Charter school temporarily transforms into private school

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A struggling charter high school has lost state funding, but the operating company's founder plans to pick up the tab so students can attend for free for another year.

Southwest Charter School's temporary transition to a private school will give the operating company, Imagine Schools of Arlington, Va., another year to search for a new sponsor. Still, the operating company won't get a recommendation from its previous sponsor, Central Missouri State University.

"I think that there is going to be a question of trust between that school and any sponsor," said Rick Sluder, dean of the school of education at Central Missouri State University, who referred to the school it once sponsored as a "renegade."

In May 2005, the Warrensburg university gave Southwest Charter School one year to close or find a new sponsor.

Missouri charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run, can operate only in Kansas City and St. Louis and only with a sponsor. Typically, the sponsor is a college or university.

Problems that Central Missouri State cited with Southwest included high turnover and low test scores. Only 16 of the state's non-alternative high school had a greater percentage of students scoring in the bottom two levels on the math section of state tests, a state database shows.

Imagine Schools insisted it inherited many of the problems after acquiring oversight responsibilities for the school following a merger two years ago.

The school's board decided not to appeal the non-renewal decision and began looking for a new sponsor. In the midst of the search, the operating company -- which had already written off $1.2 million in debt from the school -- renovated two buildings and moved without telling its sponsor, Sluder said.

Central Missouri State, which had told the school to stay put for its last year, learned of the move from the media, Sluder said.

Charter school officials said the previous site was not safe and the original charter application was not site specific, so the school did not need authorization to move. Central Missouri State officials were shocked.

"It's so highly irregular that anything like that could occur it's almost beyond comprehension," Sluder said. He said there was little the university could do because state law prevents it from taking action against a school midyear unless the safety of students is jeopardized.

Efforts to find a new charter sponsor were unsuccessful. So days before state funding for the school was to end last month, the school's board announced at a meeting that they had decided to provide a free education for former Southwest Charter School students and other students.

Last year, the school received $3.9 million in public money to educate 630 students in grades six through 12. Imagine Schools said in a news release this week that it anticipates spending about $2.5 million in the upcoming academic year to educate the nearly 400 students who have enrolled at the school, now called Renaissance Academy of Math and Science.

Imagine Schools said it is also looking for a sponsor for charter schools it wants to open in Kansas City for the 2007-08 academic year.

Sam Howard, an Imagine executive, said that the operating company wants to operate an environmental science and math charter, a career-based charter and a charter that would use different techniques to reach its male and female students, possibly including single-sex classes.

Howard said the free tuition is a gift from Imagine's founder and president Dennis Bakke, who also co-founded AES Energy, an energy conglomerate. The operating company recently became a not-for-profit.

Howard said Southwest is gone.

"There's no debt," he said of the new operation. "It's a private school done for the sole benefit of children, and it's not costing the state a dime. Trust me, there are no problems. It's a brand new deal."