This article was originally published in Nevada Current.
Charter schools in Nevada are clamoring for access to the millions of dollars in funding now available to support capital projects such as purchasing or expanding school buildings.
The Nevada Facilities Fund is a $100 million revolving loan facility established by the State Infrastructure Bank to provide long-term, low-cost facilities financing to charter schools serving under-resourced communities. Although the fund officially launched in October, the fund’s numerous partners held an event this week to celebrate the fund and highlight several charter schools expected to benefit from the fund.
Among them is Futuro Academy, a K-5 charter school in East Las Vegas that plans to purchase the space it currently leases. Futuro CEO Ignacio Prado said that just as it typically makes more sense for an individual to buy their home rather than rent, schools have more long-term financial security when they own a home.
Get stories like this straight to your inbox. Sign up for the 74 newsletter
The Nevada Facilities Fund (NVFF) received $15 million in public funding approved by the State Infrastructure Bank in early 2022, $80 million from national donors through the Equitable Facilities Fund, and $5 million from local philanthropists. The fund will also leverage a $12 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education awarded to Opportunity 180.
Opportunity 180 and Equitable Facilities Fund will investigate and assist charter schools with access to the NVFF. Leaders of these organizations say charter schools will save an average of $150,000 annually.
Those savings will translate into more money spent in the classroom, said Jana Wilcox Lavin, CEO of Opportunity 180. Some charter schools spend up to a quarter of the base per-student dollars they receive from the state on facilities.
Prado said Futuro could use their savings to boost special education services, support teachers or reduce class sizes.
Charter schools are not currently eligible for dedicated facilities funding, which is generated at the county level through property taxes and provided to traditional school districts. They also cannot use government bonds to finance new buildings as traditional school districts typically do.
By 2028, the NVFF plans to fund ten projects that will support 7,500 new school seats. Because the funds awarded are loans, they must flow back to the NVFF to support more projects in perpetuity.
Only schools serving historically underrepresented populations are eligible for funding. Wilcox Lavin says this means the money will be awarded primarily to charter schools already operating in Nevada, rather than to proposed charter schools looking to open.
Beacon Academy Executive Director Tambre Tondryk said the Southern Nevada charter school, which enrolls credit-deprived students who are at high risk of not graduating, is working to access the NVFF to assist with the purchase of their existing Spring Valley campus , where the lease expires next summer, or for a new location and relocation.
The second option is attractive because, like many charter schools, Beacon’s Spring Valley campus adapted an existing space that was not originally intended as a school. (In their case, it was previously an office building.) A new space could give them “the feel” of a more traditional school, which is important for students and staff.
Tondryk said lenders turned down Beacon when they were working on a location for their east side campus because the school appears to be severely underperforming compared to traditional school metrics, such as graduation rates. In Nevada, Beacon is approved and evaluated by the State Public Charter School Authority under an alternative framework that recognizes that they serve a unique population.
“We weren’t able to get lenders to understand it,” she added, but the NVFF will “make this time so much easier.”
Another school working on a project with NVFF is the Mariposa Language and Learning Academy. The Reno charter school, whose enrollment is almost exclusively minority students, plans to purchase a new building that will allow them to expand from their current 162 students to 300 students.
Praise for public-private partnership
Nevada Facilities Fund’s national partner, Equitable Facilities Fund, has provided more than $1 billion in capital to charter schools across the country since 2018. In 2022, EFF launched the Texas Equitable Facilities Fund, which is funded exclusively with philanthropic dollars.
That makes the Nevada fund unique, says Anand Kesavan, CEO of the Equitable Facilities Fund.
Gov. Joe Lombardo, who briefly attended the NVFF event, spoke to the crowd of school leaders, elected officials and donors about the potential of public-private partnerships and suggested more should be considered. He said it was “unfair” that it had taken so long to get to this point.
Proposals related to K-12 education and charter schools are typically “a battle” in the Legislature, he added. Democrats have been reluctant to support the rapid expansion of charter and private schools, arguing that the state should focus on improving its traditional public school districts.
The Republican governor, who took office about a year after the State Infrastructure Bank proposed setting aside $15 million for “charter school capital needs,” praised Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine, a Democrat, for “going out there” and the facilities. fund.
For his part, Conine acknowledged the reservations some of his Democratic colleagues have about charter schools, but said the facilities fund is “not a gamble” but simply “a good thing.”
“It may not be the most popular thing in some of the circles I’m in,” he added, “but it’s the right thing to do.”
Futuro Academy’s Prado says he believes the launch of the NVFF could serve as “a turning point” that marks a turning point where the state sees the benefits of helping charter schools, especially those that want to locate in the urban core or to expand.
He added: “I think we’ll look back and see that this was the catalyst we needed.”
The State Infrastructure Bank of Nevada was created by the Legislature in 2017 but remained unfunded until 2021. That year, lawmakers approved $75 million in general obligation bonds to the bank, which would be used for charter schools, affordable housing projects and other “social good” projects. who would otherwise not be able to obtain financing.
The State Infrastructure Bank, which Conine chairs, is expected to receive an update on the Nevada Facilities Fund at its next meeting, scheduled for Tuesday.
Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. If you have any questions, please contact editor Hugh Jackson: info@nevadacurrent.com. Follow Nevada Current on Facebook and Tweet.
