Chris Daly

While charter schools like the two scheduled to open in Chattanooga this year are technically public schools, their founders say the unique way they operate illustrates the pros and cons of autonomy.

While both Ivy Academy and the Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy will receive about $6,700 of state funding per pupil like other local public schools, the charters are responsible for many operational costs normally covered by a school's district, in this case, the Hamilton County Department of Education.

In preparing the budget this year for Hamilton County Schools, Chief Financial Officer Tommy Kranz estimated that the district would lose about $1.3 million due to per-pupil money from the state that would follow students from their traditional public school to the charters.

Most students at charter schools in Tennessee are low-performing public school students or those from low-performing schools, but home-schooled students and those from private schools also are eligible to enroll.

Both the charters must provide their own transportation, textbooks, facilities, maintenance and teacher salaries and benefits.

"We have a lot more autonomy in the approach that we take," said Shawn McKay, business manager for the Leadership Academy. "While we're still responsible for our charter agreement with the local (school system), we can take a different approach."

But while they're on their own in most categories, the charters also have more flexibility in how they spend their money, a good deal of which is raised from outside sources.

For instance, Ivy Academy has decided that, instead of setting aside money to pay substitute teachers, all its administrative staff also are teachers and can fill in when needed. The school also is spending less money on textbooks because students will be using laptops, and teachers will mostly create their own curriculum.

In keeping with their environmental theme, Ivy administrators also chose to operate their indoor classes from portable buildings, which they say are cheaper to operate and leave a smaller environmental "footprint."

"Our whole model is environmental sustainability ... if you look at utility costs of big buildings in Hamilton County, our maintenance costs will be low," said Chris Daly, president of Ivy's board. "Charter schools are supposed to be laboratories of innovation, and we can do this less expensively than big systems and big schools. If something doesn't feed our mission, we try not to spend the money on it."

While Ivy officials said they will focus on fundraising more once the school is up and running, the all-girls charter school plans to operate its first year on nearly 50 percent outside funding from individuals, grants and foundations, its officials said.

About 47 percent of the school's $1.5 million first-year budget is from donations, the largest of which so far is $250,000, officials said.

Mr. McKay said the Young Women's Leadership Academy Foundation, the fundraising arm of the school, will continue aggressively pursuing additional revenue in future years.

"There's just no other way to do it because we're doubling in size every year," he said, referring to the school's growth plan to add a middle and high school grade each year until grades 6-12 are full. "We do have some very good benefactors, good community support."

The biggest operating difference for charter schools is their scale, said Rachel Woods, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Education. If a charter has only 10 students who are English Language Learners, it might be difficult for the school to provide an ELL teacher, whereas that cost would be minimal for a large district.

"Once you're up and running it's easier, but the start-up side to get all the bells and whistles you want, it's going to cost you," she said.