Honorable Board Members:
When reviewing the board materials for Tuesday’s meeting, I noticed the low percentage of students with special education needs at El Camino Real Charter High and decided to dig a little further. Not only does El Camino serve 35.9% fewer students with special education needs than the district does, but it’s students are also less likely to be on the autism spectrum or have intellectual disabilities:
When reviewing the board materials for Tuesday’s meeting, I noticed the low percentage of students with special education needs at El Camino Real Charter High and decided to dig a little further. Not only does El Camino serve 35.9% fewer students with special education needs than the district does, but it’s students are also less likely to be on the autism spectrum or have intellectual disabilities:
As you know, providing meaningful services to children with these disabilities is more costly. Therefore, the district sees a severe negative fiscal impact when charter schools exclude these students from their program.
By comparing the SARC reports from neighboring high schools, it also becomes apparent that they are severely impacted by El Camino’s exclusion of children with special education needs:
The Charter School Division says that it has “no concerns” about this information because “there is no evidence...that [the] Charter School is not serving all pupils who wish to attend based on data on pupil enrollment patterns.” Under these criteria, charter schools have no obligation to put programs in place that would attract students with special education needs. Instead, the requirement should be that these children “wish to attend” any charter school just as much as their general education counterparts.
Under the terms of its charter, El Camino has an obligation to “ensure the recruitment, enrollment, service, and retention of students with disabilities”. As a conversion charter that is supposed to remain a neighborhood charter, this should mean that the percentage of students with special education needs is essentially similar to other schools in its area. The fact that it is not doing so proves that this charter is not serving the needs of all children in its attendance area.
According to the State of Denial report, the LAUSD incurred $74.65 million in costs because of the charter school industry’s exclusion of children with special education needs. As part of the renewal process, the board needs to either require El Camino to fix this problem or reimburse the district for the extra costs that it is incurring. Otherwise, the renewal should be rejected.
Sincerely,
Carl Petersen
More detailed information about this subject can be found in my article Caught Red Handed: A Charter School Cherry Picks Their Students.