Imagine School’s closure is sad, but not unwarranted

Back in early February, the Imperial Valley Press editorial board commented on the El Centro Elementary School District’s decision not to renew the charter for Imagine Schools Imperial Valley.

At the time, we said the following: “We have no doubt Imagine School in El Centro employs plenty of caring, dedicated, well-meaning people, and we sympathize with the stress and uncertainty they, as well as students and families, are experiencing at this time.

“Nevertheless, based on the evidence before us, it looks like the ECESD made the right call.”

Full disclosure: I penned that editorial, and nothing that has happened since that time has changed my mind.

The performance measures the ECESD Board of Trustees were confronted with when deliberating Imagine’s charter renewal were underwhelming, to say the least. For 201617, only 25 percent of Imagine School students met or exceeded California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress standards for English language arts, and only 12 percent cleared that bar for mathematics.

Education, like many pursuits, is a numbers game. Success or failure, for better or worse, is measured in data. Granted, data does lack nuance, but it is a language most people understand. And the numbers in Imagine’s case, at least the numbers their evaluators cared about, did not add up. And when that happens, there’s usually a reckoning that follows.

Having said all this, I am not glad Imagine School had to close its doors. There are a lot of good people who have been impacted by this decision: teachers, staff, parents and mostly the students. It’s not easy changing schools. It’s scary; it’s disorienting, and it often involves losing some of the purest friendships we’ll ever have in our lives.

I’m certainly not going to cheer for that, and I’d question the heart of anyone who would. What’s more, I happen to like charter schools. I think they are good for public education. I feel the same way about private schools and even home schools.

For one thing, different kids thrive in different environments, so obviously a one-size-fit-all approach to educating them isn’t going to get it done.

But more than that, choice cultivates competition and accountability, which is exactly how Imagine got into its boat in the first place. It simply didn’t measure up to comparison.

That simple fact is not an indictment against charter schools. In fact, it’s not even a sweeping judgment against this one. Plenty of families have defended Imagine School to us and others, including a reader whose commentary we’re publishing here today. I’m not going to dismiss those experiences. But positive experiences are not a substitute for positive results, and the results folks look at when trying to sort the wheat from the chaff, academically speaking, is test scores.

After eight years, Imagine failed to deliver satisfactory results relative to the alternatives, and taxpayer dollars were subsidizing those substandard results while also helping fund $350,000 or more per month on contracted administrative services facilitated through the school’s parent company.

Lest we forget, dubious financial dealings also played a role in why the ECESD Board of Trustees nixed Imagine’s charter. These include $1.4 million in rent last year that appears to have been paid to an affiliated real estate and property management company, Schoolhouse Finance LLC, which in turn leased the property from what appears to be another related company, Imagine 26 Partners LLC.

There’s no sense is trying to make a case that the bullies from the local school board were picking on the new kid in town. The Imperial County Office of Education didn’t see it that way, and by Imagine School’s own admission, the state Board of Education wasn’t going to see it that way, either.

Like it or not, the school is closed for a reason.