Peter Greene tells the story of the Pacific Charter School, located in the Los Angeles District. When PCS got news that they were eligible to get millions of dollars from the federal Paycheck Protection Program—whose purpose was to save small businesses at risk of closing forever—they saw an opportunity, and they took it.
PCHS is a charter school, and like many other such outfits, they have heard the siren song of the Paycheck Protection Program, the loan program designed to help small businesses stay afloat during the current pandemic mess (the second one, meant to clean up after the first one that ran out of money almost instantly). They are not alone–many charter schools are deciding that, for purposes of grabbing some money, they will go ahead and admit they are small private businesses and not public schools. Two thirds of the charter school businesses in New Orleans have put in for the loans.
What makes Palisades special is that we have video of their board discussing the issues of accepting the loan. (A hat tip to Carl Peterson, who has been watching these folks for a while.)
The discussion of the loan starts in the video about six minutes into the May 12 meeting. Chief Business Officer Greg Wood brings the news to the board that they’ve found a bank (in Utah) and landed approval for a $4.6 million loan.
If you’re wondering if they agonized over issues like tying up four and a half million dollars that might otherwise have been used by an actual small bus9iness that is currently struggling to stay afloat, the answer is, not so much. Wood acknowledges that there could be some rough press with such a move; nobody much cares. A member also mentions that he has friends with small businesses who were not able to be approved. The group gets a little confused about whether or not they’re eligible for the loan, and one member says “Well, the answer is, let’s get it anyway.” Wood says that they could be seen as “double dipping.”
They are eligible, and Wood has already applied and been approved pending board approval. Wood doesn’t know if the loan will be forgivable. In particular he dances around the idea that in order for the loan to be forgivable, they might lose the freedom to fire staff as they wish.
Payback is steep– they get two years, with six months before repayment has to start and a big balloon payment at the end. This does not seem to bother the board because they are mostly considering to grab this money in the off chance that they might need it, and if they don’t need it, they can just give it back in two years– basically a line of credit just in case, which I’m sure would be a big comfort to a business that goes under because there is no money for them in the PPP. But this meeting is marked by phrases like “get the money while the getting’s good” and “get the loan first…worry about that part later.” No payback plan was raised.
A bitter coda to all this. There is just one public comment submitted to the meeting, from a woman who is a Pali High grad and who taught there for thirty years and who is retiring. She’s speaking up because the rest of the staff is afraid of retribution. The teachers worked 2019-2020 without a contract, and while the praise and attaboy’s they’ve gotten for making the pandemic-pushed jump to distance crisis schooling are swell, the board could put their money where their mouths are by offering the teachers a decent raise– particularly since it looks like PCHS is finishing the year with a $2 million surplus. Her comments are read into the record, and then the board just moves on to authorizing the bank that will manage the loan.
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I have tried, to no avail, to find out how charters are fleecing this program here in Ohio, but with no success. Their websites do not have the minutes of their board meetings. I tried to interest a local reporter and sent her one the posts from the past week, the third I have sent, but got back an automated email that she had been furloughed! They are getting away murder here, and there is no oversight whatsoever because we have a charter-loving state legislature, even after ECOT and the other criminality of the past decade.
“she had been furloughed…” Guess which journalists will be considered least important.
Today’s San Francisco Chronicle has a Sunday Page 1 story exposing already-billionaire-funded charter schools that got PPP loans. It’s probably paywalled, but here’s the link.
Bay Area charter schools tap tens of millions in federal small business loans https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Bay-Area-charter-schools-tap-tens-of-millions-in-15371429.php?t=779e0e06a4
“She’s speaking up because the rest of the staff is afraid of retribution. The teachers worked 2019-2020 without a contract, and while the praise and attaboy’s they’ve gotten for making the pandemic-pushed jump to distance crisis schooling are swell, the board could put their money where their mouths are by offering the teachers a decent raise”
Those teachers sound very “empowered” I must say.
The rest of the staff are “afraid of retribution”? Wow.
Is this why we never hear from charter teachers and only hear from the CEO’s of the schools and the paid charter lobbyists?
Has anyone ever heard a teacher from Summit Charter Schools speak publicly? What about Success or KIPP? Why do we only hear from the CEO’s of these private companies?
Simple answer. The employees have no union. They work at will. They will be fired if they speak up.
Public school teachers have to be careful as well. It is not all that hard to make a teacher’s life uncomfortable. Best to support a strong union and be active in it. The union voice is better protected.
I’m still waiting for the ed reform effort and interest in supporting PUBLIC schools in the covid crisis.
Other than selling us cheap, gimmicky ed tech schemes have they done anything at all on behalf of the 90% of students who attend the unfashionable public schools? Why are we paying tens of thousands of ed reformers when they return no value at all to the schools and students most people attend?
Ed reformers did a roomwide search for someone to plan public school reopenings and guess what?
It’s Jeb Bush. Again:
https://www.educationnext.org/jeb-bush-my-view-schools-have-to-open-coronavirus-covid-19/
How great is that for public school families? The crowd who will be directing our schools on reopening don’t support, attend or work in our schools and actively lobby against our schools.
Is it too much to ask that public school students get at least one policy person who actually supports them and their schools? Jeb Bush doesn’t support public schools. Why on earth would I want him running mine?
I know a parent of a couple Pali High students. This is not a school that can even pretend to have taken the loan to help underserved students; the parent to whom I refer is a multimillionaire restaurant owner operating in the most expensive areas of Santa Monica and West L.A. Dozens of wealthy, powerful parents get together at his restaurants from time to time for PTA meetings. I haven’t spoken to him about this yet, but I wonder how he’s going to feel about the charter school to which he sends his son and daughter taking money that could have been used to help him rebuild after the looting, and help keep his employees from losing meals and sleep.
And by the way, I have also spoken, when happening by them in the neighborhood, with a couple of his struggling, paycheck to paycheck employees who were out of work until restaurants recently fully reopened. They were living on unemployment checks and maxing out credit cards… and in desperation, sneaking into the restaurant where they used to work to steal food. The charter school board is harming everyone in the area by taking the loan.
It’s theft.
Has anyone checked to see how hard teachers and staff work?? If any one deserves the money it is those that teach whether teachers or staff. We are building the adults of tomorrow. A good lesson is to be comprehensive before criticizing. Schools whether Charter or not have all levels of students and staff. I encourage persons with critical views to donate it’s easy to tell people who is deserving.
I agree that it is unfair for PCHS to receive money from the paycheck protection program.
However….
PCHS isn’t a typical charter, supported by billionaire types which competes with public schools.
On the contrary, it was a zoned public high school serving around over 700 students per grade when it became a charter in the 1990s, when “charter” didn’t have the same meaning.
I would think that union teachers would like this kind of charter because it is the teachers in the school who run and make decisions for the school (there is a board made up of teachers, parents and administrators, not outsiders).
I believe that the principal runs the school in cooperation with the teachers and parents and it isn’t a top down system.
PCHS is typical of many suburban high schools, because it accepts every student who is zoned for it. What makes it different than affluent suburban high schools is that it ALSO functions as a magnet via a lottery, so that instead of only serving the students zoned for the school – it is also open to students who win a seat via a lottery (and lottery priority goes to low-income students). So the percentage of economically disadvantaged students is 34%, which is relatively low, but significantly higher than it would have been if it was just attended by the affluent students who live in the catchment area. Compared to similarly affluent large public high schools in Westchester, for example, PCHS is far more diverse and low-income.
Also, there is collective bargaining for staff salaries and rights. It’s not a typical charter, but sounds a lot more like what I thought charters were before I realized how much of the the charter movement was taken over by billionaires.
But readers in LA are welcome to correct me as maybe I’m missing something negative. It seems to me that the parents and teachers and community are using the charter idea to do something positive. PCHS is a zoned public school that serves the community – all the students in the community – and also is open to low-income students outside the catchment area.
But that doesn’t make it okay to take paycheck protection funding if public schools don’t get it. Maybe LAUSD will cut its budget to compensate for the extra money it is receiving.
In general, when high-end public schools turn charter, it’s because some boundary change or new assignment system is coming and they’re afraid they won’t be able to keep the riffraff out of their school. If this school is enrolling 34% low-income students, you KNOW they’re carefully screened and handpicked. I’m not in L.A., so I just know that’s how California charters operate in general. And of course we all know how their so-called lotteries go — preceded or followed by an intake counseling session at which they can tell each applicant whether this is really the right school for them. But yes, maybe someone in or near Pacific Palisades can tell us more.
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