
My name is Jenny Robinson, and I have three children in local public schools. I oppose the Seven Oaks proposal.
This is the third public hearing for Seven Oaks that I’ve attended in a little more than a year, and I am frustrated to be back here. I’m at a loss to understand why a private college over three hours away should be able to determine how our local public education dollars are allocated. Before, I didn’t have a stake in Grace College’s management; why would it be my business how your school is run? But now your decisions can have a direct effect on my community’s educational resources. When do I get to vote for your board members? You say that you are committed to transparency and accountability, but the names of the people who serve in your office of charter are not available on your website. Your website mistakenly states that businesses are able to authorize charters in Indiana. When I visit the Indiana DOE site online, it says that they requested your monitoring guidelines and your minimum standards for renewing a charter back in June, and that they’ll be posted on receipt. The school you authorized in Fort Wayne has low enrollment and has received “F”s the past two years. I don’t think that school grades tell the whole story. I looked at the application you received for that school, and I just want to point out that the people who founded and lead Smith Academy have much greater experience in education than this founding board of Seven Oaks.
This is essentially the same application that I’ve seen twice before, largely produced by the charter initiative of an out-of-state religious college. It is full of Hillsdale’s boilerplate text. Its mission is identical to that of Founders Academy in Las Vegas and Mason Classical Academy in Florida. In that sense, it is not the specific vision of this local founding group. This application has not been modified to respond to concerns about discipline policy, transportation, or plans for serving intellectually gifted students. The application states that intellectually gifted students will be taught by the one special education teacher and as laid out by their IEP. But most “high ability” students do not have IEPs and it would not be appropriate for the special ed teacher to be asked to address their needs. This is a basic issue that this application just gets wrong, and this feedback was available to Seven Oaks in May. They haven’t bothered to think through it or correct it.
The rigidity of Seven Oaks’ discipline policy was flagged as a problem by the Indiana Charter School Board, but they have not changed it at all that I can see. Non-completion of homework and failure to conform to the school dress code still constitute “Level 1 major offenses.” Four such offenses in a period of 45 school days would mean mandatory suspension. A policy like this would select for privileged families. It would make it very hard for families in transient living situations to apply for or persist in the school.
Please reject this insufficiently thoughtful proposal. It would siphon off families and millions of dollars from our public schools, which are truly available to all children.
Return to Seven Oaks public comments page
This is the third public hearing for Seven Oaks that I’ve attended in a little more than a year, and I am frustrated to be back here. I’m at a loss to understand why a private college over three hours away should be able to determine how our local public education dollars are allocated. Before, I didn’t have a stake in Grace College’s management; why would it be my business how your school is run? But now your decisions can have a direct effect on my community’s educational resources. When do I get to vote for your board members? You say that you are committed to transparency and accountability, but the names of the people who serve in your office of charter are not available on your website. Your website mistakenly states that businesses are able to authorize charters in Indiana. When I visit the Indiana DOE site online, it says that they requested your monitoring guidelines and your minimum standards for renewing a charter back in June, and that they’ll be posted on receipt. The school you authorized in Fort Wayne has low enrollment and has received “F”s the past two years. I don’t think that school grades tell the whole story. I looked at the application you received for that school, and I just want to point out that the people who founded and lead Smith Academy have much greater experience in education than this founding board of Seven Oaks.
This is essentially the same application that I’ve seen twice before, largely produced by the charter initiative of an out-of-state religious college. It is full of Hillsdale’s boilerplate text. Its mission is identical to that of Founders Academy in Las Vegas and Mason Classical Academy in Florida. In that sense, it is not the specific vision of this local founding group. This application has not been modified to respond to concerns about discipline policy, transportation, or plans for serving intellectually gifted students. The application states that intellectually gifted students will be taught by the one special education teacher and as laid out by their IEP. But most “high ability” students do not have IEPs and it would not be appropriate for the special ed teacher to be asked to address their needs. This is a basic issue that this application just gets wrong, and this feedback was available to Seven Oaks in May. They haven’t bothered to think through it or correct it.
The rigidity of Seven Oaks’ discipline policy was flagged as a problem by the Indiana Charter School Board, but they have not changed it at all that I can see. Non-completion of homework and failure to conform to the school dress code still constitute “Level 1 major offenses.” Four such offenses in a period of 45 school days would mean mandatory suspension. A policy like this would select for privileged families. It would make it very hard for families in transient living situations to apply for or persist in the school.
Please reject this insufficiently thoughtful proposal. It would siphon off families and millions of dollars from our public schools, which are truly available to all children.
Return to Seven Oaks public comments page