So - here's one for you:
With three new charter schools coming into Delaware's edusphere, let's talk charter school consolidation. The three schools approved yesterday will collectively serve 700 students. Each new school requires back office support such as Finance and HR folks.
3 New Charters + 24 Operating or Expected to Open 2014 = 27 Finance Directors and 27 HR Specialists.
That's 54 back office staffers!
The traditional districts operate far more schools with far fewer finance and hr staff members. Yet, they get the heat for being the most top-heavy!
Is it time to consolidate Charters into a real "Charter District" with bulk back office support to meet finance and hr needs? Surely that would result in fewer than 54 employees!
It just may be!
Jonathan V. Last: Biden Won the War on Crime!
17 hours ago
4 comments:
Guessing quickly. 3 schools = 700 students, then 24 school = 5600 students and together, it is 6300 students. For simplicity, lowball that as $10,000 a student and $63,000,000 is no longer available for Delaware's public schools....
just like that! If 90% are in Wilmington, four districts will bear the brunt of missing $56,700,000 each and every year. Further complicating matters, is that they won't know the damage until, September at the earliest?
Will be a catastrophic year!.
Did I misread you in stating that 24 charters would be opening in 2014? Were you instead alluding to the cumulation of today's charters, plus this years three, plus the 4 or 5 turned down, who should be up and running next year?
Kavips,
You misread me.
It's three new charters just approved added to the 24 charters that are either operating right now or who were given the go ahead to open in 2013-14 but later modified their charters to delay opening until 14-15. I believe there were 3 that requested the modification.
3 new plus 3 on delayed opening plus the 21 already in operation today - total 27.
It appears that unless the current crop of approved-but-not-yet-operating charters request additional waivers then a total of 6 new charters will open in 2014-15. So - the total in 14-15 will be 27 which equates to 54 back office staff doing duplicate jobs.
Can you imagine the fit the public would pitch if a district hired an HR specialist and finance guru for each traditional school? Yet, without some type of back office consolidation, this is exactly what is happening in charter land. The cost must be staggering! Meanwhile, CSD has one hr department and one finance department responsible for nearly the same number of schools and two statewide programs and we employ far fewer than 54 employees in these departments combined.
Long before anyone ever concedes to district consolidation, we must demand charter consolidation. The answer is a "charter district" required to provide the overarching support associated with finance and hr. Or we'll continue to flush $$$ down the toilet.
Thanks for the clarification.
Your depiction arguably shows why due to economies of scale, Public Education trumps charters when all other factors are equal..
What an excellent example!
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