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How Did USF School Fail?

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By ADAM EMERSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 3, 2008

TAMPA - In the beginning, there was promise.

More than a decade ago, leaders at the University of South Florida envisioned a charter school that would reach out to the poor neighborhoods that bordered their campus.

Teachers would have the collective brain power of the College of Education at their disposal, and the school would serve as a lab for researchers eager to share their discoveries with public educators nationwide.

But what could have been a crown jewel is now a lost opportunity, the school's founders say.

With school starting in two weeks, university leaders are preparing to turn control of the struggling USF/Patel Charter School over to the Hillsborough County School District.

The school's own board admits that it doesn't have the financial means to turn around the "failing" designation it recently received from the state, and that its students - mostly poor, nearly all at-risk - are better served by the public school system.

But the faculty who launched the school in 1998 say that admission is a disgrace.

"This should be such an embarrassment," said Lynn Lavely, who got the school up and running at the urging of then-USF President Betty Castor. "A college of education is supposed to go out and help schools."

Help came in the school's earliest years. Faculty members spent time with teachers and interns mentored children and devised small-group projects. The College of Nursing lent help when students needed eye checkups, and public health experts developed nutrition plans.

But even then, the commitment was erratic, Lavely and others say, and the interest of the education college and others waned over the charter school's 10-year existence.

"You would think that it had the potential to become a jewel," said Yvonne McKitrick, the charter school's first principal and a former member of the Hillsborough County School Board. "Somewhere along the line, the passion was lost for it."

Poor Grades

Charter schools are public schools that are managed by outside entities, and they must take state-required standardized testing. On its first report card in 2005, the USF/Patel Charter School was given a D based on the children's FCAT scores.

Despite improving to a C for the next two years, USF learned last month that only 39 percent of the school's fifth-graders read at grade level. The school received an F.

To turn their performance around, these high-need students should have before- and after-school support along with counseling services and contact with social workers, USF Provost Ralph Wilcox said.

The Hillsborough County School District has a vast network of administrators to provide that support, Wilcox said. The university does not.

By law, USF cannot use money allocated by the state to the university to bankroll the charter school. It instead relied on money the school receives directly from the state along with federal dollars earmarked for schools with high percentages of children who receive free or reduced-price lunch.

Those dollars, Wilcox said, "are limited."

Because of that, the charter school's salaries and benefits to teachers and principals are lower than what the school district offers. That has contributed to high employee turnover and unstable leadership.

Over the past five years, the charter school has had four principals.

A College's Responsibility

College of Education Dean Colleen Kennedy says the best solution is to partner with the school district, as it does with the traditional school on USF's campus, Pizzo Elementary.

That partnership would include involvement from the USF faculty, Kennedy said. The university and the school district are working out the details.

Kennedy said the College of Education faculty members have "contributed in significant ways to the charter school" by working with teachers and developing curriculum. She added, however, that they have full teaching loads along with research obligations.

"The faculty we employ have a great deal of responsibility to fulfill their primary mission," she said.

But that mission, Lavely said, must include community service. When the children's performance progressively worsened, Lavely said, the college should have sent experienced professors to help develop the charter school's teachers, many of whom are young and unseasoned.

In her time advising the charter school, and in her year spent on its board, Lavely said that administrators did little to encourage the faculty to contribute.

"It's all about the children," Lavely said. "But somewhere along the line, somebody forgot about that."

Lavely said there was excitement early on. She was then directing the College of Education's Institute for At-Risk Infants, Children, Youth and Their Families after having spent years advising top state lawmakers on education policy. Florida law had just opened the gates for charter schools, and Castor tapped Lavely to lead USF's efforts in the enterprise.

The charter school was touted as the nation's first at a public university, and the idea was to serve the residents of "Suitcase City," an area west of USF with low-income, mostly transient residents.

The children there were getting lost in overcrowded schools, Lavely said. So she and another College of Education faculty recruit, Stephanie Jackson, walked the streets of Suitcase City and described their vision to parents.

Education consultants arrived from Michigan and Arizona, where charter schools proliferated. Faculty from several USF colleges showed enthusiasm, as did donors.

First came a $500,000 grant from financial giant Citigroup, and much of that money went to the school's technology.

A year later, Tampa philanthropists Kiran and Pallavi Patel gave the school $450,000 to jump-start plans for a permanent campus - students had been attending class at the Museum of Science and Industry across Fowler Avenue.

Before getting to the new building, though, the USF Charter School ran into a budget deficit in 2001 when, after adding the third grade, enrollment fell short of projections.

Its finances turned around, however, and the school moved into its new $2.2 million home in 2003. Its name changed to the USF/Patel Charter School to honor its benefactors. Subsequent financial audits on file with the school district show no major problems.

'It Should Have Been A Showcase'

Principals came and went, though, most lured away by better salaries in other school districts. The school grew and, by 2005, faced grading by the state. That year, it earned a D.

Displeased by the student performance, Hillsborough schools Superintendent MaryEllen Elia in 2006 recommended ending the charter contract. But the school improved its FCAT scores, raised its grade to a C and its contract was renewed.

The contract was last renewed in May, just two months before the state gave the school an F. At a special meeting last week, the charter school board voted unanimously to ask the school district to take over its operations.

McKitrick said she cried at the news. Lavely, who's now retired and lives in St. Petersburg, heard the news from a friend and lamented what was lost. Jackson, who accompanied the others to Suitcase City, said USF missed a chance to shine in the spotlight of public education.

"It should have been a showcase," said Jackson, who now works for the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C. "This should have been something that made them proud."

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285 or aemerson@tampatrib.com.

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