Pinnacle Canyon Academy charter school in Price won't expand anytime soon.
The Utah Board of Education last week voted to set aside the school's expansion request until they can study it further. Hours before, a board committee had denied the request; members wanted to know how the Legislature would address financial problems some school districts incur when charter schools move in.
The decision is a temporary win for Carbon School District, which asked the board to deny Pinnacle Canyon's request to double its rolls to accommodate its waiting list.
But Pinnacle Canyon chief administrative officer Roberta Hardy views it as "choosing money over students" and a blow to parental choice in education.
Charter schools are public schools that promise parent involvement and creative curriculum aimed at providing choice within the school system.
Charter schools, available in three-fifths of the states, are allowed under a 1998 Utah law. Nine are operating; three more are approved in Cache and Utah counties.
Districts and charter schools have occasionally clashed since the reform project's inception. And the Carbon County entities have their share of bad blood.
The district decided to no longer share a special education teacher with Pinnacle Canyon. Superintendent David Armstrong Thursday challenged the success of charter schools and also noted Pinnacle Canyon has half as many students qualifying for federally subsidized school lunch as the district. The figure concerns board member Denis Morrill, but he added he didn't know how to fix it.
Hardy does: Give Pinnacle Canyon money to bus students to school.
The statement drives at the heart of this debate: money.
At first, charter schools received three-fourths the student funding of regular district schools. A 2000 Utah law, however, ensured they would receive full funding.
Pinnacle Canyon Academy enrolls 180 kindergartners through eighth-graders. Its waiting list contains about as many names. So it asked the school board to let it expand.
"What we're trying to do is be ethical. The waiting list (size) has bothered our board for years," Hardy said.
But Armstrong views the request as a financial threat. The district stands to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in per-student funding if Pinnacle Canyon enrolls 180 new students, which equates to about 5 percent of district enrollment. The district keeps the fixed costs, however, and might have to cut programs or lay off teachers to make ends meet.
"If the charter school takes students away, it's going to derail our programs," Armstrong said.
Board members sympathized with small districts' financial struggles. "We need to wait (on expanding Pinnacle Canyon) so we don't decimate other public school system," Morrill said.
Dave Steele, a state senator who oversees charter schools for the State Office of Education, believes the issue is legislative, not "whether school one is better than school two." He urged board members to voice concerns with lawmakers.
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