HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — During discussions on the fiscal year 2024 budget bill, the legislative chair on education asked to increase the amount the spending plan earmarks for charter schools and, after a lengthy discussion, his colleagues agreed.
Sen. Chris Barnett, who chairs the Legislature’s committee overseeing charter schools, asked that lawmakers amend the legislation to bump up the allocation by $4,425,000 in light of increased enrollment for the ongoing academic year.
The request takes into account any additional students enrolled at charter schools, and another charter school anticipated to be approved by the government.
“The simple math on this is 188 additional enrollees for (existing) charter schools and 400 enrollees for a new charter school at $7,500 per enrollee,” Barnett said.
The increased enrollment is not a surprise for the senators, as the Guam Charter School Council testified during their budget hearing that they were seeing an increased enrollment in light of the health and safety issues at Guam Department of Education schools.
“We can argue back and forth about whether or not that had anything to do with GDOE’s current circumstances,” the senator said. “I believe it did. However, the budget bill did not reflect the then-anticipated increases.”
According to Barnett, three of the four charter schools saw increased enrollment.
“For the (Science is Fun and Awesome) Charter School, which started classes on Aug. 4, their cap was 350 and they have enrolled 422 students. (For) CareerTech, which started classes on Aug. 9, their cap was 70 students. They’ve enrolled 137 students. iLearn Academy started classes on Aug. 9 (and) their cap was 740. They have exceeded that by enrolling 778 students,” Barnett said.
Barnett’s amendment proposed new enrollment caps slightly above the numbers reported to him to allow for pending applications to be processed. The new, higher caps for his amendment were:
• SIFA: 430 students
• CareerTech: 140 students
• iLearn: 780 students
Aside from the possible new charter school, the increased enrollment of 190 students at the existing charter schools is attributed to GDOE’s delayed school year and the conditions of the schools, said Barnett.
“I think that this was a natural thing as we saw more GDOE headlines and uncertainty. I think people migrated over to the charter system, and they ended up exceeding their enrollment,” he said.
Caps not followed
While enrollment at charter schools is legally capped and set by the Legislature, Barnett argued that charter schools will face financial challenges should lawmakers not approve their higher student populations.
“I think they did make their need known in the budget hearing and, again, communicated that need. And the danger of not approving the funding, … we already have students enrolled with the charter (school) and it would create a situation where either the charters would absorb this with their existing budget – which I don’t think is very feasible for a lot of them – or these students would have to be cut loose,” Barnett said.
The education chair said he met with charter school officials and advised them to cease enrolling students a few days prior to Monday’s spending talks.
Arguing in support of an increased budget for charter schools, Barnett noted the health and safety concerns at GDOE campuses.
“A lot of people agree (they) are not safe or ready. I think the increased enrollment at charters (is) a byproduct of that, and I think this body would be well inclined to support (this amendment),” Barnett said.
The additional funding would come from excess audited General Fund revenues from fiscal 2022.
No penalty for noncompliance
Not all lawmakers were on board with the amendment.
Speaker Therese Terlaje aired concerns with the charter schools enrolling more students than they are legally allowed by legislative mandate.
“Is that legal?” the speaker asked. “Are there any penalties for violating the enrollment caps? Because the school years have already begun for most of these schools.”
According to Sen. Joe San Agustin, there is no statutory penalty for not abiding by the enrollment limits.
“But the charter school would have to absorb the cost,” he clarified.
Barnett affirmed that charter schools would have to absorb the costs in the event the Legislature denied the requested increase.
“So that means that they were already OK with absorbing these additional costs,” Terlaje remarked. “That’s how it looks to me. They willingly exceeded the caps.”
The speaker touched on the challenges GDOE faced leading up to the beginning of its academic year, including efforts to give the public school system more funds to get campuses up to minimum health and safety standards.
“This is the year that we are trying to make sure that GDOE gets every resource. This is the year that they were trying to mandate that GDOE comply with every requirement that’s out there for them, particularly sanitary permits, sanitary rules and regulations,” she said. “And last time I checked, none of these charter schools are mandated today to comply with sanitary rules and regs, or even get sanitary permits – unless it’s the (attorney general’s) rule that they are – but the laws seem to exempt them.”
Other concerns
Terlaje said she was concerned about the message the amendment would send.
“That we want to come down really hard on GDOE, that we want them to comply with the sanitary rules and permits – and now we want to give a lot more money to those that are not complying with laws, caps or sanitary rules and regulations,” Terlaje said, later adding, “I don’t even think these schools comply with the mandates that we put on the public schools with the curriculum. They should be treated like public schools (and) public entities.”
She also raised concern that the charter schools were poised to get an additional $4.2 million when lawmakers were told GDOE’s budget this year was short $30 million.
With this in mind, Sen. Will Parkinson added language that charter schools eligible for the funding would be required to obtain sanitary permits by June 30, 2024.
Sen. Telo Taitague, however, noted that a phone conversation she had with the charter school council while on recess confirmed that all charter schools have their sanitary permits, which don’t expire until June 2024.
“So regardless, they will have to come back and get a renewal for next year,” Taitague said.
With no objections, the amendment passed. Senators also passed the main amendment to increase the charter schools caps and budget for school year 2023-2024.
Sen. Chris Barnett, who chairs the Guam Legislature’s oversight committee on charter schools, speaks during session Monday, Aug. 28, 2023, in the Guam Congress Building in Hagåtña.
