Cape’s municipal school system looks to flatten enrollment to stay fiscally sound
Oasis Charter Schools will address enrollment as the best route to go to stay within its budget while accommodating a total of 950 students — the max — at the high school.
At the end of Growth and Expansion Core Group Report Tuesday, Superintendent Jacquelin Collins said controlling the enrollment is the best route to go for the charter system.
Reduction of enrollment can be done over the course of two years, which would allow the municipal charter school system to live within its current means.
“We came up with appropriate class sizes that would guarantee enrollment of 950 students at the high school, which is capacity at the high school,” Collins said.
She said they are looking at maintaining 145 students per grade at Oasis Elementary South, 135 at Oasis Elementary North, 270 students at Oasis Middle School and approximately 237 students at Oasis High School.
“We are not far off the mark at elementary levels. Approximately 145 students per grade level. We are averaging about that already. Enrollment at Oasis South and North would not need to change at all,” Collins said. “Some grade levels are slightly over. We can control that very easily. We can manipulate those grade level enrollment goals on the wait list and stay steady.”
The sixth-grade class size is very large, but can be managed by not backfilling seats when students leave.
“By not filling seats and trying to maintain around the 270 mark, it will be just fine as they enter into high school as ninth graders,” Collins said.
The same thing can be done for the freshman class – by not backfilling seats.
“We can maintain easily into the future for the next five years at these enrollment levels. If we do get down to enrollment levels, we can pull from the wait list,” Collins said.
“We can maintain easily into the future for the next five years at these enrollment levels.”
Among the items she went into further discussion about that were not viable were Schools of Hope, a hybrid and virtual model, addition of portables, and brick-and-mortar expansion.
The virtual model would be a separate school under the Oasis name that would operate differently.
Collins said virtual programs have a fixed infrastructure cost for teachers, learning platforms and student support services that exceed funding that charter schools bring in.
The funding is received upon completion of a course credit.
“Virtual platforms don’t receive categorical allocations,” Collins said, adding that the virtual funding is about $6,000 to $8,000 per pupil. “Virtual funding can be full- or part-time. Virtual funding is based on student instructional time and not attendance or student count.”
For Oasis students, she said students want to learn in person with a small majority of students that want to go virtual.
“We found that a virtual model is not a viable option for us. You would have to find a place to house teachers, counselors, and admin and that is a whole other expense,” she said.
About a year ago, the city researched the hybrid model through the House of Representatives with House Bill 871. She said with the hybrid, and brick-and-mortar option they would not have to hire additional staff, as the system could use its own teachers and run it through Google platform.
“It could potentially fill our need. What we found was funding was very complicated for the State of Florida. If we enacted this bill, it would be open to all charter school providers and operators,” she said. “The senior policy writer did not want to pursue that option at the time. When you expand it to everyone else the complexity was not something to address at the time.”
Additional portable classrooms was another route the system did not want to take as it would be about $500,000 for 50 extra students at the high school.
“They are temporary, not permanent,” Collins said. “Temporary is just that – there for a couple of years and then you have to look at a whole other permanent option.”
The brick-and-mortar expansion also was determined to be a non-viable option, as new buildings are averaging between $500-$600 per square foot.
“We need total building space of 8,000 square feet. If you use the funding formula, we are looking at $4-$5 million – a very high-level estimate,” Collins said. “We are not financially at a point to talk about that.”
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