Baker board rejects charter school bid
BAKER — The Baker School Board decided against allowing a charter school to open in the district.
Board members Troy Watson, Dana Carpenter, Elaine Davis and Shona Boxie voted 4-1 during Tuesday’s meeting to deny the request.
Doris Alexander cast the dissenting vote.
Representatives from Education Explosion Inc. were in the audience, but Carpenter, the board president, refused their requests to speak on their proposal.
“The public had an opportunity to listen to the presentation from the company a month ago,” he said.
“This is a voting period.”
Education Explosion Inc. is a Baton Rouge-based nonprofit that offers tutoring at schools, libraries, and churches, according to the company’s website.
The group can apply to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for a charter, despite the board’s decision.
The company provides supplemental educational services to the Baker district, which the federal government requires because of low performance scores in some of the schools.
Davis suggested that a charter school would negatively affect public schools in the district. “I was elected to support public education,” she said.
“I agree that we were elected to provide good public education to the students in Baker,” Alexander said.
“But it’s not happening. It would be good for our students to have a choice.”
“It makes me cringe when board members say things like that when we have principals and teachers in attendance,” Carpenter replied.
“That’s a fact, not a put-down. Look at the grades our schools got,” Alexander countered.
The Baker school system received a D grade on 2011 district performance score from the state Department of Education.
Other items before the board included:
CLASSROOM VISITATION: The board appointed Boxie and Watson to revise a proposed classroom visitation policy for parents or guardians wishing to observe children in school.
Davis voiced her concern that the policy as written might discourage parents from visiting because it required that they make a request in writing to the principal at least three days in advance.
“We want our schools to be user-friendly,” she said.
PARENT PATROLS: The board voted unanimously to put off making a decision on proposed parent patrols for Baker High and Baker Middle schools.
Davis said that there are no guidelines in place for the patrol.
“We need to know what the roles and responsibilities of these people would be before we can approve it,” she said.
“We have so many people coming into our schools that sometimes the students get confused about who’s in charge.”