The
California Network of Educational Charters
CODE OF ETHICS
Adopted by the CANEC Board of Directors,
June 25, 1999
Introduction
Charter
schools are a structural reform that redesigns the way schools organize
themselves. The rationale for charters is that by freeing schools
from the bureaucratic constraints imposed by the education code
and in some charter schools collective bargaining, they will be
able to provide improved educational opportunities for children.
In exchange for this flexibility, charter schools accept significantly
higher levels of accountability.
Charter schools may be formed by a group of educators, parents,
and/or community members. Charters are fully public schools and
may not discriminate or charge tuition. Due to the variety of pedagogical
approaches, visions, student populations, and organizational designs,
each charter school is uniquely varied and complex. Still, their
exists a common bond of improving educational opportunities for
California's children that unites us. This statement of ethics outlines
that bond, but does not limit it. Each charter school is encouraged
to use its energies and talents to build upon this statement and
create an educational environment that allows each child to flourish.
We
Are Responsible to Our Students & Their Families
In
education, the primary responsibility of adults associated with
the charter school is to their students. Where there exists a conflict
of interest, the children must come first. The adults at the charter
school must do everything within their power to protect students'
physical, social, and psychological welfare, guide students' academic
progress and to honor their dignity and privacy.
We
Are Responsible to Our Employees
Along with parents, a school's teachers, support
staff, and administration are the backbone of the school. Employment
at a charter school requires competence, risktaking, integrity,
tenacity, collaboration, and considerable commitment. It is therefore
critical that staff members be treated with respect and fairness,
and that their efforts and achievements be recognized and rewarded.
We
Are Responsible to Our Community
Charter
schools bear a special responsibility to their communities. As with
all public schools, charters are entrusted with the public funds.
We have a fiduciary responsibility to our community to use those
funds wisely, carefully, and always in the best interests of our
students. Charter schools are responsible to the public: To them
we owe a commitment to candor about our successes and our areas
in which we need to improve.
We
Are Responsible to Ourselves
By
dint of their experiences in this education reform, those in charter
schools often have unique insights about the state of education
in general, and charter schools in particular. This knowledge may
provide entree into policy arenas where difficulties abound. At
times, charter practitioners may find themselves in roles as political
advisers, expert witnesses, consultants, legislative witnesses,
journalist commentators, and may find themselves facing a choice
of priorities between professionalism and partisanship. They may
want to prepare themselves by seeking advice from other experienced
professionals. As charter practitioners, they must be sensitive
to the complexities of the charter landscape, the diversity among
charter schools, and the limits as well as the strengths of their
own points of view and experiences. In such situations, charter
practitioners must move with great care and should be prepared to
explain their assumptions and biases and be ready to discuss alternative
interpretations of the subjects being addressed.
Conclusion
In
the final analysis, charter schools are a fundamentally a human
undertaking to improve the lives and opportunities of children.
How we go about that undertaking is dependent upon choices for which
each individual bears ethical, as well as professional, responsibility.
That responsibility is a human, not superhuman responsibility. To
err is human, to forgive humane. This statement of principles of
professional responsibility is not designed to punish, but to provide
guidelines which can minimize the occasions upon which there is
a need to forgive. When charter school practitioners, by their actions,
jeopardize students, colleagues, their charter school, the larger
charter community, or the sponsoring agency, or if they otherwise
betray their professional commitments, their colleagues may legitimately
inquire into the propriety of those actions, and take such measures
as lie within the legitimate powers of their Association as the
membership of CANEC deems appropriate.
Credits
A
few parts were adapted from ethics statements by the Council of
the American Anthropological Association and the American Historical
Association (Source: Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions
Library)
