A Boom for D.C. Charter Schools

· KIPP DC public charter school, which is an affiliate of a national group and leases space for its middle school campuses in Anacostia, Navy Yard and Shaw, is preparing to construct its first building, in Marshall Heights, in Southeast, for middle and elementary students.

· Capital City Public Charter School in Columbia Heights and the SEED School of Washington in Marshall Heights are proposing to build second campuses to accommodate hundreds of students on waiting lists. Capital City, with students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, plans a high school. SEED would replicate its boarding school, which houses mainly low-income students in grades 7-12, with a campus that would include sixth grade.

· E.L. Haynes Public Charter School broke ground in March on an $18 million campus in Columbia Heights, $13 million of it financed through Bank of America.

· Friendship is doubling the size of its Congress Heights elementary campus by adding 16 classrooms, a technology lab, a gym, a library and a larger cafeteria. Over the next three years, Friendship expects to open a 600-student technology high school and a 1,100-student school with a Spanish-immersion program enrolling students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

"Charter schools were considered something you laughed at -- no one presumed they would have any impact at all," said Hense, whose school in Woodridge, in Northeast, with pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, was among the few D.C. charter campuses to meet academic targets last year. "Now we are a force to be reckoned with."

Public and private money for charter expansion has flowed through several local agencies, including Building Hope and three programs in the city's State Education Office.

Building Hope, a nonprofit organization working with 11 D.C. charter schools, opened in 2003 with a $28 million investment from Sallie Mae, the student loan giant, and $2 million from the federal government. The group, which offers its services at no cost, acts as a real estate agent in finding sites for campuses. It also puts up the deposit to secure property, offers advice on financing and provides loans to cover up to 20 percent of the purchase price.

Congress and the D.C. Council have been pressing the D.C. Board of Education to close under-enrolled schools and lease them to charter schools. The idea is to get charter schools out of expensive commercial leases -- some as high as $50,000 a month -- and to provide steady income to the cash-strapped school system. But even though the system requested proposals from charter schools interested in five schools closed in June, officials have not made any of them available for short- or long-term leasing. Instead, one building will be used for administrative offices, and another will provide space for students who attend a school that will be remodeled. The city has proposed converting the other three closed schools into housing.

So charter schools such as KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) and E.L. Haynes are spending public money to purchase private land, which is then taken off the tax rolls, said Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund, an organization that is doing research on the charter building boom for the State Education Office.