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Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
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Wilkesboro Church, Child Care Program Team Up in Model for Others
This article was originally published in EducationNC. In the last 18 years, Wilkes County has lost 56 child care programs, 67% of its child care capacity. This year, thanks to a scrappy community effort, local leaders saved the county from losing another. Sharon Phillips and her daughter Katy Hinson, owners of PlayWorks Early Care and Learning Center, cut the ribbon on their new location inside Wilkesboro United Methodist Church in April, expanding their business after months of wondering whether they'd survive at all. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter 'I consider what happened there a miracle,' said Todd Maberry, former managing director of the Ormond Center, a project at Duke Divinity School focused on helping churches assess their communities' needs and find new ways to meet them. The center, which is closing this summer, helped the Wilkesboro church decide how to use an empty wing to help address a local lack of child care and bring in new revenue. The specifics of the initiative, called 'Big Building, Little Feet' — both the people behind it and the speed at which they raised more than $600,000 as the five-star program faced eviction — are specific to this community. But the model itself, Maberry said, has lessons for the entire state. 'There's not one of the 100 counties that doesn't have a church that has an empty educational wing sitting there,' Maberry said. 'This can be a blueprint.' With pandemic-era child care funding gone and bipartisan state leaders prioritizing child care solutions, local leaders like those in Wilkes County are convening, collaborating, and raising money to make things work for their neighbors in the meantime. 'Communities need to think outside the box,' said Michelle Shepherd, executive director of Wilkes Community Partnership for Children, the local Smart Start partnership. 'I think that's the biggest takeaway. These children deserve quality child care, and what does that look like, and what do communities have to offer?' In 2023, Phillips and Hinson were touring every vacant building in town. They were looking for a larger space to expand their 10-year-old business and help fill child care gaps. That year, a study funded by the Leonard G Herring Family Foundation found that the county needed 836 additional child care slots, almost double the capacity it had. The report's findings, released by the Wilkes Economic Development Corporation (EDC), were starting conversations in the business community. 'The child care study revealed what a crisis we were in,' Hinson said. Hinson and her mother were already struggling with a balance familiar to child care owners. They did not have enough revenue to pay teachers much more than minimum wage, couldn't raise tuition without pricing out families, and were unwilling to cut costs by lowering quality. Stabilization grants funded through the federal American Rescue Plan Act were expected to dry up, leaving a large gap in the budgets of programs across the state. 'We just kind of felt like we had done all we could on our own two feet,' Phillips said. Phillips and Hinson were coming up short in their search. 'We had knocked on doors, we had toured all the vacant buildings, we had been to town officials,' Phillips said. Then they started conversations with a local entity with its own financial struggles: Wilkesboro United Methodist Church. 'Our church has dramatically shrunk … especially post-COVID,' said Gilbert Cox, who has attended the church since 2008 and was the chair of its finance committee at the time. Cox recalled holidays when he first joined with people overflowing into the aisles and Sundays with regularly full pews. A couple of years after the pandemic, the church was lucky to have 50 members attending services. 'This is a very common story for a lot of congregations in the country, particularly in North Carolina, particularly in rural places, where mainline churches have just been decimated by a pandemic, by disagreements,' Maberry said. 'And Wilkesboro is not immune to that.' Plus, more than 90% of the church's space was sitting unused more than 90% of the time, Cox said. 'Eventually, what was an asset was going to turn into a liability,' he said. 'The maintenance of it, and it stored more and more. I think we found five pianos. There were two in a closet we didn't even know about.' The church entered a six-week 'design sprint' with the Ormond Center called the Community Craft Collaborative to figure out a different path forward. The process aims to helps churches better understand their community through data and interviews, and then encourages them to come up with an idea to experiment with. Through a conversation with the EDC, Cox learned about the child care study's findings. The organization connected him to Phillips and Hinson, who had recently reached out in their search for a new home. By the end of the sprint, the church presented its idea: house and expand PlayWorks. Phillips and Hinson toured the church's facilities and heard from the church's leadership that they were on board. 'How could we take what is becoming a liability, and better connect to the community?' Cox said. In April 2024, a contractor gave an estimate on the building renovations necessary to meet regulatory standards. It would cost about $1.6 million. Everyone involved agreed: 'It was insurmountable,' Cox said. The potential collaboration felt like it had died, and Phillips and Hinson were back to square one. 'Everybody ghosted,' Phillips said. While they were already down, they were hit with what Phillips described as 'a gut punch.' In June 2024, the program received an eviction notice from its landlord, a local theater company that wanted to repurpose the space. PlayWorks had to be out by September. Their hunt for a new building became a make-or-break endeavor. 'I can just remember thinking, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? We don't have any choices,' Phillips said. 'I immediately called Michelle at the partnership.' Shepherd, who had been the executive director of Wilkes Community Partnership for Children for about a year, said she immediately understood the urgency. With a background in K-12 education, Shepherd had spent her time at the partnership learning about just how dire her county's child care needs were and developing relationships with a whole new sector of educators. 'We just couldn't let them fold,' she said. Shepherd's leadership was a game-changer. 'When she wouldn't give up, I wouldn't give up,' Phillips said. Through a $15,000 grant from the Ormond Center, the church paid an architect for renderings, moving forward without knowing whether things would work. Through a stroke of luck, a local contractor was called in to do the building's measurements who was interested in bidding on the project. This time, the estimate came in at about $600,000. 'Michelle says, 'Don't give up,' so it breathed new life into the possibility,' Cox said. 'Even though the church didn't have $590,000, Michelle — she deserves all the credit — she said, 'Let me see what I can do.'' Everyone got busy. Hinson and Phillips asked their landlord for an extension on the move-out date. The church began a deeper process with the Ormond Center to map out the details of the project. Shepherd, with no fundraising experience, started making calls. 'We all stepped out in faith that it would happen,' Hinson said. The child care study helped Shepherd tell potential donors the story of the community's need, she said, and explain the importance of child care for workforce participation. 'This was not some 'Betty Froo Froo' project; this was a necessity for our community,' she said. 'That really played on the heart of business people in the community.' Hinson and Phillips got an extension from their landlord for their move-out date to November, and then to April 2025. Once Shepherd received the first big 'yes' — a $250,000 donation from an anonymous community member — others started following. 'That was my big driver, that we can't tell these kids, 'You've got to go home,' and parents that they can't work that really want to work,' she said. She reached out to people with a connection to PlayWorks, who understood the importance of the high-quality care and education it provided for children and families. She received donations from dozens of individuals, including a large contribution from private donor Janice Story and funds from church members and partnership employees. She also reached out to foundations and community groups, securing grants from the Carson Foundation, the Leonard G Herring Family Foundation, the Cannon Foundation, the North Carolina Community Foundation, and United Way of North Carolina. The effort did not receive any local or state public funding. 'All of a sudden, Michelle had almost a half a million dollars in a matter of almost weeks,' Cox said. The Ormond process provided real estate and zoning expertise, as well as a video crew to help the community tell its story. It was rooted in 'asset mapping,' Maberry said. 'We've got a church with empty space, we've got an incredible child care center that is flexible and can move, and we've got a local nonprofit that's committed to the well-being of children in the county,' he said. 'Those are great assets. They can begin to look at, 'OK, well, there's a child care crisis, and one of the better ones is about to go away. How do we solve that?' Shepherd said her mother was a salesperson, and always told her that salesmanship requires a good product and a powerful 'why.' She had both. 'We had people that gave $50 up to $250,000,' she said. 'It truly was a community, dollar-by-dollar fundraiser.' From November 2024 to March 2025, the team reached their goal. The local contractor agreed to start construction before all the funding was secured to help Phillips and Hinson reach their move-out deadline. There were many obstacles. The team almost had to call off the project once again when they realized the extent of the plumbing needs to have appropriate sinks in each room. They coordinated between sanitation, the county inspector, fire safety, and the state child care licensing under the Division of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE). 'There was not a single source that you could go to who could give you all the answers,' Cox said. PlayWorks closed on March 20 and 21, a Thursday and Friday, plus the following Monday. In that long weekend, they moved with the help of family and friends and set up every classroom. On Monday, the center had its final sanitation inspection and a visit from DCDEE. They opened their doors to children on Tuesday. The execution of the move, Phillips said, was a miracle in itself. Through the months of ups and downs, she kept thinking of the families she serves and the educators she employs. 'I kept going back to, how do we tell our staff? How do we tell our families? We are in such a child care crisis, there aren't spots available in many places in the other child cares. How can we disperse 60 children in this county? You know, where are they going to go?' On the day EdNC visited PlayWorks, Hinson and Phillips were moving in sync. Hinson went between classrooms, providing extra hands for fussy infants. Phillips met with licensing officials in the office during their second DCDEE check-in, which required a fire drill. 'We never really dreamed that something like this would happen,' Phillips said. 'We're just the proud recipients.' The day before, they had celebrated the team's accomplishments with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, during which church leaders called the moment 'a revival.' But the next day, it was back to the work they both love and are challenged by. The new space will allow PlayWorks to expand from serving 55 to 88 children as they add three new classrooms (for infants, toddlers, and 4-year-olds) in the coming months. The church is providing the space at less than $6 per square foot, Cox said, compared with the area's average commercial lease of $28 per square foot. It is also covering utility costs. Phillips said they do not expect any problem filling the new seats. They will first check with families on their waiting list. An interested family was visiting the program during the fire drill, during which all children were walked or rolled to a gazebo in the parking lot. 'Word of mouth is just really getting around,' she said. Phillips and Hinson are still hiring and rearranging teachers to staff the new classrooms. Each room has three teachers for now, for 'an extra layer of quality.' They start teachers, depending on education level and experience, at anywhere from $10 to $15 per hour. The median wage for the state's child care teachers was $12.31 in 2022. Though PlayWorks is not immune to the staffing challenges experienced by the field, multiple teachers have stayed for several years. Teacher Rachel Brionez has worked at PlayWorks since it opened because of 'the environment that Sharon and Katie have created' among the staff, the families, and the children. Educators refer to Phillips and Hinson as 'the dynamic duo.' 'They value us, and that makes coming to work so much better,' Brionez said. 'You don't dread the alarm clock going off.' Brionez said her experiences in child care have not always been positive. Phillips said the same about her early career experiences. Because of the low pay, high stress, and instability, Phillips had discouraged Hinson from going into the field. She pushed her to be a nurse instead. That all changed after one conversation, while Hinson, a high schooler at the time, was helping her mother with her pre-K class. 'She just broke down in tears, and she says, 'I'm not going to be a nurse,'' Phillips said. 'We both cried. And she said, 'This is all I know through you.' … I told her, 'We will do something for your career.' And that's why we're here.' Because of temporary state funding, the funding cliff that worried providers like Phillips and Hinson in 2023 was pushed back. In March 2025, programs received their final installment of the compensation grant, which has helped them raise teacher pay and plug the gap between what families can afford and what it costs to provide high-quality care. 'With the stabilization grant money from the state, we were able to give teachers those raises and bonuses, and we're going to do all we can for that to continue,' Hinson said. Advocates and DCDEE are asking the state legislature this session for child care investments to support the state's child care subsidy program, which helps working low-income families afford care, and the early childhood workforce. None of the current proposals would provide the level of funding providers were receiving from stabilization grants. 'It's worrisome,' Phillips said. 'I really put it on the back burner, just knowing that, with the move and everything, we've got to move forward.' As Phillips and Hinson both breathe a sigh of relief, they know their future remains unclear. 'We'll make it on a slim margin — or I hope we will,' Phillips said. 'I'm just thinking very optimistically that we'll make it work, but it's going to be very hard.' Shepherd said the mutually beneficial partnership required resources that not every community has. She sees the state playing an important role in providing grant money to repurpose space — similar to the Rural Downtown Economic Development Grants. 'I just think this is a great model for a lot of places to look at underutilized space and how to bring in some revenue for both,' she said. Maberry is hoping to find a new way to continue the work of the Ormond Center, which had 55 relationships with churches. Some were working on child care projects, he said. Others were opening mental health services and helping their communities with affordable housing. 'Churches are at their best when they are meaningfully integrated into their community and are making their communities better places to be and to live,' he said. The Wilkesboro project is an example of the power of dynamic partnerships and possibility in a time of disruption. 'For the church, it's energized them,' he said. 'Like they've got kids in their building now, all day, every day, and they're starting to think, like, OK, well, if we can do this, what else can we do? Imagination can be contagious.' The children, staff, and administrators at PlayWorks are settling in. Across the street is an assisted living center whose residents can now see playing children on their walks. Phillips said she does not know whether Hinson will ever let her retire. They both said the new space feels like home. 'With some hard work and perseverance, we've made it,' Phillips said. This story was originally published on EducationNC.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Federal Judge Blocks Trump Bid to Kill Ed Dept., Orders Fired Workers Reinstated
A federal judge on Thursday blocked President Donald Trump's executive order to eliminate the Education Department and ordered officials to reinstate the jobs of thousands of federal employees who were laid off en masse earlier this year. Judge Myong J. Joun of the District Court in Boston wrote in the preliminary injunction that the Trump administration had sought to 'effectively dismantle' the Education Department without congressional approval and prevented the federal government from carrying out programs mandated by law. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Trump administration officials have claimed the March layoffs of more than 1,300 federal education workers were designed to increase government efficiency and were separate from efforts to eliminate the agency outright, claims that Joun deemed 'plainly not true.' 'Defendants fail to cite to a single case that holds that the Secretary's authority is so broad that she can unilaterally dismantle a department by firing nearly the entire staff, or that her discretion permits her to make a 'shell' department,' Joun, a Biden appointee, wrote. Related Combined with early retirements and buyouts offered by the administration, the layoffs left the Education Department with about half as many employees as it had when Trump took office in January. That same month, Trump signed an executive order calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to 'take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education.' The Trump administration has acknowledged it cannot eliminate the 45-year-old department — long a goal of conservatives — without congressional approval despite layoffs that have left numerous offices unstaffed. Yet there is 'no evidence' the Trump administration is working with Congress to achieve its goal or that the layoffs have made the agency more efficient, Joun wrote. 'Rather, the record is replete with evidence of the opposite.' 'A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all,' he said. 'This court cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department's employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself.' The White House didn't respond to requests for comment. The Education Department said it plans to appeal. In a statement, Education Department spokesperson Madi Biedermann blasted the court order and called Joun 'a far-left Judge' who overstepped his authority and the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit to halt the layoffs — including two Massachusetts school districts and the American Federation of Teachers — 'biased.' Also suing to stop the layoffs is 21 Democratic state attorneys general. 'President Trump and the Senate-confirmed Secretary of Education clearly have the authority to make decisions about agency reorganization efforts, not an unelected Judge with a political axe to grind,' Biedermann said. 'This ruling is not in the best interest of American students or families. We will immediately challenge this on an emergency basis.' Related Cutting the federal education workforce in half — from 4,133 to 2,183 — undermines its ability to distribute special education funding to schools, protect students' civil rights and provide financial aid for college students, plaintiffs allege. They include the elimination of all Office of General Counsel attorneys, who specialize in K-12 grants related to special education, and most lawyers focused on student privacy issues. Plaintiffs also allege the cuts hampered the agency's ability to manage a federal student loan program that provides financial assistance to nearly 13 million students across about 6,100 colleges and universities. The Office for Civil Rights was among those hardest hit by layoffs, with seven of its 12 regional offices shut down entirely. The move has left thousands of pending civil rights cases — including those that allege racial discrimination and sexual misconduct — in limbo. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called the temporary injunction the 'first step to reverse this war on knowledge.' Yet the damage is already being felt in schools, said Jessica Tang, president of the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts. 'The White House is not above the law, and we will never stop fighting on behalf of our students and our public schools and the protections, services and resources they need to thrive,' Tang said in a media release. In interviews with The 74 Thursday, laid-off Education Department staffers reacted with cautious optimism. It remained unclear if, or when, they might return to their old jobs — or if they even want to go back. Keith McNamara, a laid-off Education Department data governance specialist, said he's 'tempering my enthusiasm a bit' to see if Joun's order is overturned on appeal. But he said he was ' a lot more hopeful than I was yesterday' about the potential for the department to return to the way it operated prior to the cuts. For federal workers, he said the challenges have been ongoing and monumental, saying the last few months without work have 'been very chaotic.' Related 'It's been very difficult to look for other work because tens of thousands of us are all pouring into the job market at the same time,' he told The 74. 'It's been very stressful.' Rachel Gittleman, who worked as a policy analyst in the financial aid office before getting terminated, called the court order on Thursday 'a really broad rebuke on the administration's attempt to shut down this critically important department.' 'But in many ways, the damage has already been done' as fired employees begin to find new jobs, Gittleman said, and Education Department leadership works to push people out. McNamara said it was unclear Thursday whether the department would order fired employees back to work. Nearly his entire team was eliminated, he said, so it was uncertain what work he might do if he returned to the job. Asked if he was interested in doing so, he responded 'I'd have to really think about that.' 'Quite frankly, I don't think this administration is taking the job that the Education Department is supposed to be doing very seriously,' he said. 'I'm not sure I'd want to work for an agency that — from the very top — is hostile to the work that the department does.'
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Chicago Public Schools Once Again Puts 2013 Closed Schools Up for Sale
This article was originally published in Chalkbeat. The buildings have sat empty for 12 years. Several are architecturally significant with striking details and character taking up multiple city blocks. But many are in rough shape, with copper stripped from the pipes, broken windows, and graffiti covering walls. One had to be torn down after an extra-alarm fire last year. Now, Chicago Public Schools aims to sell the former schools, putting 20 properties out to bid once again, with the hopes of seeing them repurposed and the possibility of bringing in around $8.2 million and avoiding spending more on future upkeep. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter 'Our goal is not to sell them for the highest dollar amount, really. It's to find the most responsible, compatible use,' said Stephen Stults, director of real estate for CPS. 'What we get paid, of course, helps with our budget challenges. But they've been sitting there long enough, and we need to do everything we can to try to get them repurposed.' The solicitation for bids, which are due May 30, includes mostly school buildings closed in 2013. Each property includes a minimum bid and all properties have schools on them with the exception of one on the Near West Side. That property, the site of the old Dett Elementary, has a minimum bid of $1.3 million and sits about five blocks from the United Center in an area poised for a $7 billion development plan, called the 1901 Project, a nod to the sports stadium's address. The city demolished the school building last fall after a fire broke out in late May. Prior to the fire, CPS put the building on the market and received just one bid for $1, which was 'below what the district was willing to accept.' Demolition cost the district $1.25 million. All of the properties have deed restrictions that do not allow them to be used as a K-12 charter or school or for the sale of liquor or tobacco products. Stults said CPS spends between $100,000 and $150,000 to maintain and secure each vacant school per year. That's at least $2 million annually for the past 12 years — or $24 million. The ongoing expense comes as CPS is currently considering hundreds of layoffs in order to close a $529 million deficit for the coming school year. Even though many vacant schools are not in great condition, Stults said the 'bones of the buildings' are good. Demolition may be expensive, but so is rebuilding a core structure. After the deadline, he said the district will consider all bids and select the two 'highest and most responsible' to present to the school board, as required by state law. Stults anticipates bringing some building sales to the board before the end of the calendar year. If there is no demand for certain vacant schools, he added, the district plans to reach out to sister agencies, such as the Chicago Park District, to see if they're interested in the properties. Vacant schools are a visible reminder of the 2013 closures, which disproportionally impacted Black children from low-income families and led to further population loss. Many community groups and neighbors near these properties have called for reinvestment in these public assets for many years. Following the mass school closings in 2013, then-mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennet appointed a committee to develop guidelines for school repurposing and community development. Their early 2014 report laid out potential uses for each vacant school and recommended a process for repurposing. CPS put 47 buildings up for sale and sold two dozen properties in subsequent years for a collective $38 million. Some have been redeveloped into luxury housing or private schools. One was torn down to make way for 30 new single-family homes and another was rehabbed into a union hall. More recently, the former Emmet Elementary in Austin opened as a gleaming workforce training facility after a more than $40 million renovation supported by city, state, and philanthropic money. The former Overton Elementary in Grand Boulevard on the south side slowly transformed into a community hub with weekend market events and a community garden. Ghian Foreman, a managing partner with the Washington Park Development Group, which has owned the building since 2015, said they will begin renovations to convert the building into offices later this year as soon as the city grants the permits. 'It's harder than you think it is,' Foreman said. 'This has been a really long process of learning. You have to really be committed, and you have to ensure that you have the resources to see it all the way through.' Many vacant schools shuttered a decade ago have garnered interest from buyers and community proposals. But actual redevelopment has stalled for myriad reasons. Some schools up for sale now had buyers previously, but the sales never went through. For example, the school board approved a bid for the old Henson Elementary in 2018, but the local aldermen at the time held it in a City Council committee. The building remains vacant. The school board in 2018 approved a bid for the old Morgan Elementary in Chatham from the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241. But the project never came to fruition. Some schools have been sold and are off the district's books, but remain vacant and undeveloped. One notable example is the old Von Humboldt school, which still sits vacant after being sold by the school board in 2015 for $3.1 million to the nonprofit IFF. The group planned to convert the old school in gentrifying Humboldt Park to a mixed-use building with affordable apartments and market-rate townhomes built on part of the parking lot. But IFF eventually sold the property to Newark, New Jersey-based RBH Group, which promised to convert it to a 'Teachers Village' with subsidized housing for teachers, similar to projects it's done in Atlanta, Newark, New Jersey, and Hartford, Connecticut. Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st Ward, put brakes on the project in 2019, but it eventually got approval from the City Council in 2020. The city approved $18 million in tax-exempt bonds in 2022 and last fall, the Chicago Housing Authority committed 61 vouchers worth $20 million over 20 years. Today, the historic school built in 1884 sits waiting for activity. What to do with school real estate is another area of governmental entanglement between the city and the Chicago Board of Education. By state law, the City of Chicago or the Public Building Commission hold the title 'in trust for the use of schools.' The sale of old schools must be approved by the City Council in order for the deed to be transferred to a new owner. It also must be approved by two-thirds of the Chicago Board of Education, which now means 14 members must vote yes. In the bid materials, interested buyers are encouraged to contact the local aldermen and local school board representatives for the properties they're interested in purchasing. Ald. Jeanette Taylor, who represents the 20th Ward on the south side, plans to hold meetings later this month to get feedback on repurposing the schools in her ward. Taylor is the City Council's chair of the Committee on Education and Child Development and also participated in a hunger strike to keep Dyett High School open roughly a decade ago. School board member Che 'Rhymefest' Smith, who was elected to represent District 10 on the south side, said he hasn't heard from any prospective buyers yet. He doesn't want to prescribe any uses for the vacant buildings in his district but just hopes that investors would tune in to what communities in these neighborhoods want and need. He also thinks any money the district makes from the sales should be poured into schools in those neighborhoods. 'I would like to see any revenue benefit local schools rather than disappearing into the district bureaucracy,' he said. When asked if she'd been contacted by anybody hoping to buy vacant schools, Therese Boyle, the elected school board representative for District 9 on the south side, said: 'Not a soul.' But she said what to do with these vacant properties is a critically important question for communities, especially given the district's looming deficit. 'We need every penny for the operation of the schools that are open,' Boyle said. Boyle, a retired school psychologist, worked inside the old Wentworth school building now up for sale when it was closed in 2013. She remembered how difficult it was for students and staff to move to a new building and said it's awful to have an old school sitting empty in a neighborhood. Michilla Blaise, who was appointed to the school board by Mayor Brandon Johnson to represent District 5 on the west side, said she's been talking with district, city, and county officials about what to do with the old vacant schools. She said it's important to do something because right now, they're just reminders of neighborhood disinvestment for the people who live around them. Foreman, the community developer that owns the old Overton school, echoed that sentiment. For the 10 years he's owned the old school, he's allowed the community to use the gym to play basketball and workout. He had to stop that in the past year to prepare for construction and said there have been break-ins recently, but not from people looking to steal things. 'They were young people who wanted to come and play in the gym,' he said. Even though financing Overton's redevelopment has been a big challenge, Foreman questioned the argument often made by city officials that it's too costly to repurpose these properties or make them available to the community while trying to sell them or even demolish them for use as a park. 'What's more expensive?' he asked. 'What we pay the police in overtime or opening up a gym for the kids to play basketball?' This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A ‘Precarious' Moment for Charter Schools in Trump's Second Term
Earlier this month, the Trump administration proposed a 2026 budget with a $60 million boost for charter schools — the first increase since 2019. But the welcome news for the sector came just two days after the administration took center stage in an Oklahoma case before the U.S. Supreme Court that questions whether charters are private and can therefore explicitly teach religion. Advocates fear the outcome could disrupt education for roughly 4 million charter school students across the country. The cognitive dissonance wasn't lost on Naomi Shelton, CEO of the National Charter Collaborative, which advocates for minority-led charter schools. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter The funding increase 'signals that this administration sees the value of charters in the broader education landscape. But the progress is tempered by real concerns,' she said. The additional funds won't matter 'if charter schools lose their public identity.' The request comes as GOP leaders in both the House and the Senate plan to dedicate hearings this week to accomplishments in the charter sector. Trump is recommending $500 million, a 13.6% increase, for the federal Charter School Program, which provides start-up funds for new schools and helps networks grow. The increase stands in sharp contrast to the $12 billion in proposed cuts to other education programs that Education Secretary Linda McMahon said are 'not driving improved student outcomes.' Charter schools, according to the budget summary, have 'a proven track record of improving students' academic achievement and giving parents more choice in the education of their children.' After four years of what one conservative called a 'bizarre attack' on the sector during the Biden administration, charter advocates are celebrating the change in tone. 'It is a proof point that the president and his administration believe in charter schools and the need for them,' said Caroline Roemer, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools. Related In her two months in office, McMahon has also promoted charters by visiting at least eight of them in New York, Florida, Nevada and Arizona. They include a classical academy that rejects diversity, equity and inclusion programs and a school with a sports management theme in Miami. She has not yet visited any traditional district schools. 'A great wrap in Florida today at Pineapple Cove Classical Academy — another student-centered charter school that is seeing real results,' she posted in March on X after touring three charters and a private Jewish school. Her predecessor, Miguel Cardona, a former principal and state chief from Connecticut, championed traditional schools. Despite longtime support for charters among Democrats, Cardona recommended a spending cut to the Charter Schools Program and sought to clamp down on charters' ability to lure students away from district schools. In 2022, the department issued a controversial package of new rules that called on charter schools to partner with districts, increase racial and socioeconomic diversity and report any business dealings with for-profit companies. The administration said the changes would increase accountability and transparency in an industry that has experienced some high-profile financial scandals. Some critics consider the federal program an example of the waste, fraud and abuse that Trump and Elon Musk aim to eliminate. Carol Corbett Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, pointed to a 2022 report from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of the Inspector General finding that between 2013 and 2016, states and charter operators that received program funds opened or expanded just half of the schools they planned. 'Hundreds of millions have gone to schools that never opened or closed even before their grants ended,' Burris said. 'If the President is serious about eliminating waste and fraud, the CSP is a good place to start.' But charter advocates say there are too many restrictions on how to use the funds. They can't, for example, spend the money on facility costs, which Roemer called 'one of our toughest barriers to break through.' Shelton added that in some states, charter authorizers are more likely to favor large networks of schools over independent operators. 'The funding may never reach the communities that need it most,' she said. Cardona's revisions to the program, they argued, made it even harder for standalone charters and small networks in urban communities predominantly serving Black and Hispanic students to secure grant funds. [inline _story url=' Their advocacy led the department to retreat from some of the rules. But what remained was still 'onerous, burdensome' said Jed Wallace, who blogs about charter school issues. Grantees, for example, still had to submit a 'needs analysis' and explain how their school would impact the diversity of district schools. Then in January, the department issued applications for funding just before the presidential transition, which Wallace called 'one last parting shot' from the Biden administration. In February, Trump's education department not only withdrew the application, but removed the remaining Biden-era requirements. On May 8, the department reopened the application window for two grants — one for state agencies and another for facilities. A separate application for charter management organizations is yet to come. The department is expected to judge submissions based on whether they fit the Trump administration's agenda. That would mean, for example, charter schools couldn't spend grant funds on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Starlee Coleman, CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said the department also took a lot of the organization's recommendations, like allowing states to seek waivers from some of the federal rules. 'When you wrap it all up, they're making some really helpful moves on charter policy,' she said. But the same administration that plans to streamline and accelerate the grant application process argued before the Supreme Court that the federal program itself violates the First Amendment's Free Exercise clause because it requires schools to be nonsectarian. Oklahoma's St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which aims to become the first religious charter school in the nation, says because of its Catholic faith, it would not extend the same civil rights to students with disabilities or LGBTQ students that they would receive in public schools. During oral arguments, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson explored how that argument would impact the Charter Schools Program. 'The portion of the federal law that indicates that to qualify as a charter school you have to be nonsectarian in your programs — you're saying there is a constitutional problem with that or at least there has to be a free exercise exception?' she asked U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer. 'Is that right?' Sauer answered, 'Exactly.' That means if the court allows religious charter schools, they could discriminate in admissions and hiring decisions even while receiving public funds. 'The most obvious group to be targeted would be LGBTQ+ students and students with unpopular religious, or non-religious, beliefs,' said Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of California, Boulder. But he thinks some religious schools would also turn away students with gay parents, pregnant teens or students with single moms. The St. Isidore case puts charters in a 'precarious' situation, he said. A ruling in favor of the Catholic school could further erode support for charter schools in blue states where they have enjoyed 'political goodwill' among Democrats. 'It's easy to understand why national advocates for charter schools would be worried.' Related Democratic-controlled legislatures could use a ruling in favor of St. Isidore to repeal their charter laws, experts say. In red states with vouchers, Welner added, there wouldn't be much to distinguish religious charter schools from other faith-based private schools serving students with state funds. States could amend legislation to bring charters under more government control. 'But that might be a tough pill to swallow for charter advocates who have long lobbied for more and more deregulation,' Welner said. Charter leaders' concerns aren't limited to the case. Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association, called this moment 'a mixed bag.' While she's pleased with the prospect of more money and hopes it comes with greater flexibility, she's just as disappointed with some of Trump's proposed cuts as other public school advocates. After all, under current state laws, charter schools are public and receive the same per-pupil funding as district schools. Trump would eliminate $890 million for English learners and more than $1.5 billion to better prepare low-income and minority students for college. In a statement, McMahon said the proposal 'reflects funding levels for an agency that is responsibly winding down.' The budget preview also states that the administration would roll 18 K-12 programs into a single $2 billion grant 'designed to reduce [the agency's] influence on schools and students and reduce bureaucracy.' While the administration said it would 'preserve' Title I for low-income students, the recommended consolidation would result in a $4.5 billion reduction for schools. 'There is no way we are shielded from those changes,' Castrejón said. 'We ultimately serve exactly the same kids.'
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
As Deportation Target Widens, College-Educated Undocumented Grow More Fearful
Brian knew when he graduated from high school in 2013 that he couldn't afford a bachelor's on his own. Undocumented and unable to qualify for federal financial aid, he decided to enroll at community college and chip away at his associate degree a couple of classes at a time, using the money he earned as a deejay. Brian came to the United States from Mexico when he was just 2 years old. He had no idea how he would pay for a four-year degree until he won a scholarship designed for students like him. A business management major, he graduated from Northeastern Illinois University in 2020 and now lives in Virginia, where he works in education policy and also owns several rental properties. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter 'I always pushed myself, but the biggest push of all came from my parents,' said Brian, a lawful permanent resident who asked to be identified by his first name only for fear he could be targeted for removal by the Trump administration. 'They would ask us to pursue our education because that's why they came here. They wanted us to make a better life than what they were able to.' College graduates like Brian with temporary immigration statuses might not be the primary focus of President Donald Trump's aggressive deportation effort, but they are no less alarmed by the forced removal of those with similar vulnerability. Much of the nation's attention has fallen on undocumented laborers — an Episcopal bishop pleaded with Trump at the National Prayer Service in January to show mercy to 'the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, and work the night shifts in hospitals' —but the administration's deportation scope is widening and has grown to ensnare those on college campuses. More than 1.7 million of the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants have earned at least a bachelor's degree, according to a 2022 report from the Center for Migration Studies of New York. Ernesto Castañeda, director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies and the Immigration Lab at American University, said many people underestimate this group's educational attainment. Most don't know some immigrants are more credentialed than Americans upon arrival, he said. For example, 48% of Venezuelan newcomers ages 25 or older reported having a bachelor's degree or higher in 2023 compared to 36% of U.S.-born Americans, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Deporting this population would mean an enormous drain of 'brain and brawn,' Castañeda said. 'If we expel those people, there would be a big economic loss — and a loss of decades of innovation and scientific discovery, as well as in arts and culture,' he said. While Trump's immigrant policies have been cited for making it more difficult to fill agricultural, construction and hospitality jobs, it will also shrink the nation's pool of highly skilled workers, said Prerna Arora, associate professor of psychology and education at Columbia University's Teachers College. Related 'Do we have the necessary workforce to complete the things that we need done, especially in a modernizing society?' she asked. 'So many of these [college-educated, undocumented] people — and this is what happens across fields — want to go back and help communities from which they are a part.' More than 408,000 undocumented students were enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities in 2023, representing 1.9% of all college students. The figure was higher pre-pandemic when it stood at 427,000 in 2019. The American Immigration Council attributes some of the decline to COVID and ongoing legal challenges to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that gave temporary deportation relief to hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, allowing them to study and work. One Florida lawmaker now seeks to bar the undocumented from state colleges and universities entirely: they've already lost access to in-state tuition there. Texas is considering a similar measure. Trump has made higher education a key focus of his immigration enforcement actions, targeting international students — many because of their political speech or protest actions around the war in Gaza. Thousands have lost their F-1 or J-1 student status as part of his crackdown, though the administration recently reversed those revocations in the face of court challenges. Still, these international students' future remains unclear. They are increasingly looking toward other countries as Trump continues to raid dorms, pull students off the street and place them in detention centers far from home. Another academic, a 32-year-old woman from Senegal, who has lawful permanent resident status but asked that her name be withheld because she fears the current administration, called these removals heartbreaking and unjust. 'We should be investing and supporting young people, not criminalizing them,' said the woman, who came to the United States with her family at age 7. She grew up in Harlem and scored high enough on the selective admissions exam to be accepted to Brooklyn Technical, one of New York City's premier public high schools. A law and society major, she graduated from Brooklyn Tech in 2011. It was an enormous accomplishment. Her father had no formal schooling in his home country and her mother attended only through the ninth grade. Their daughter has a master's degree. 'My life and achievements are proof of what results when we make these investments,' she said. 'So apart from the devastating impact these actions have on these young people's lives, these actions harm communities — and all of us as a country.' Roughly 88% of undocumented higher ed students are enrolled as undergraduates and 12% are in graduate or professional schools. Forty-five percent are Hispanic, 24.9% are Asian, 15.2% are Black and 10.8% are white, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal, which based its findings on data from a one-year sample of the 2022 American Community Survey. California, Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey make up the top five states with the most undocumented higher education students. More than 27% of undocumented graduate students nationally earned their undergraduate degree in a STEM field. David Blancas, 37, got his bachelor's degree in secondary education and mathematics at Illinois' Aurora University in 2009 — he was a stellar student and won a scholarship that covered most of the cost — and worked as a math teacher in Chicago public schools for five years. He got his master's in urban education from National Louis University in Chicago in 2013 — also funded by grants and scholarships — and currently works in a leadership role at an organization that helps renters become homeowners through counseling and financial assistance. Like Brian, Blancas, born in Mexico, came to the United States as a toddler. His father arrived in Chicago first to secure a job — as a busboy and then a cook — and an apartment before his wife and children joined him. Blancas is the first in his family to graduate from college: His mother dropped out of school before eighth grade and his father stopped attending by ninth grade. But they always prized education. 'They loved school,' Blancas said. 'They constantly talked about how they were good at it and how they were very sad that they couldn't continue because of financial reasons. To them, education was like the biggest thing.' Related The Senegalese-born scholar said the same, despite the obstacles she faced: She wasn't aware of her citizenship status until she was told that she needed a Social Security number to fill out the federal financial aid form for college and found out she didn't have one. Thankfully, she said, she was accepted by DACA and went on to earn her bachelor's degree in political science and economics from Hunter College in 2015. She worked 35 hours a week in a retail store to cover her tuition and soon joined Teach for America, which recruits college graduates to serve in high-need schools. She paid for her master's at the Relay Graduate School of Education out-of-pocket with her teaching salary. She eventually became an assistant principal and now works in policy and advocacy for a national nonprofit aimed at helping schools better serve all students — including immigrants. Local and state police around the country are assisting the Trump administration in its immigration enforcement and deportation push. Chicago, where Brian grew up, is a sanctuary city, one that has pledged by law not to cooperate in these efforts. The president has taken aim at these locations with Chicago its most prominent target: The Justice Department is suing the city and the state of Illinois for allegedly impeding its enforcement campaign. Related As a boy and a young man, Brian wanted to be a part of the Chicago Police Department and spent hours watching Law & Order SVU to get a sense of that life. He applied for a job there as soon as he earned his associate degree. 'That's when they told me they didn't accept DACA recipients,' he said. 'I was heartbroken. I did the physical, I did the mental exam and everything, and they did the vetting — they interviewed my neighbors and other people. It was a hard reality check. It was difficult for me to accept that.' After the setback, he pushed on. 'It's not just about me or my family,' said Brian, who also works in education policy with an eye toward immigrant students. 'It's for my entire community — to break that stigma that undocumented immigrants are uneducated or that we're lazy or that we're just mooching off of the system. People don't know that for DACA, you have to go through a background check. You have to pay a fee, show that you're working, you're paying taxes, that you're going to school.' It's frustrating to see people fighting to end the program, he said. Blancas, also allowed to work under DACA, agrees. He has a wife and two children and lives what he described as a typical middle-class life. He said he understands America's desire to protect its border, to ensure entry to only those who will add to the economy. But that's exactly what they are getting from the very people they are trying to chase out, he argued. 'We have our own house,' Blancas said. 'We both have really great jobs that give back to the community. We're able to provide a great life for our children. We're living that suburban American life, which is amazing.'
