BARRY NOREEN: Charters join crowd, divert funds to athletics

   If you can't beat them, become one of them.

   That's one way of looking at area charter schools that have developed athletic programs. The original rationale for charter schools was that they would be a place where the curriculum could be focused differently, a place where teachers could try innovative approaches.

   Despite opposition from the education establishment, much of mainstream America said, "Yeah, let's try it, why not?"

   From the beginning, charter school students have been able to take advantage of programs offered at the "traditional" high schools, including athletics, while maintaining their image as alternative institutions.

   Now that's changing.

   By adding football and cheerleading, aren't charter schools coming a little closer to looking like everything charter school backers warned us about in the first place?

   Jim Griffn, president of the Colorado League of Charter Schools, acknowledged that when the charter school movement began, adding that athletics was "not a major part of anybody's grand scheme of things."

   It's clear that some charter schools can't make it on the original concept of concentrating on a focused curriculum. Dina Fuqua, athletic director for The Vanguard School in Cheyenne Mountain School District 12, told the Gazette: "We wouldn't be able to attract students or sustain the high school without offering activities."

   "One of the keys to any successful charter school is having a strong, positive school culture," Griffin said. "Things like athletics contribute to that culture of the school."

   That is very true, but it's not unique to charter schools. It's true of every high school.

   CIVA charter school in Colorado Springs School District 11 has embarked on a $50,000 athletic program. All CIVA students are eligible to compete in sports at D-11 high schools, and before CIVA offcials decided to divert $50,000 from academics to athletics, CIVA students did just that - at no cost to CIVA.

   District 11 once had five high school athletic programs; now it has six, without any growth in overall enrollment. Other school districts are doing the same thing.

   The fiscal soundness of that is in the eye of the beholder.

   Griffin defended it: "I don't know what the number is that can support a football program." Then he added, facetiously, "Maybe District 11 should have just one football program across the whole school district instead of six. That would save money."

   Lisa Mieritz, a real estate broker, D-11 gadfly and charter school critic, said allowing charter school athletic programs "does nothing but duplicate costs. With virtually all of the charters, we capitulate. It is such a staggering waste of taxpayer dollars."

   The harshest critics say charter schools represent the resegregation of America. But it's not just white people who are starting charter schools, which have become quite popular with racial and ethnic minority groups.

   Still, we shouldn't get too carried away with feverish talk about resegregation running amok. Only about 56,000 Colorado students, or about 7 percent, go to charter schools.

   But these charter schools adopting such mainstream extras as athletics, well, that may take some getting used to.

   As Griffin put it, "A charter school with athletics has a different feel to it."

   Yeah. It feels a little more expensive. 

   Contact Noreen at 636-0363 or noreen@gazette.com. He appears every other Friday on KOAA's Comcast Channel 9 at 4 p.m.