MIDDLETOWN— Recent legislation (AB 1505) signed by Gov. Newsom significantly reformed the Charter School Act of 1992, giving districts more authority to deny a new charter, or close an existing charter based on fiscal impact or if the charter is not reflecting the larger student populations.
The legislation also requires that teachers are credentialed, much the same as a traditional public school, according to details found on the California Government website. “AB 1505 is a long overdue reform of charter school law,” said Assembly member O’Donnell. “This bill ensures that we will have qualified teachers in all classrooms and gives local school boards more discretion over charter authorization.” Despite this legislative change affecting charter schools, Lake County’s only charter school, Lake County International Charter School (LCICS), located in Middletown, continues to thrive and has the test scores to prove it.
Gwendolyn Maupin Ahern, Director of LCICS, said that 79 students currently attend the charter school which serves kindergarten through eighth grade. There is capacity for 90 students and a waiting list for three of the grades as class size is kept at a maximum of 25 students.
Ahern said that the charter school began 15 years ago by a group of mothers who wanted their children to become more aware of their global responsibilities, patterned after the International Baccalaureate Program where the emphasis is placed on “international awareness, environmental awareness and visual performing arts”.
Ahern said “We are not trying to compete with the public schools. We are focusing on education in a different way”. According to AB 1505 the charter must reflect the larger student population. In response, Ahern said that LCICS has a higher level of poverty, compared to Middletown Unified School District (MUSD) and their English Language Learners are pretty comparable, except for Minnie Cannon Elementary School. AB 1505 also states that all teachers must be credentialed in the appropriate subject matter and Ahern said that the school is in compliance.
Ahern added that she is unhappy with AB 1505 as she believes it creates an “arbitrary nature for being able to deny a charter application”. LCICS is an independent, direct funded charter school and only relies on MUSD for Individualized Education Program (IEP) for children with special needs and nurses. Ahern concluded by saying, “I am more hoping that misinformation about charters in general will be less prevalent and that everyone across the country would be better informed about who we are and what we do”.
Ahern does not believe in “teaching to the test” and although pleased with recent state testing results, “it is more important to take a social-emotional approach and educate the whole child”. She said she would rather ask how the children are doing on a day-to-day basis and if they are loving learning. Ahern has managed to pay teachers comparable wages, purchase enough property to run the school and write a $120,000 dollar grant for new kitchen equipment. The school is equipped with a playground, a greenhouse, chicken coop and garden boxes carefully placed throughout the property. Ahern said that the fifth graders are raising money by selling raffle tickets for salads, all the ingredients are “homegrown” by the class. Classrooms are equipped with Chromebooks and students are engaged in differentiated instruction throughout the day, according to Ahern.
Kayla Wood, the combined fourth and fifth-grade teacher, said “I love working at our charter school because of the flexibility and being able to focus on life skills. The opportunity to work with gardens is fantastic for the students”.
Andrea Blair, Academic Support Provider for Garden and Music, said that she used to be a Special Education teacher but really enjoys her present role. She just taught students about mushrooms and is excited about the new kitchen and the possibilities that come with it. “It is a small, intimate community of learners where kids have a part”. She said that Ahern is totally supportive of her staff’s needs and added that arts and music is a real focus with attention to higher academic learning.
Camelia Escobar Thomason, a third-grade student, gestured two-thumbs up when asked if she liked her school. She added “I love it here”.
Prior to joining the Record-Bee as a freelancer covering education and local news items, Mary Phillips worked in education as a teacher and an administrator for 34 years
