× Expand Thinkstock

Milwaukeeans were shocked to find out that the troubled North Point Lighthouse Charter School gave parents just a few days’ notice in February that it would shut down three grades before closing down entirely at the end of the school year.

But as the Shepherd can report exclusively, the school, chartered by the City of Milwaukee, will keep the state aid for the estimated 60 students who have been transferred from the school, even though they won’t finish the school year there.

Most of them apparently are now enrolled in Milwaukee Public Schools, which won’t be compensated for teaching them. In fact, because of the way the state funds public schools, MPS likely won’t be compensated for teaching the former North Point Lighthouse students for another two years.

State Department of Public Instruction spokesman Tom McCarthy confirmed that thanks to state law, the taxpayer money is not following the North Point Lighthouse students to their new schools. That’s because North Point Lighthouse Charter School, which was failing academically, was able to count the kids for state aid purposes on the third Friday of September and the second Friday of January. If a student is enrolled in a school on those two particular days, the school gets the state aid.

“If a school shuts down after that January count date, the money does not follow the kids,” McCarthy told the Shepherd.

The student count for state aid was conducted on Friday, Jan. 8. On Friday, Jan. 15, the board of North Point Lighthouse Charter School informed the City of Milwaukee’s Charter School Review Committee that it would relinquish its charter at the end of the academic year. On Feb. 22, it sent letters to parents letting them know that grades five through seven would shut down just days later, on Feb. 26.

So according to state law, North Point Lighthouse Charter School, part of the national Lighthouse Academies chain, can keep the funds for the kids that attended on Jan. 8 but were turned out on Feb. 26.

This academic year, independent charter schools receive $8,079 per pupil from the state.

Friends of the Shepherd Help support Milwaukee's locally owned free weekly newspaper. LEARN MORE

MPS spokesman Tony Tagliavia said that when Lighthouse announced it would shut down in June the district began working to enroll the displaced students for the fall.

“We redoubled our efforts when we learned certain grade levels were closing midyear and made additional visits to the school to assist families,” Tagliavia emailed. “While it is far from ideal, in the K-12 environment in which we operate, it is not entirely uncommon for students to arrive at a new school at this point in the school year.”

North Point Lighthouse’s principal, Beverly Echols, declined a phone interview for this article, but committed to an in-person interview later this week. Calls to the national Lighthouse Academies chain were not returned.

Little Oversight from Appointed Committee

Although North Point Lighthouse’s closure is a major issue for students and the affected schools, there’s been little discussion of it in city government.

Charter schools have more accountability measures than taxpayer-funded private voucher schools, but they traditionally are given wide latitude to educate kids. The theory is that they can be innovative if they aren’t “micromanaged” by a school board or state agency.

“The law is set up to give them that autonomy on purpose,” DPI’s McCarthy said.

The City of Milwaukee charters 10 schools, which are overseen by the all-appointee Charter School Review Committee (CSRC). The CSRC accepts and evaluates schools, and sends its recommendations to the Common Council’s Steering and Rules Committee and ultimately to the council itself.

In years past, the CSRC met infrequently, held its meetings at Marquette University, didn’t allow public testimony and didn’t post meeting agendas or minutes on the city’s website.

The CSRC has become more transparent in the past year or so, thanks to the ongoing efforts of academic accountability advocates and city leaders’ growing realization that the schools need more oversight.

Still, the closure of North Point Lighthouse Charter School has received little attention from the committee that is supposed to oversee it and ensure that its students are receiving a high-quality education.

After the CSRC placed the school on probation in October 2015 because of its low performance and accepted its termination letter at its Jan. 27 meeting, the school hasn’t been discussed at all by the committee in public, even though members had multiple opportunities to do so.

North Point Lighthouse Charter School’s status wasn’t listed on the committee’s agendas for its Feb. 11 meeting or its Feb. 24 meeting as the school was shutting down three grades. It was placed on the March 10 CSRC agenda, but that meeting was canceled due to a lack of a quorum. It didn’t make the agenda for the March 23 meeting, and the April 6 meeting is canceled. The CSRC’s chair, Kevin Ingram, emailed the Shepherd that its status update will be discussed at its April 14 meeting.

The gatekeeper to the CSRC and the city’s charter program is the Institute for the Transformation of Learning (ITL), launched by school privatization advocate Howard Fuller and housed at Marquette University. Its liaison to the CSRC, Jarett Fields, emailed that the school has been working to transition students to new schools. “It is not the practice of the CSRC to track students attending non-Common Council authorized schools.”

Open records requests sent to Fields regarding the taxpayer-funded North Point Lighthouse Charter School were rebuffed by Marquette Associate General Counsel Jeffrey Kipfmueller, who wrote, “As Marquette is a private university […] Marquette is exempt from record requests such as yours.”