member faculty and staff has been able to focus on basic education and discipline–the school’s two cornerstones–because it is managed by the Chicago Charter School Foundation, which holds the school’s charter. The two SABIS elementary and middle schools have a total of 1,414 pupils, by far the largest charter school in the district.
Still, Jerry Mash, director of the north campus–with 514 pupils–said the school has not been able to move at a steady pace because the faculty has had to devote extra time to remedial instruction. “It’s been an immense project,” Mash said.
Even so, charter school educators say they have made gains in their first semester. Rivera-Vidal said her school already has cut costs and improved school management by doing such things as recruiting more parent volunteers.
“We’ve learned how to use our hammers and screwdrivers,” she said. “It’s been challenging, but it’s also been rewarding.”
