What about the money?

               It is our intent with this charter to above all else limit the powers of the School Board, the district Superintendent, and district administration in their duties and reach. The charter gives the greatest authority to the community of the CRB to control the direction of their school district, and the authority to decide the best educational models, and curricula for the students. The entire premise of the new district is to allow authority to flow up through the schools and community, to the Superintendent, and finally to the School Board.

               This district will be based upon the idea that parents have a choice to ensure their children the best possible chance to succeed in their education, and thus their future. With that, each school within the CSD will be a charter school, where the community will come together to decide upon what each individual school’s educational focus shall be. The district will have an open enrollment, with no boundaries. This will ensure that every child, no matter their socio-economic status, physical location, or family situation, can attend the school that is best suited to their needs. Each school’s focus will be to exceed the State Standards and Expectations. Our goal is to set the standards for districts across the country!

               The CSD will utilize contracted services wherever and whenever possible to streamline and run the district more efficiently. The CSD will be a district run by a School Board that will exist only for the benefit of the students, not for the betterment of its members. This will be done through a lifetime term limit of one, four-year term. The seats will be staggered every two years. The School Board members will be elected/selected from the LGCs, where their authority is grounded. The Superintendent’s authority will be derived from the community. The School Board will hire a Superintendent who will not have the authority, or autonomy of a traditional public-school Superintendent. Each charter school within the CSD will be a school founded by the stakeholders of the community (parents, school staff, and AD2 residents). Each school will have an Academic Policy Committee (APC) to see that the charter of the school is strictly followed. Each APC will hire the principal of their school, who will then in turn, hire the staff. The principal will continue to carry out the protection of the charter with their staff. It is our intent with the budget the CSD will have that we will pay our teachers a wage that will attract excellent teachers. With higher wages, we believe the teachers can then set up a better retirement for themselves because the State no longer is offering a worthwhile retirement plan. Along with the backing of a Faculty Senate, a collaborative teaching environment, the higher wages, the ability to set up a better retirement option, it is our hope that teachers will not feel the need to invite a union into the district.

               Full transparency is vital to this model for parents, collaboration, and competition. Each school will report through a district wide website, information vital to support full transparency to the community of the CRB. This information could include Standardized Test scores, class sizes, waitlist numbers, current disclosure of the school’s finances, including income, costs and savings, etc. Each school of the CSD will adhere to Federal, and State laws/regulations concerning the education of students with special needs, and/or highly gifted students as per the ADA and IDEA Acts.

               This document, like the Constitution of the United States, limits the responsibilities and duties of the participants. The regulations and procedures that individual schools decide, or regulations that the School Board deem necessary, are beyond our purview. The charter frames out a district that will reflect the wants and needs of a majority of the families of the CRB. We, the members of the CRB Education Committee looked at the world today and saw that there are many things that we could have addressed to curtail today’s social issues. By framing the charter the way we have, we have left it up to the community to continually decide in the future what current social issues they want to take on, or to vote upon. We cannot know what the future will hold for this community in the years ahead, so we cannot weigh the document down with social issues that in several years may no longer be relevant.

               If we address those within the charter, we are not allowing the residents of the CRB the opportunity to decide for themselves what is truly important for them.