Dear APA Families,
You will probably hear news that tonight the Utah State Board of Education (USBE) voted to impose a 2.8 million dollar penalty against APA due to its belief that our spending of these dollars on our Paraeducators was not an allowable use of special education funds.
We strongly disagree with the USBE on this. Our special education program is innovative and successful. Our students score, on average, above other special education students in the state. Our parents love our program because we don’t stigmatize students by pushing them into special education “rooms” where they are separated out from their peers. We know this is best for our students and we are committed to doing what is best for them.
I believe our governing board will decide to appeal this decision and we will have a period of time to put together our opposition to this decision. We hope many of you will be willing to help us as we find ways that parents can use their voices to object to this governmental overreach that will harm kids.
It is important to tell you that we have an agreement with the USBE that we can pay back the funds over 10 years. This means we would pay a maximum of $280,000 per year. Our schools’ annual budget is about 45 million dollars, so we are not overly concerned about the payments from a financial perspective.
But we are VERY concerned about them from a principled perspective. These funds were spent to serve special education students. Even the state auditors do not claim that they were not. So , we should not be “paying them back”. Requiring us to do so will make less resources available to current students at APA. What possible good can come from that?
We have great concerns that our state education leaders are behind the times, out of touch, and SOME ARE prejudiced against our school (and all charter schools). This is something we have ample evidence of, and this penalty just makes it more clear. We will continue to fight for our school, and for all charter schools, to be able to innovate and be different without being punished.
Thank you for all your support. Please reach out to me if you would like to help in our appeal, and/or if you have insights or thoughts that may help us in this fight.
Cordially,
Carolyn Sharette
Executive Director
Cell: 801-808-3933