Five local charter schools claim they are owed more than $1.2 million in funding.
Last year, a court ruled in Charlotte that charter schools should be funded using the same formula as traditional public schools when Sugar Creek Charter School sued the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system.
Charter schools are now making similar cases against Durham Public Schools. The plaintiffs are Carter Community Charter School, Central Park School for Children, Healthy Start Academy, Kestrel Heights School and Maureen Joy Charter School.
“We believe that the school district has placed money in an account that has been made inaccessible to us,” said Liz Morey, executive director of Healthy Start Academy. “It’s as if we’ve had one of three years’ worth of funding lopped off.”
Morey said that as a charter school administrator, the situation has been frustrating. Despite the state-mandated equity in funding, charter schools—unlike traditional public schools—do not have a legal claim to state lottery earnings or funding for school buses and other transportation, making the inadequate funding even more problematic, she added.
“Charter schools admit students just like any public school,” Morey said. “In that sense, we’re taking a child off the hands of a local public school and receiving less funding.”
The mistakes of DPS are very clear from a legal standpoint, said Richard Vinroot, an attorney representing three of the five charter schools.
“They are failing to comply with a now very clear law,” Vinroot said. “In reaction to the court’s decision, they tried to move funds and deny proper review to the charter schools.”
The suit was filed in the Durham County Superior Court last month and will focus on depositions from both sides in the upcoming months, Vinroot said. It could take nearly a year before a final verdict or an out-of-court settlement is reached, he added.
Deborah Stagner, an attorney representing DPS, could not be reached for comment.
“Durham Public Schools has tried to be fair and have a good working relationship with the charter schools,” said Carolyn Olivarez, executive director for financial services for DPS. She declined to comment further, citing the pending litigation.
The situation has drawn attention to the nature of the relationship between local charter schools and DPS.
“There is some anxiety between the two,” said Sid Reynolds, a public relations representative for Healthy Start and several other charter schools. “It probably comes with the fact that there is some blurring in the realm of public education.”
From the charter school perspective, it is a question of board stewardship, Reynolds said. The leadership must look after the financial interests of the schools.
“Many of these individuals [who direct charter schools] have very clear objectives,” Reynolds said. “When they interact with bureaucracy, people start talking in more nebulous terms, and this creates tension.”
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