Doing the math on WCACS

 We got an enrollment update from the Telegram and Gazette today on Worcester Cultural Academy Charter School, which misses why enrollment matters, so I did some math on Twitter. I'm replicating that here in case Twitter implodes. 

Schools in Massachusetts are funded according to the foundation budget formula, and in Worcester, that is really about all we're funded at. This has the convenience of making the math pretty straightforward. 

• 133 kids K-4. There's a slight difference in the foundation rates for K and 1-5, but let's use the round number of $9500 per student for FY24.
  133 * 9500= $1,263,500
  
  
• 5.5% of their kids are English learners. That's 6.65 kids (Yeah, I don't know, either). We'll round up to 7.The foundation rate increment for K-5 EL is $2,724.17.
  7 * 2,724.17= $19,069.19
  
  
• Charters only carry in district sped, which is an assumed 3.9% of enrollment this year, so that's 5.187 kids for them.
  That rate is $30,771.12 for FY24, so that's an additional $153,855.6

• For the sake of argument, let's pretend that every single last one of their kids is considered low income. There's no way that's the case, but let's run with it. That's the highest low income group (80+%), which is $7,575.55 for FY24.
  133* 7,575.55 = $1,007,548.15
  
  
• They've have a smidge more from the towns for the 15 students who come from places other than Worcester that fund over foundation. I am leaving that out, but let's realize that it is NOT a lot of money we're talking about. 
  
  
• Charter schools get an additional facilities allocation of $1088 per pupil.
  133 * 1088 = $144,704
  
  

The total? $2,588,676.94

Their budget is $4M for this year, of which $250,000 is coming from a grant. They don't have it.

And, look, here's why this matters: not because we told you so, although we did.
Because far and away the largest cost center for schools is staff. 

Not enough money? Many fewer staff.

As it was, we in WPS didn't think they had adequate staffing for this school. We *know* their salary estimates don't pan out. 

That creates a situation that really not great for their students, which at the end of the day is what matters about this.