New head of state’s troubled first charter school insists turnaround underway

Dr. Linda Whitehead has faced plenty of challenges throughout her education career, but she’s never tackled anything like the storm she encountered when she took over as head of the state’s first charter school just several weeks ago.

Whitehead was officially named executive director of Seattle’s First Place Scholars school on Dec. 9 after taking over in late November as de-facto principal amid turmoil that resulted in it being placed on probation by the Washington State Charter School Commission.

“I’ve been here every day from early morning until late at night. I’ve been before the commission. I’ve been making changes every day,” said the former superintendent of the Marysville School District.

The commission determined the school had failed to fulfill a number of requirements including not keeping the commission informed of school board actions and changes, not properly providing special education, and failing to ensure all staff members had completed a mandatory criminal background check.

Whitehead admits the school has struggled to fulfill all of the requirements since converting from a private to publicly-funded charter this school year, and has had a number of problems from record keeping to making sure the school had a consistent schedule.

But despite the probation and turmoil that saw the school lose its principal, a number of board members and special education consultant, she insists the situation is not as dire as it seems.

“We had to clean up the compliance issues, I understand that 100 percent. Moving forward, we will remain in compliance. We are going to develop and implement procedures and practices that are going to keep us out of the papers,” she said.

While the school has come under intense scrutiny as the state’s first charter, Whitehead said most don’t understand the challenges it faces. First Place had operated for 25 years as a small, private school serving the poorest of the poor in Seattle’s Central District.

“Every one of our students is on free and reduced lunch. We have students that are homeless, we have students that are in shelters, we have students whose parents have domestic issues so they have protective custody,” she said.

The school does more than just teach kids. It provides a vast array of services from housing and mental health care to food and clothing.

While the school was placed on probation Tuesday, Whitehead says she’s already corrected a number of issues and sent the corrections back to the commission for their review.

Among them is the hiring of a special education teacher who will start in January.

“I want to be 100 percent transparent. We have not had a qualified special ed teacher. We have support staff that comes in. We have a mental health counselor that comes in, we have a school psychologist, we offer speech therapy, we offer occupational therapy, and we have a nurse. We have two case managers. So now we will be totally in compliance.”

Whitehead says she has also taken steps to address safety concerns, implementing background checks for the remaining staff members who have not yet been approved, and placing other staff members in the classroom with them so those who have not been fully vetted are no longer left alone with students in the K-5 school.

“Safety is of paramount importance to us. We are on it,” she insists.

Whitehead says she has also implemented a new school safety plan for handling emergencies such as fires and earthquakes, and is partnering with the Seattle Police Department and Seattle Fire Department to ensure full compliance.

Commission staff plan to make frequent visits to First Place to make sure they are in compliance, and the school will remain on probation until at least the first month of the next school year.

“I’m hopeful that First Place will fulfill their obligations,” Commission executive director Joshua Halsey said.

Whitehead insists the school will, even though it likely means long hours and sleepless nights for her and the staff who remain dedicated to their primary mission, serve the kids who would otherwise get left behind.

“These are the kids who fall through the cracks. We are committed to them. We have tried to remove them from all of this. We have been here every day being very positive and going on with our day of educating our children,” she said.