Northgate High Principal Says Charter Will Hurt His School

In an email to the community, principal John McMorris wrote that people affiliated with his school should show their opposition to Clayton Valley's charter proposal.

McMorris wrote that converting to a charter school will negatively impact the students at Northgate High. In the email, McMorris gave two reasons why the charter should be opposed:

1. Funding the charter school will require MDUSD to take up to $90 per pupil out of each school in the district to pay for the charter. This is the rough equivalent of 10 sections at Northgate High or two teachers.
2. If Clayton Valley becomes a charter school, the criteria for dismissing teachers is far less cumbersome than in a non-charter school. This means teachers with tenure who do not want to stay at the charter or whom the charter school may not want to keep will have priority rights to move to Northgate.

"I will have no say in this process and we could lose some great young teachers who I have had the good fortune to hire in the past couple of years," McMorris said in his email.

McMorris went on in his email to encourage Northgate High supporters to show their displeasure on the issue:

"I desperately ask you to contact our board members via e-mail today or tomorrow, or attend the board meeting tomorrow night and let the board know how you feel about this issue; our board must vote this down unless they can show it will not have a negative impact on the students at Northgate High School."

McMorris' opposition is significant, considering there's been little vocal opposition to the charter. The proposed conversion has received unanimous support from Clayton City Council and, most notably, , who is a leader on education issues in Washington.

Clayton Mayor David Shuey, , strongly disagreed with McMorris' statement.

In his own email sent to MDUSD staff, board members and the media, Shuey wrote, "Given that Mr. McMorris has his facts wrong about (the district's) ability to consider the financial impact on Northgate, I would suggest that (the district) have him send out a retraction immediately."

The relationship between the Clayton Valley charter select committee and the MDUSD has quickly soured, after there appeared to be some common ground reached in closed door discussions as recently as last week.

But the relationship started to deteriorate over the weekend, when the MDUSD posted an update on its website laying out why it believes the coversion would hurt students district-wide.

The select committee fired back, writing in their own statement on Saturday they were "shocked and disappointed" by the MDUSD's release.

Clayton Valley's charter proposal is on tonight's MDUSD's agenda and charter supporters hope the board will make a final decision at its Oct. 25 meeting.