MUSD supporters out in force to oppose charter school plan

This is just part of the large crowd at the public hearing on Wednesday. (Staff photo)

By Doug Spoon, Editor

A crowd in excess of 250 supporters of Menifee Union School District showed up at the Riverside County Office of Education Wednesday to oppose the petition of Bridges of Promise Academies to open a charter school in Menifee.

RCOE board members heard testimony from both sides and requested additional information, but no decision was made. That will be announced at the board’s Nov. 5 meeting.

Many of the MUSD supporters were teachers and administrators in the district who joined Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Root in a coordinated effort of opposition. Eight of the 21 speakers who asked for denial of the charter school project were parents or students, however, and board president Kim Cousins announced that he had another 22 speaker slips for people who didn’t speak because of time constraints – all of them in favor of denial.

In contrast, virtually no one other than Bridges of Promise administrators attended to speak in favor of the petition, which was submitted after MUSD denied the project in July. Of the seven individuals who spoke in favor of the petition, all but two were discovered to be Bridges employees – including the Director of District Relations, Chief Academic Officer, Senior Manager of Student Services and Director of Schools.

All of those speakers said they were reading statements from parents who were unable to attend. When questioned by Cousins about how that could be, Bridges Board President Brandon Franklin said, “Honestly, they are scared of retaliation.”

That was just one of the strange twists in the public hearing, in which MUSD supporters loudly applauded every one of their speakers while Bridges administrators squirmed in their seats. Meanwhile, RCOE board members expressed concern over several aspects of the Bridges proposal.

Root, Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Marc Bommarito and attorney Ronald Wenkart argued that Bridges of Promise is an “unsound program” and not fiscally responsible. They said Bridges’ projections of having 435 students enrolled the school’s first proposed year in 2027 and 789 within three years is “unsupported," and that there is no documentation of interest by parents in Menifee.

Root criticized Bridges’ proposed teacher base salary of $78,500 as being unrealistic to recruit employees. She also pointed to the absence of STRS and PERS benefit plans as insufficient to attract qualified teachers. In addition, Root said that while MUSD spends 53 percent of its instructional budget on special education, Bridges has only 7 percent of its budget allocated for that.

Bommarito expressed concern about Bridges numbers that he said indicated a high percentage of its funding going to Propel Charter Management, which is scheduled to back the school. Bommarito and other MUSD supporters suggested that Bridges would be more of a cash cow for Propel than a legitimate charter school.

“Santa Rosa Academy (a charter school authorized by MUSD years ago) spends $137,000 on back office expenses,” Bommarito said. “Bridges proposes over $2 million for the back office. That’s $1.9 million more for half the students. There’s too much control by Propel.”

In the Bridges presentation, Franklin said that Santa Rosa has a wait list of 2,351 and that Bridges of Academy would be a progressive alternative for Menifee families seeking a charter school. He said that Bridges representatives have surveyed Menifee families and visited Menifee Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club events – something MUSD administrators disputed.

“I sense smoke and mirrors,” said Michael Walsh, a teacher in MUSD. “Where’s their proof of support? I see no parents here for that.”

“I’m at multiple Rotary Club and Chamber events, and I haven’t seen one person from Bridges there,” Root said. “Propel has been the public face of this.”

Jennifer Sullivan addresses the RCOE board in opposition to the charter school petition. (Staff photo)

Root and Bommarito also expressed concern about the expense of a facility Bridges hopes to build on five acres of leased land in Menifee. And a parent named Brandi Shepard said she believes Bridges would “fail the special needs children. Their program would take away their self-esteem.”

A large part of the Bridges of Promise presentation was the school’s planned Project-Based Learning curriculum. PBL is a teaching method where students explore real-world problems and challenges encountered by local businesses and determine solutions, then sharing their information with the organizations studied.

“All the public schools are phenomenal, but for some, they don’t work,” said Jennifer Hunter, proposed principal of the Bridges school. “Project-Based Learning is the heart of everything we want to do. It gets the students involved with the community.”

Jacob Kaaekuahiwi, chief strategy and development officer for Bridges, had a response to MUSD’s concerns about the financial structure.

“I’ve heard so much about what’s good for the adults,’ he said. “We focus on what’s good for the students. I expressed this to Marc Bommarito. His response was, ‘This is strictly a business decision.’ ”

MUSD supporters are not opposed to the Bridges proposal because of the Project-Based Learning Curriculum. MUSD offers that as well at Harvest Hill STEAM Academy, and Hans Christensen Middle School will become a PBL school when it transitions to a TK-8 school next year. But their comments criticizing the Bridges financial plan and Propel with words such as “crooks, land barons, criminals” and “picking pockets” did not sit well with RCOE board members.

“We should not pass judgment on people, and I didn’t appreciate the attack on public school educators with some of the words I heard,” said Jamie Azpeitia-Sachs. “To suggest that they have some kind of agenda like that is disgusting.”

Cousins did have other questions for the Bridges representatives, asking that they submit verification that the “parents” they claimed to have spoken for were real people and residents of Menifee. Board members were also concerned that Bridges has no “step and column” salary increase structure for teachers.

Both sides will now wait nearly a month for the RCOE board’s decision.