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Closure Vote Scheduled For Prince Academy

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By MARILYN BROWN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 5, 2008

TAMPA - Another struggling Hillsborough charter school is in line to close.
School board members are scheduled to vote on a recommendation to not renew the charter contract for Prince Community Academy, a K-8 school.

If the contract is not renewed, the 39 students will be contacted by district staff and given help to register in other schools, said Jenna Hodgens, the district's charter school supervisor.

"We've got a roster; we're ready to get in touch with them right away," she said.

Prince, now at 6802 E. Broadway, has struggled since it opened in 2002-2003 with academic, discipline, financial and permitting issues.

The school has its own local board.

It was placed on probationary status in March 2004 and threatened by the district in 2005 with losing its contract.

The school would improve, somewhat, then fall behind again in academics and its other chronic issues.

In a May 5 letter giving the school notice that its contract is being recommended for nonrenewal, the district found no certified teachers at the school, no evident curriculum being used, no lesson plans and no reference to state standards.

One employee had not been fingerprinted, and the principal had been employed a month before being fingerprinted.

The school has moved four times in the five years that it has been open and was on a month-to-month lease when the district did a school review.

Last August, there was uncertainty about the school opening because of renovating and permitting delays.

Academically, the school was too small to receive state grades, so the district figured its grades based on Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores for the past four years.

It was assigned an A in 2004-2005 and Cs the following years until this year when it was graded F by the district.

"There's never a perfect way when you do a district-calculated grade," Hodgens said, because district averages were used for writing and science since there were so few students.

A call to the board chairperson for Prince Academy was not returned.

The school would be the second charter to falter just before the 2008-2009 school year.

Last week, the USF/Patel Charter school asked the district to take control of the school, which the district plans to do.

Hillsborough was one of Florida's early leaders in the charter school movement, which allows private and other public entities to run publicly-funded schools.

The charter schools must follow testing, health and safety requirements but are free of other restrictions.

At least three Hillsborough charter schools have closed on their own over the past decade because of financial or management problems.

The district closed three others because of poor academic performance and one for health and safety issues.

Reporter Marilyn Brown can be reached at (813) 259-8069 or mbrown@tampatrib.com.

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