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Madrone Trail on notice Madrone Trail Public Charter School students play outside Thursday. Director Karen Bailey told the Medford School Board the school's needs are great and the budget small. Mail Tribune / Jamie Lusch Monday Jan 16, 2017 at 12:01 AM Teresa Thomas Mail Tribune @teresathomas_MT Madrone Trail Public Charter School Director Karen Bailey has her work cut out for her. At last Monday’s work session, Medford School Board members expressed their disappointment in the school’s test scores and its participation rate in the annual Smarter Balanced assessments. “Your scores are abysmal, so, if your contract was up tomorrow, I think you’d have a hard time getting four votes,” said board member Jeff Thomas. Test scores and participation rates are just two of the challenges Bailey, who took the helm of the charter school last June, is facing this year. In her annual report to the School Board, Bailey said Madrone Trail's needs are great and budget is small. The century-old, 15,609-square-foot school on Old Stage Road needs a new roof and double-pane windows, she said. And the school, which currently serves 237 students, is operating with a skeleton administrative staff that includes herself and two administrative assistants who do everything from the budget and payroll to mopping water off the gym floor after a pipe burst last week. At the work session, Bailey shared her plans to conduct teacher evaluations, document the school’s policies and procedures and provide professional development around aligning the school’s Waldorf-based curriculum with the Common Core State Standards. The latter task, she said, is especially difficult considering that Waldorf education is a holistic approach in which students learn at their own, developmentally appropriate pace and teachers don’t “teach to a test” but emphasize the role of creativity, movement, the arts and themes of nature in learning. Bailey has about a year to prove the school’s effectiveness to the Medford School Board, which decides next year whether or not to renew its charter. In 2015-16, Madrone Trail had the lowest participation rate in the Smarter Balanced assessment of any school in the district. Only 66.2 percent of the school’s third- through eighth-grade students participated in the English language arts assessment, and only 63.1 percent participated in the math assessment. While the federal government requires a 95 percent participation rate in the state’s standardized tests, Gov. Kate Brown approved House Bill 2655 in 2015 allowing anyone — not just those with a religious or disability exemption — to opt out of the annual summative assessments, administered every spring to third- through eighth-graders and 11th-grade students. Many charter parents, not wanting their children to be “lumped into a statistic,” took advantage of this new freedom, which did have some effect on the school's scores, Bailey said. Last year, only 38.8 percent of the students tested at the school met or exceeded state standards on the ELA assessment and only 23.5 percent met or exceeded state standards on the math assessment. This year, Bailey said she intends to meet with parents before they opt out to discuss the benefits of taking the state tests and to make it a less stressful experience for students by having them tested in their classrooms on Chromebooks instead of in the windowless computer lab. She said she also has considered using an alternative test to measure student performance and give teachers and district officials the feedback they need. “The big question is, if (teachers) know their students are learning and growing, how do they show it? The burden of proof is on us,” she said. The school does not do proficiency grading. Rather, teachers do “old school, handwritten narrative reports” for the lower grades and assign grades for the upper grades, she said. Research shows that students taught using Waldorf methods lag behind their peers on tests in the early grades but excel in the later grades, she said. Board members asked Bailey at the work session to track the performance of Madrone Trail students in high school to see whether this research holds true. Kate Pattison, a charter school specialist with the Oregon Department of Education, said if the district can't rely on Smarter Balanced results to measure student success, then the charter school needs to come up with other markers for success and put them in writing. Bailey expressed frustration that district officials expect charter schools to “do it cheaper and better,” which was never part of the school’s contract, she said. “We said we’d do it different,” she said. State law allows school districts sponsoring charter schools to keep a 20 percent share of the state school funds allocated for elementary and middle school charter students and a 5 percent share of the money allocated for high school charter students. Pattison said there are only a handful of districts statewide that keep a smaller share. “There is justification that being an authorizer takes time, resources and energy to conduct site visits, manage the contract, and provide oversight and monitoring to ensure the charter school is compliant with its charter and following the law and its students are safe and healthy,” she said. Over the last six years, Pattison said she’s seen more regular public school regulations being applied to charter schools. For example, House Bill 2186 applied Senate Bill 290 requirements for evaluating teacher and administrator effectiveness to charter schools, she said. “(Charter schools) are now being asked to do more and more reporting and comply with more of the systems that regular schools are being asked to do, and they are doing it with less money,” Pattison said. Last year, Madrone Trail received an allocation of about $6,000 per student, which Bailey has been informed is one of the lowest per-student-allocations of any member in the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education. The school’s 2015-16 revenue included $1.36 million from the state school fund, $47,000 from fundraisers, $10,000 from grants, $10,000 from supply fees — students pay between $100 and $120 each year for supplies — and $22,000 from field trip and after-school program fees. This year, Bailey is optimistic that the school will get about $1.44 million from the state school fund, $70,000 from fundraisers, $22,000 from supply fees and $44,000 from after-school program and field trip fees and fun run proceeds. Supply fees cover a portion of the cost of lesson books, watercolor paper, paint brushes, knitting needles, yarn, beeswax crayons and the other supplies needed for all the hands-on activities that are essential Waldorf curriculum. Students also are asked to pay a $100 field trip fee, and families are encouraged to donate or “sponsor a child” either with a one-time donation or by setting up a payment plan. So far this year, 65 percent of the families have donated something for a total of $9,600. Bailey said she has lots of ideas for the school, including adding a cafeteria and another classroom (one class meets on the stage) and expanding the music program. “But money is holding us back,” she said. “I can get visionary so quickly. But I just needed to stay grounded.” In a memo to the board following a recent site visit, Chief Academic Officer Michelle Zundel, who also is the district’s charter school liaison, commended Madrone Trail for engaging families, providing abundant art, handwork, music, and theater instruction and interviewing ninth-grade alumni about their transition to high school, among other things. However, Zundel said the school also needs to improve student achievement on standardized tests, “reduce reliance on anecdotal evidence of educational achievement,” improve financial systems and provide development opportunities for the Madrone Board to define their role, to name a few. Zundel said she meets quarterly with the charter school directors to collaborate on initiatives and best practices. Charters must request a renewal and propose any changes they want to discuss in negotiations between 180 and 210 days before the expiration of their charter. The Medford School Board must hold a public hearing within 45 days of that request, and the district must provide in writing its decision to renew or not renew the charter within 20 days of the public hearing. Bailey said she’d like to get more support from the district. “Of course money would be good, but also administrative and human resources support and training,” she said. “And … whatever training they are giving to all the other principals in the district, I would like to be included in that.” If the Medford School Board voted not to renew Madrone’s charter, Bailey said she would seek sponsorship from Southern Oregon University or ODE. “We’re the oldest charter in the district, so I think they have high expectations for us,” Bailey said. Reach education reporter Teresa Thomas at 541-776-4497 or [email protected]. Follow her at www.twitter.com/teresathomas_mt.