The Menlo Park City School Board this week unanimously rejected a petition to establish a charter school where the core curriculum would be taught in Mandarin.
In its decision Wednesday night, the school board cited the findings in a 56-page report that concluded the proposed Menlo Mandarin Immersion Charter School “does not appear to be demonstrably likely to succeed.”
The report, released Sunday by a group of Menlo Park City School District administrators and consultants, evaluated the charter’s proposed curriculum, governing structure, staffing and finances, among other components.
District parent Carol Cunningham, who has led the charter school initiative and acted as its spokesperson, said after the meeting that she and the other founders “need to regroup” before deciding what do do next, if anything.
It can appeal to the San Mateo County Board of Education, and if rejected there could ask the California Department of Education to authorize the school.
At Wednesday’s two-hour-plus meeting at Encinal Elementary School, 11 people implored the school board to deny the petition. They noted that 1,377 people had signed a Change.org petition opposing the charter school and pointed out that the district already has racked up an estimated $56,000 in legal fees while deliberating over the petition charter.
“There are posts out there saying we have a slush fund, that we have half a million dollars in the bank that we can use to support the (charter) school,” Menlo Park resident Cathy Tokic said about the district, which is primarily funded by parcel taxes. “That’s not true. We live day to day. … If we don’t have the money, we don’t have the field trips. If we don’t have the money, we don’t have the extra teachers and the smaller classroom sizes.”
Many of the same points were made during a packed, boisterous public hearing on Oct. 14.
The report determined the school would be “unlikely” to reach its goal of enrolling 100 students in the first year. Although 59 parents who signed a petition– 44 from the district and 15 from outside — were “meaningfully interested” in enrolling their children in the school next fall, 108 other signatures were ineligible because some parents didn’t have children of appropriate ages while others requested their names be removed and 19 could not be reached.
In addition, the report found the charter’s proposed budget to be insufficient, noting that the amount of money earmarked for professional development, student meals, technology and other areas is less than what the district spends. The charter also would have a tough time keeping teachers whose salaries are lower than those of other teachers in the area.
Board member Terry Thygesen, who proclaimed herself a world language supporter, said she cast her no vote “regretfully” but found it “troubling” that the school’s founders could not demonstrate that the student demographics would “roughly [mirror] the demographics of the district.”
Board member Jeff Child said he thinks the charter’s founders are “trying to do too much at the risk of doing nothing well. … They sort of threw every buzz word in terms of instruction at us. Our district philosophy is that if we do something, we want to do it well. I just don’t believe they have a similar philosophy. I believe they just want to do something.”
Child said he also was concerned that the school will be governed by the Bay Area Language Immersion Schools, a nonprofit just established in August that is simultaneously trying to open the Wei Yu International Charter School in San Jose. The report indicates the nonprofit’s executive director will double up as principal of both charter schools, he said.
“The timeline that they’ve put together … is very rushed, and I think they are rushing for reasons that seem to be driven by the age of the founders’ children rather than taking the time to properly develop an educational program,” Child said.
That’s not true, Cunningham said, explaining that each school will hire its own principal and not share one. She told the board that the school’s founders identified numerous other “inaccuracies and inconsistencies” as well as “misinterpretations of the petition” in just the few days since it was released.
Cunningham and other parents started pushing for Mandarin immersion courses two years ago. In April, the school board denied their request to create an immersion program in the district.
So on Sept. 12, the parents submitted a petition to open a K-8 Mandarin immersion charter school with two classes each of first-graders and kindergartners.
School supporter Julia Feng said the charter initiative has been politicized and attacked with animosity. She read aloud some people’s comments on Nextdoor, a neighborhood social network, including one who wrote: “What is it like to be hated by 99% of your community?? … You really want to push this through and have your kids be pariah at whatever facility you steal resources from. You have distracted the resources and energy of an entire wonderful public school community. How f…ing selfish!!! Your neighbors are watching … and hoping you move somewhere else.”
Cunningham said the Menlo Park community’s “reaction and behavior is in stark contrast” to the reception given elsewhere to increasingly popular Mandarin immersion programs. The Redwood City School District, for example, approved such a program, which is scheduled to begin next fall.
“I’m not surprised; disappointed, of course,” she said. “We really saw this as an amazing opportunity that we could provide. A lot of the [board’s] concerns are about what all charter schools have gone through, and most of them are thriving and successful.”
Email Rhea Mahbubani at rmahbubani@dailynewsgroup.com or follow her at twitter.com/RMahbubani.
