Opinion: Patrick Henry School for Science and Arts is a Richmond Public School
Some RPS School Board members don’t seem to believe that Patrick Henry School is a Richmond Public School. They speak animatedly when discussing sports programs for “their” schools, but cast suspicious glances at PHSSA when its board makes a simple request. They even go so far as to say that the charter school takes money away from public schools, but again HELLO, Patrick Henry IS a public school. Currently there are close to 150 public school students attending PHSSA, with even more slated to attend next year. And they pay a smaller per-pupil sum for the students at PHSSA than they do for the rest of the system. When the naysayers punish the Board of Directors of PHSSA for having the temerity to start a new school, they’re also punishing those 150 kids.
The latest RPS School Board vote was to approve a change in the lease of the building to the LLC so PHSSA could potentially acquire $275,000 in tax credits. Not an inconsequential sum. The naysayers (Dawn Page, Maurice Henderson, Chandra Smith and Evette Wilson), rather than focus on the issue at hand took the opportunity to speak negatively and often inaccurately about PHSSA. They just don’t get it. Patrick Henry School IS A RICHMOND PUBLIC SCHOOL. You wouldn’t speak out against Holton, or Overby or Fox. You wouldn’t take advantage of a simple procedural vote to try to hinder its work with their school children or prevent nearly $300,000 in funds going to improve their buildings.
Perhaps the naysayers need a reminder of what happens if PHSSA succeeds. 1) They get a renovated and ADA compliant school building. 2) They get a school that offers a choice to families who do not value their neighborhood school. 3) They get a school that offers several different approaches not available at any other school, and they are free to take the learnings and apply them to other schools. 4) They provide a choice to parents and potentially pull in families that might have previously stayed out of RPS. 5) Any awards or praise the school receives reflects positively on the system as a whole. 6) Provides a model for future charter schools in Richmond.
Regardless of the pros and cons, the naysayers must accept that the RPS School Board approved a charter school. These late game maneuvers don’t change that. Let PHSSA succeed or fail, but wouldn’t you be prouder if you helped them succeed rather than being counted as one of the reasons they failed?
Obviously Patrick Henry is a public school.
They are clearly worried that PHSSA will succeed where RPS has failed, further exposing their ineptitude and that it will lead to changes in the whole system, leaving them without jobs.
Please send this to the editorial department at the T-D!
If you would like to support the school, learn more about the construction plans, hear about the playground & garden plans or just come and picnic with your neighbors then attend the Patrick Henry School of Science & Arts School Rally this Saturday, April 2 from 11am – 1pm at the Patrick Henry School Building at 3411 Semmes Avenue.
Many of us with children in the school have been frustrated by this process and want to do something but we don’t know what or how.
Parents for Patrick Henry Charter School is a new group being organized by parents. Come to the rally to learn how you can join the mailing list and get info on how to help.
Rally rain date is April 3, 1pm-3pm
Great article. @#2- I’d agree with that but why are the school board members so against it? They haven’t been around long enough for it to make them look bad(when its success makes RPS look bad).
I lean towards the article’s premise that they just don’t get it. Regardless the reason, its astounding these folks won’t take the time to educate (see what I did there?) themselves on the issue. Makes you would what other responsibilities they are failing to get all the facts on.
Have the School Board members (especially the four mentioned) ever visited PHSSA to see it in action?
Some histroical perspective. When the charter school movement started in the south and in northern suburbs, they were seen as segregation academies for selected, mostly white, students. Virginia and Richmond were slow to get involved in the movement, so that by the time state law was changed to permit Virginia charters, many of those problems were eliminated, but the old suspicion still lingers. PH is a public school, chartered under the laws of Virginia. If more prospective students sign up than there are spaces, selection is by a pure lottery, so that students cannot be selected by race or ethnicity. That is the model followed by PH, and the diversity of the student body certainly reflects that. On a more personal note, if one knows the parents involved in the creation of PH, you know they are not racist, and would not participate in a racist exercise. In terms of “taking money” from other schools, PH receives about 80% of the per pupil payments received from RPS. The other 20% is retained by RPS for services provided to PH. The money follows the student, not the school.
@Sundagger – would you expound “the other 20% is retained by RPS for services provided to PH”?
I know a little, so someone can correct me on details. The state law governing charter schools allows the school district to retain part of the per pupil allowance for performing certain central functions that apply to all schools. What that means in the case of PH, I am not sure. This is part of the contract between PH and RPS, so the details are specific and can be cobtained from PH or RPS.
Sundagger, I understand that there would be distrust after a very tumultuous desegregation, but it saddens me that the naysayers probably haven’t ever made the effort to go to a Board of Director’s meeting to see the diverse group of people running things or the diversity of the students. It’s a city-wide school, so any and all RPS school board members should have a vested interest in the school. Has Maurice Henderson, whose district the school resides in ever made a visit to a meeting or to the school? He should. To be so vehemently opposed sight unseen is unfair. I guess it’s like any long-held prejudice – hard to shake.
I agree.
We love PHSSA! The success (or failure) of PHSSA reflects on the entire Richmond Public School system. It simply doesn’t make sense for anyone, particularly a school board member, to fight against the success of Virginia’s first elementary charter school. Patrick Henry has some of the most enthusiastic and dedicated teachers and support staff that I’ve ever encountered, and I feel blessed that my children and I were lucky enough to be part of the inaugural school year.
I will try to be there tomorrow but in the event that I cannot make it, is there an alternate way to sign up for the mailing list?
Hi Deanne, which mailing list do you mean? or do you mean volunteer list?
PHSSA is a joke. I love the argument of “They get a school that offers a choice to families who do not value their neighborhood school.” Schools are what the parents, teachers and administrators make them. If your neighborhood school isn’t worth a crap, it’s because the responsible folks aren’t worth a crap. Most of the families who lived within the district of Patrick Henry when it was not a charter school did not send their kids to the school, because those families did not “value their neighborhood school”. Then once schools like Fox and Mary Munford started to bust at the seams, this genius idea of Patrick Henry becoming a charter school was born. I don’t think the school board is treating PHSSA as if it is a private school, they are treating it as the charter school it is. The BOD of the school flunking and they want to put the blame totally on the school board.
Joe, you sound like a jerk. People in the area around the old Patrick Henry school didn’t have their kids there because it wasn’t a school, it was a vacant building. Are you just casually observing and making your own assumptions without actually learning about what is going on with the charter school?
That’s right, Eve. I was a founding member of PHESSA when my only child was 2 years old. At the time, the PHESSA building was empty. I also happened to WORK at Blackwell at the time, and there was no way I would send my daughter there. Trying to fix that school would be like pissing in the ocean. Sometimes you just have to start from scratch. As far as the “responsible folks aren’t worth a crap” quote, LJoe, what you’re really saying is, if you are black and you have no money than you must be “crap” which I consider to be a racist and classist statement. I am proud to note that PHSSA is very well racially and economically integrated, indicating that ALL of the people comprising PHSSA’s neighborhood wanted to see a change in public schools. Not just white affluent families. LJoe, you are the joke.
Joe- You don’t know the history. Your statements are flat-out factually wrong.
The parents in this neighborhood TRIED to re-open PH as a traditional public school and the school board did not approve it. After many attempts and much effort to open the school as a traditional public school RPS finally told the group of parents that the only way the building could function as a school again was as a charter school. Yes, that’s right, the RPS board actually SUGGESTED that we open a charter school. It was originally the board’s idea. (I guess they didn’t expect us to really go through with it.)
So before you try to say “Well why didn’t the parents invest in the school that was already there??” I’ll answer it for you: WE TRIED THAT FIRST.
Get you facts straight.
I love the fact that Patrick Henry is racially and socioeconomically diverse. The LAST place I want to send my children is an all white, all middle/upper class school in the county. (We are white and middle class).
To me, the term “school choice” means I don’t have to move out to the county suburbs and send my children to a non-diverse school.