On a Facebook page called The Unofficial PCA, about Providence Creek Academy, the host put up a post on Monday about a large exodus of teachers from the Kent County charter school. The post disappeared, but a more watered down version of the question showed up Wednesday night on the page. As well, students in Kindergarten to 2nd grade took a standardized test that actually caused some parents to pull their children out of the school. Questions are beginning to mount concerning the “interim” Head of School, Chuck Taylor, who has filled this interim position for a year and nine months.
In terms of the teacher exodus, it was confirmed at PCA’s board meeting on Tuesday that twelve teachers left this year. The average is three to five. But the school insisted this is “in the norm” according to the new Facebook post on The Unofficial PCA.
Are Teachers Leaving PCA?
Notes from 7/26 board meeting.
I hadn’t planned to attend last night’s board meeting. But the day before, I ran into another parent at the store asking if I had heard about the rumors. People had been saying that a large portion of the teachers were leaving PCA out of frustration with Head of School Chuck Taylor and Principal Audrey Erschen. My friend didn’t have much details so I canceled my plans and went to the meeting. I was expecting a huge turnout from parents but there was only one other parent attending (other than the parent board member) and she hadn’t heard the rumors.
I relayed as much of the rumors as I could, without revealing names. This year, there are about 60 on staff and about a dozen teachers left PCA; some to other positions, some for family, and a couple that were dissatisfied. In an average year, 3-5 teachers leave PCA but this year is not too far out of the norm and certainly not as severe as the year in which 21 teachers left. All but two of the teaching positions have been filled. Ms Erschen assured us that they are in no rush to fill the position and are being very selective. She is confident that the two positions will be filled well before school starts.
As far as any issues teachers may have had with Mr Taylor or Ms Erschen, they never were clearly defined. Mr Taylor has been the interim Head of School longer than intended as that the last candidate selected was not able to take the position. Another candidate is being considered and Mr Taylor is planning to go back to retirement in January. On the couple of occasions that I have heard someone complaining about Mr Taylor, it usually stemmed from a misunderstanding. I do not envy Ms Erschen for the balancing act she does every day. She deals with a whole lot of problems and somebody being dissatisfied is inevitable but she always maintains professional composure. Every morning, no matter the weather, they are out in front of the school to greet students and talk with parents. I’ve always found them to be very approachable and the kids (including my daughter) think well of them.
Greater transparency and addressing issues before they become rumors would help to put parents at ease. Board meetings include an “Opportunity to Address the Board” and it is a great opportunity for parents to ask questions and raise concerns. PCA is considering putting the ‘Head of School’ and ‘Principal’ reports in the webpage ‘news’ in addition to already being in the ‘Board Minutes’. They are also considering providing staff bios so that parents know more about the staff.
I intend to follow up with any more details that I come across and certainly welcome any input. Rather than passing along rumors, it’d be helpful to discuss these things in an open format (you can message me if you’d like to remain anonymous). I requested a list of the teachers that left (elsewise, we could always figure it out through the process of elimination). Arguing the validity of an individual complaint may not be as useful as keeping an open eye for trends. PCA isn’t perfect (no school is) and we should all strive to make things better and that depends on parents being involved.
Other items:
-Director of Curriculum Danielle Moore wants to go back to the classroom and work with kids. She has been replaced by John Epstein who had been working for the Delaware Board of Education.
-‘Special’ classes will no longer be on a six day rotation because the classes were too far apart. So this year, students will have two special classes each trimester with the same amount of time give to each class.
I would not say 12 teachers leaving out of a staff of 60 is “in the norm“. That is 20% of their staff. Charter schools do tend to have higher turnover than traditional public schools. But that is an alarming number, in my opinion. While it isn’t the exodus of 21 teachers that happened at one time, it should be a matter of concern for other teachers and parents. My biggest questions would be how seasoned the departing teachers are. Will their replacements be more experienced or less? That could have a big impact!
In their latest posted board minutes, for their June 21st board meeting, I found several items that were somewhat odd which have my comments under each one.
Mrs. Erschen reviewed the placement of appropriate employees to be included in the Consolidated Grant FY 2016-2017.
What does “appropriate employees mean?
PCA will be the only charter school involved in a new DPAS study.
Which DPAS study is this? The only public DPAS study I have seen is the pilot program which will come out of House Bill 399, which changes Component V for teacher evaluations. Senator David Sokola was really promoting his “pilot program” amendment. Sokola and Chuck Taylor worked together on the charter school audit bill. But what makes this very interesting is House Bill 399 didn’t pass until July 1st. Eleven days after this board meeting on June 21st. So how could PCA have been picked for this program if this is the DPAS program they are talking about? And Markell hasn’t even signed the bill yet. Unless there is some other DPAS program that hasn’t been revealed.
There were some issues with the implementation of the new grading policy for grades K-2. This new policy created some confusion with parents. With help from Mrs. Erschen and Mr. Taylor the concerns were addressed and professional development will be provided to the teachers at the beginning of the school year to ensure that there is consistency among teachers.
What is this new grading policy? How did it create confusion for parents? If professional development is needed so teachers can understand a grading system in the next school year, there is something not right about this. More on this later.
Approval of Employee Bonuses: Lisa Moore made the motion, Chris Craig seconded. All in favor? Motion passed.
PCA consistently gives out “academic excellence” payouts every single month. But are all teachers getting them? The average monthly employee bonus is $466.
And from their May 24th Board minutes:
Head of School Search Committee: One candidate was interviewed. Board of Directors are still narrowing candidate pool for more candidate interviews.
Can someone please tell me why the Interim Head of School, who has been in this “interim” status for 21 months, is on the search committee for this new head of school? How many candidates have interviewed? It looks to me like Chuck Taylor is using his position on this committee to secure continued employment for himself. Because this is how I see it. He left PCA under very vague circumstances in the Spring of 2013. He wound up at Campus Community School where he became their interim Head of School after Trish Hermance resigned in the Summer of 2013. In September of 2013, their board voted unanimously to keep him on as the permanent Head of School. By December, they hired a new Head of School. Chuck joined their board and six months later, he resigned from their board. In October of 2014, Chuck came back to PCA during the Audrey Erschen odd relative/employee shenanigans going on at the school. As the interim Head of School. A few months later, the Tatnall leader who was supposed to become the new Head of School was poisoned in the Caribbean. That was over a year and a half ago. What qualifications does a leader need to become their Head of School? This looks like a lot of stall tactics by Chuck Taylor. I don’t buy him wanting to retire.
For a guy who wants to fade into obscurity, he sure does place himself in very important charter school positions. As well as his “interim” duties at PCA, he also has a slot on the Charter School Accountability Committee (CSAC) at the Delaware DOE and is the President of the board for the Delaware Charter Schools Network. He was present at the Senate Education Committee for legislation surrounding charter school audits. While this may not seem to be a big deal, it is important to know that PCA used the same auditor for their annual audit as Family Foundations Academy for many years. Both PCA and FFA had major investigations from the State Auditor of Accounts that led to findings of severe financial abuse and theft. During FFA’s charter renewal, Taylor served on CSAC. When questions arose among the committee about FFA having a bizarre number of fraternity brothers on their board, Taylor actually defended the FFA board even though it was painfully obvious there was a major conflict of interest at play. During this time, FFA’s leader, Sean Moore, was the Treasurer for the Delaware Charter Schools Network. Moore embezzled over $100,000 from FFA according to the inspection report that came out last December. The State Board of Education placed FFA on probation when it became public about the financial fraud. Moore was terminated by the re-structured board which eventually removed the fraternity brothers.
All K-2 end of year assessments were created and given to the teachers who are working on administering them to the students. After all tests are complete teachers will submit them to so that data can be gathered on the assessments and determine if any changes need to be made for next school year.
PCA created assessments for Kindergarten, 1st Grade, and 2nd year students? Yes, they did. Who created these assessments? And if a child failed these tests, the parents were told the student had to go to summer school for a fee of $350.00. It didn’t seem to matter what their classroom grades were. Six different parents of first graders received a letter the second week of June indicating their child had failed the reading assessment part of this assessment. PCA highly recommended sending these kids to summer school. This is actually a step up for the school, because the original intention was to keep the kids in the same grade if they did poorly on this self-created assessment. At least two parents pulled their children out as a result. Was this the intention? Let’s see: students do bad on an assessment, school tells parents they want the kids to go to summer school for a rather steep fee (told to parents days before this summer school was supposed to start), and parents pull kids out. I see it as a way to get rid of low-scoring assessment takers without regard to their actual capabilities.
For the Smarter Balanced Assessment results, PCA did rather well on their scores compared to the state average. They went from 66% proficiency in English/Language Arts to 74%. In Math, they went from 43% to 55%. Those are huge gains which will cause the Delaware DOE to award the charter school the token “reward school” status next fall. I have to wonder how much of these gains and “growth” are engineered by the school in advance. For the surrounding districts where PCA draws its student base from, the Smyrna School District went from 59% to 66% proficiency in ELA and 45 to 46% in Math. Capital went from 48% to 50% in ELA and 32% to 36% in Math. Campus Community School went from 62% to 60% in ELA and 37% to 40% in Math.
A few years ago, one parent pulled her child out of PCA. Her child, according to the mom, was brilliant. This student had some minor attention deficits, but was able to get straight As at the school. PCA insisted on placing the child into a lower-tiered classroom as a 4th grader. At that time, there were three levels in classrooms: lower, middle, and high. I would have to assume this was due to Response to Intervention (RtI) strategies for lower grade students when they attended those grades. But placement in RtI groups usually isn’t based on actual classroom grades. It is based on how they do on standardized tests. For this child, being placed in a lower-tier was not a good thing. The child did not feel challenged. Many children who are very smart put in this position will tend to act out. As a result, the school started putting the “bad behavior” label on the student. Teachers agreed with the mom that the student should not have been at that level. By the time the school finally put him into the higher level, it was so late in the school year (and after the 2nd wave of DCAS testing) the mother had already decided her child would not attend the school the next year. The mother stated that the new school had none of these issues and her child has thrived ever since.
Last weekend, I posted an article about Newark Charter School and what I see as “social engineering” to drive up their test scores. Many of the most fervent charter school supporters are parents of children who do well on these types of tests. In my opinion, far too many Delaware charters drive their enrollment based on this flawed idea. When you compare PCA’s demographics to surrounding districts and their closest competition with an area charter school, we see startling changes.
PROVIDENCE CREEK ACADEMY
SMYRNA SCHOOL DISTRICT
CAPITAL SCHOOL DISTRICT
CAMPUS COMMUNITY SCHOOL
The students who score the lowest on the state assessment are special education students. This has always been the case. By driving out students with special needs, the overall scores on the Smarter Balanced Assessment will automatically go up. If you have a low population of these students to begin with, which is the case with PCA, it is a guarantee. Many Delaware charter schools that begin with Kindergarten have screenings with potential applicants. These screenings, which are meant to show a school where a student is at, can also serve as a way for schools to look for characteristics which could ultimately lead to perceived lower state assessment scores. I have no doubt this practice takes place at some Delaware charter schools, and I believe PCA does this. To further muddy the waters of this social engineering practice, PCA came up with some type of assessment for students in K-2 (who do not take the state assessment) to see how they may do on Smarter Balanced, and came up with a way to tick parents off enough they would pull their child out of the school. Whether by design or unintentional, this is a discriminatory recipe for disaster. Any school is only as good as the populations it serves. We know this. We know the Smarter Balanced Assessment changes constantly and the cut scores change from year to year. The test is not designed to have a great majority of students showing proficiency.
In a charter school that bases everything on state assessment scores, it can become a pressure cooker for students, parents, and teachers. This drive to perform on a once-a-year test is everything that is wrong about Delaware education. And it is becoming clear that this is the environment at PCA. I have no doubt they have many very positive attributes. I am sure they do a lot of good things for their students and have a very welcoming community. But that is the surface. Underneath is a testing regimen that overshadows everything else. If you are a smart kid, you will do great. If you struggle, in any way, there will be issues. When you look at the school’s Facebook reviews on their page, you see many 5 star designations. Many of these reviews are from teachers and even the Principal, Audrey Erschen. Even board members review this school. When any rating system is purposely stacked toward a certain goal, the perception is deceptive.
While the school appears to be doing better financially, nothing happened with the terminated employee who embezzled large amounts from the school. The Delaware Attorney General’s office has yet to file charges against this perpetrator. But that might change. Earlier in the Spring, state agents were in the school issuing subpoenas for financial records. Will they find anything more than what already came out from the State Auditor of Account’s inspection released earlier this year? Time will tell. Providence Creek Academy is the 7th largest charter school in Delaware out of 27 charter schools. But for their expenditures divided by the number of students, they come in at 26th place. We know they don’t pay their teachers huge amounts as well compared to surrounding districts. So where is all their money going?
These are my biggest concerns with this school, and for perspective parents looking at this Delaware charter school, they should be seen as potential red flags. For those who want to claim I hate charter schools, I don’t. I think some of our charters do a great job. I recognize no school is perfect. But far too many use tactics like this which lead to a type of discrimination, particularly against students with disabilities. That is intolerable. But because our state DOE and Governor base everything on test scores on high-stakes tests driven by corporate education reformers, they look the other way.
To view past articles on Providence Creek Academy on this blog, please go here. To view their board minutes, please go here. The picture of the Providence Creek Academy campus came from a website belonging to Nickle Electrical Properties who renovated the school six years ago.
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