Charter students deserve funding share

If members of the Palm Beach County School Board had shared my experience with district schools, they would not have voted to exclude charter schools from benefiting from a proposed education tax.

It was a heartless decision, and one that dismissed the needs of thousands of students in the county’s 48 charter schools.

My 7-year-old daughter, Josifina, is a prime example of why the charter option is critical.

She struggled through kindergarten and especially first grade in a district school. We knew she had learning problems, but our efforts to have her tested and diagnosed at school were met with resistance and even antagonism from teachers, counselors and administrators. When she finally was diagnosed with dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in first grade, the school made scant effort to help her overcome these obstacles.

A work plan was devised that should have given her more time on tests and let her answer questions verbally, but teachers still did not help her learn at her own pace and scarcely assigned homework. They simply let her fall further and further behind.

In fact, they moved her into another class with other “troubled” students taught by a rookie teacher. Needless to say, that did not help.

Josifina became depressed and dreaded going to school. School mornings were heartbreaking for me, as I would find her hiding in her closet or crying in her bed. She said, “I know I am different. The other students are doing things they don’t ask me to do.” Because she was learning virtually nothing, I finally pulled Josifina out of the district school a few months before the end of the school year.

Our painful journey came to an end when we enrolled her in a charter school.

The counselors there developed a comprehensive learning plan for her that, with periodic adjustments, can be used until she reaches college. Everyone at the school is helping her succeed. Josifina entered second grade at the charter school at a kindergarten reading level. In scarcely a month, her new teachers had her reading at the appropriate level, and she finished the year reading as well as a thirdgrader. She has made similar advancements in math, though she started more than a grade behind.

Now Josifina is happy to attend class. So it amazes me the school board could so cavalierly ignore students like my Josifina, and

I heard a speaker at a school board meeting say charters would just pocket the tax referendum money and it would never go to the kids.

think it’s okay to give less funding to her and her teachers.

Charter schools are public schools. They sign a performance contract with school boards and are held rigorously accountable for academic and financial results. They can lose their charter if they don’t succeed. Parents can pull their children out if the school doesn’t meet their expectations.

I was amazed when I heard a speaker at Wednesday’s school board meeting say charter schools would just pocket the tax referendum money and it would never go to the kids. In my experience, it was the district school that seemed indifferent to helping a student overcome her learning challenges.

District schools already get more money than charter schools. With the referendum, they could get even more. For students like Josifina, this is not fair.

LANAANN MARSH,

LAKE WORTH Editor’s note: LanaAnn Marsh is a paralegal and mother of three.