American YouthWorks charter school for at risk youth recently has laid off 13 staffers

"Because about a third of the school's $7 million
budget comes through the state and those funds are
tied to attendance, unexpected shortfalls can affect
the bottom line. " Read on. -Angela

American YouthWorks charter school for at risk youth
recently has laid off 13 staffers.

By Laura Heinauer

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF


Thursday, April 26, 2007

An Austin charter school for at-risk youth recently
laid off nearly 15 percent of its staff because of
lower than expected student attendance rates that
affected the amount of money it received from the
state, school officials said.

American YouthWorks, which operates two campuses and
enrolls more than 400 students in its charter school
program, eliminated administrative and teaching
positions, reducing the overall staff from 88 to 75,
said Jennifer Schell, director of development for the
school.

American Youth Works

School officials said that the cuts were made across
the board but that they won't affect the number of
students they will be able to serve or the kinds of
services they provide. Students can attend classes on
a flexible schedule, and the student-to-teacher ratio
is approximately 18-to-1.

"They are not lacking for anything," Schell said. "We
are still actively recruiting students and are in a
good place as far as staffing goes."

The school, which opened in 1996 as one of the first
open-enrollment charter schools in the state, operates
with funds from the state, government grants and
individual and corporate gifts.

In addition to the charter school, where students 16
and older can earn a diploma or GED, American
YouthWorks offers job training programs, including an
affordable green housing and park and trail
revitalization programs.

Schell said several factors, including having a high
percentage of economically disadvantaged and homeless
students, make it difficult to accurately predict
attendance.

Because about a third of the school's $7 million
budget comes through the state and those funds are
tied to attendance, unexpected shortfalls can affect
the bottom line.

"When you're dealing with at-risk youth, they are not
the best at coming to school consistently," Schell
said. "With a decline in attendance, we therefore
began to lose funding, so we had to put our expenses
in line with our revenue."

Debbie Graves Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman with the Texas
Education Agency, said that differences in actual and
estimated attendance are not uncommon and that the
agency will make up the difference the following year.


This year, in addition to the American YouthWorks's
estimated attendance rates dropping over the course of
the year, the state had to recoup about $60,000 to
make up for lower than expected attendance rate from
the previous year, Graves said.

That put the state's lowest monthly payment to the
school at $163,012, compared with $234,061 at the
highest point.

"It's a hard thing to do, but it's probably a
reasonable thing to do on their part," Ratcliffe said,
adding that she wasn't surprised that staffing levels
were affected.

"For any school, payroll is the biggest expense," she
said. "It's bad for these employees, but it's a good
sign that the school has acted quickly to get this
under control."

To avoid future cutbacks as a result of low
attendance, the schools' recruiters will need to make
sure they're enrolling students who can commit to
attending classes, Schell said.

"We're trying to make sure we are making our
expectations clear to the students so that they know,
'Oh, I'm expected to come to school,' " she said.

lheinauer@statesman.com

445-3694


http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/26/26youthworks.html