Horizon Charter contract terminated

MAT-SU -- After a month-long discussion between members of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School Board and the principal and Academic Policy Committee at Horizon Charter School, the board voted to terminate the charter contract, due to problems in the school's enrollment and testing procedures.

The school's APC has 30 days to appeal the termination and provide evidence that the school will better comply with No Child Left Behind regulations in the future, or the school will no longer be operated out of the Mat-Su Borough School District.

While the majority of the board supported the termination, members Larry DeVilbiss and Linda Menard opposed it.

"It seems like we are taking a bull in a china shop approach," DeVilbiss said.

Members Sarah Welton, Dan Contini, Robert Johnson and Mike Chmielewski said that, by setting a termination date, it forces the school to get its house in order, quickly.

"All these adults are going to do in 30 days is get pretty smart, or the problem is going to solve itself," Contini said.

Horizon principal Yolanda Paez has blamed the enrollment and testing problems -- namely the testing of 20 students not properly enrolled in the district and the lack of testing done on 30 students enrolled in Horizon -- on problems with the district's change in computer systems this spring. Barbara Morris, on behalf of the Mat-Su Educators Association, spoke in support of the possibility that Horizon's problems may have been caused by the new system.

"I've been overwhelmed with phone calls about a computer system that does not work," Morris said. "This whole district is having problems."

But Marie Burton, director of management information systems at the district, disagreed that Horizon's enrollment and testing problems stemmed directly from the new system.

"No students in the district were lost," said Burton.

More concerns with the school have been revealed since the district recommended the termination of the contract at the April 7 board meeting. The district must check the credits on every senior's transcript to ensure they have the correct credits to receive a diploma. According to Connie Lutz, executive director of curriculum and assessment, she had requested the transcripts of the six seniors that graduated in December and the six seniors graduating in May from Horizon, and had not received the transcripts as of the May 5 meeting.

"This is the only school we have not been able to do this with," said Lutz.

Paez said the transcripts were complete, that she was awaiting instruction on what to do with them, and that they would be on Lutz's desk the following morning, May 6.

"As far as these seniors are concerned, I've sent correspondence requesting 'What else can I do?'," Paez said.

Contini asked the principal why the transcripts had not been provided already.

"I can't believe that all you intelligent people can't figure this out," Contini said. "You're still waiting for tomorrow morning, it just doesn't make sense."

Later in the week, District Director of Instruction Lebron McPhail said the transcripts were not received until the late afternoon on May 6, and that those transcripts were not complete.

"We did not receive the transcripts until [4:45 p.m.]," McPhail said.

The official letter to the APC informing the school that it must comply with the board's guidelines or be forced out of the district is scheduled to be sent early this week, McPhail said. The letter will outline the areas that the school must fix, including violation of federal, state and district guidelines for student enrollment, transcripts, grades, schedules, statewide testing and staff training. In order to deal with those things that cannot be fixed in the 30 day period, such as following regulations in statewide testing for the 2004-2005 school year, the Horizon staff and APC will be required to show how they will ensure that the problems will not reoccur.

"These things are no different than we ask of any of our other schools, whether it be a charter or brick and mortar school," said McPhail, adding that the district's two other charter schools, Academy Charter School and Midnight Sun Charter School, have not had the problems that Horizon has had. "We are basically just covering protocol."