CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Eastside Stream Academy, a public charter school in East Charlotte, is facing the possibility of shutting down after the North Carolina State Board of Education voted unanimously to deny its charter of operation.
The school is in the final stages of appealing this decision, but time is running out.
If their appeal is denied, the school will shut down, or another non-profit can take over the school with state oversight.
About 300 students attend Eastside Stream Academy, and Board Chair Walter Bowers Jr. said the state’s case to deny their charter leaves out important context.
Bowers said the students who attend this public charter have unique situations.
“We have students that have been rejected by CMS, meaning they've been suspended or expelled from various schools, and they just had some challenges in the traditional school setting,” Bowers said.
He said they also have some students who have come with them with severe academic struggles.
“Even though their scores are still not where they, we would like them to be, they're certainly better than where they were when we when they first enrolled in the school,” Bowers said.
Despite this, a 10-year mark state review of the charter schools shows a long pattern of failing performance grades.
At a public appeal session, the Director of North Carolina’s Office of Charter Schools Ashley Baquero said failing grades, coupled with turnover and fiscal mismanagement, led the state not to renew the school’s ability to operate and receive state funding.
“The school is continually low performing, and it has been a low performing school for all of the years of its operation, which is almost 10 years,” Baquero said.
North Carolina’s School performance data shows in the past 8 school years, excluding two years when data wasn’t collected the school received D and F grades. Its most recent performance grade was an F.
Prior to the pandemic, the school had seen movement in its growth data. In 2018 it exceeded growth but followed up in 2019 year with growth not met.
However, Bowers said individual student progress was not taken into consideration, and both a new board and new staff are now in place ready to improve student outcomes.
“When you look at our grades from a totality perspective, which is not unreasonable, but it does not tell the whole story,” Bowers said.
Bowers said individual student progress needs to be more heavily considered for charters that focus on helping the community’s more vulnerable students.
“Let's say for example, that student was a F, and a very low F when they arrived at our school, our position is that while that person may not be a C, yet they are perhaps a D.”
Bower said that’s not the end goal, but individual progress that should be considered.
The debate about how charter schools are renewed is a hot topic in Raleigh, with legislation going through the general assembly that would shake up how the state board of education renews, revokes, and approves charters.
“I would love our lawmakers to really take that into consideration and really reflect on whether or not the process currently being used is a fair one was, and I would argue that it's, it's not for numerous reasons,” Bowers said.
In contrast, groups like Public Schools First NC continue to call for stricter oversight of charter schools.
Saying on its website, “The Office of Charter Schools lacks adequate staff and a sufficiently rigorous process for evaluating applications and tracking charter success.”
Also, at issue with the charter is its past of being on a financial non-compliance list, although they have since been removed.
“A history of financial and compliance is reviewed because you cannot simply look at one-year financial status and determine if a school is in a proper place to continue serving students and to maintain the public's funding of a public school,” Baquero said.
The school contends that any questionable financial decisions were made prior to the current board’s tenure.
Bowers said the school's original founders and board members transitioned out of their roles and when the next batch of leaders came in things went awry.
He said it took those old board members, who are currently in charge, coming back to see positive change.
“When they came back, they were able to kind of turn some things around,” Bowers said. “But when you look at the totality of the 10 years, there were some challenges that put us in a situation where we're in today.”
The school also takes issue with the state’s characterization of churning school principals. The state presented the school saw 11 principal changes.
Bowers said there were 7 permanent leaders and 4 who worked in an interim capacity.
“We never said that there were 11,” Bowers said. “But when you add up the ones that held the position until we were able to hire, that was a major discrepancy, which also was an error.”
He compared the turnover to Charlotte-Mecklenburg School which has also seen a turnover of top leadership.
“When you look at the Charlotte Mecklenburg school system, and the number of superintendents that even CMS has had over that same period of time, you will see that we're not far off,” Bowers said.
Bowers didn’t think comparing CMS school performance to Eastside Stream was fair.
“It's very difficult to look at a charter school and compare it to the local school when the local school has significantly more resources,” Bowers said. “And the local school is not obviously going to be shut down as charter school has.
The state said when comparing grade level proficiency to Mecklenburg County Schools Eastside Stream was 20 points below the average for Mecklenburg in 2018, in 2019 it was 26 points below, and in 2022 was 25 points below.
Bowers said they acknowledge and accept they have work to do.
“All we're asking the state to do is to give us a fresh opportunity based on who we are today, and what we're doing now, to be able to provide some great outcomes for our students,” Bowers said.
The state thinks that time has passed.