Prairie Crossing Charter School in Grayslake has increased efforts to enroll more low-income and at-risk students and disputes allegations that it violates state law because of its student demographics, its director said in response to a lawsuit filed by Woodland Community Consolidated School District 50.
The Gurnee-based district filed the lawsuit against Prairie Crossing and two state agencies Tuesday. The complaint alleges that the charter school has “siphoned away” millions of dollars in state aid to pay for a small number of charter school students.
“I think the root of the issue is how schools are funded in general,” said Prairie Crossing Executive Director Geoff Deigan. But he said Woodland is trying to blame its budget issues on the existence of the charter school.
Woodland officials seek to reverse an April decision by the Illinois State Charter School Commission to reauthorize Prairie Crossing for five years. The school district sued the commission along with the Illinois State Board of Education, which authorized the charter school’s creation in 1999.
Woodland officials argue that state money intended for students from low-income families or with limited English skills is mostly going toward the education of 321 charter school students — the majority of whom are “high-achieving Caucasian and Asian middle-class students,” said Mark Vondracek, Woodland board president.
About 31 percent of Woodland’s 6,425 students are considered “at risk,” compared with fewer than 2 percent of the charter school students, he said. Yet all but about $450,000 of the $3.5 million in state aid that Woodland was eligible to receive in 2012-13 went to the charter school, officials said.
“We believe Prairie Crossing Charter School is not fulfilling its (state-)mandated special purpose to educate at-risk students,” Vondracek said in a statement.
An ISBE spokeswoman said the agency will review the suit but declined to comment.
The state commission issued a statement saying Prairie Crossing “met or exceeded” nearly all of the academic, financial, organizational and legal standards set for the school during an extensive renewal process.
Prairie Crossing, which serves kindergarten through eighth grade, is mandated by law to use a lottery system to select its students, Deigan said. The charter school draws only students who live in Woodland School District 50 and Fremont Elementary School District 79 in Mundelein.
“The Commission also evaluated the impact of the charter school on the Woodland and Fremont districts and found that both districts are financially strong, receiving the highest state rating possible,” the commission’s statement read.
The charter school, which has an environmental focus that fits within the larger community, relies solely on the state aid diverted from Woodland and Fremont districts, Deigan said.
“We don’t get any property tax,” said Deigan, who called the lawsuit’s complaints “unfounded.”
“As it stands right now, charter schools have one vehicle to receive funding from the state. … It’s a really complicated formula,” he said.
Woodland school officials have protested the charter school’s source of funding since the school opened. The $3 million in general state aid represents about 5 percent of the Woodland district’s education fund revenues, a district spokeswoman said.
The funding for Prairie Crossing is based on a per-capita formula of what it costs to educate a student at Woodland, which is about $9,600, officials said.
Woodland officials argue that it costs more to provide programs for low-income and at-risk students.
The district unsuccessfully petitioned the state to revoke Prairie Crossing’s charter in 2011, citing the “demographic disparity,” according to the lawsuit. Around the same time, the ISBE transferred its authorizing powers to the state charter school commission, the filing states.
Despite the district’s objections, the commission voted 5-4 on April 15 to reauthorize Prairie Crossing’s agreement for five more years at the same funding rate.
But the commission said Prairie Crossing must meet two conditions, including the “development of a robust outreach plan to attract more educationally disadvantaged students over the next five years.”
The commission wrote in its decision that, when reviewing the charter school, it “did not uncover any violation of the charter contract, Charter Law or any other unlawful conduct.”
The Illinois legislature created the commission in 2011 to consider and authorize charter school proposals that have been denied or challenged by a local school board. Prairie Crossing is one of four charter schools statewide that fall under the commission’s purview.
Prairie Crossing’s enrollment is capped at 432, and the majority of its students come from the Woodland district.
About 70 students come from the Fremont district, which is not involved in the lawsuit, said Fremont Superintendent Jill Gildea.
She would like to see the state change its method of funding charter schools, she said.
Prairie Crossing is innovative, “but we have to look at the equity across all public school students and how that money is divvied up,” Gildea said.
