Earlier this year, state lawmakers advanced bills aimed at helping districts root out charter school applicants with a history of operating schools that struggle academically or financially.
While those bills didn’t survive this year’s regular legislative session, one of their ideas might find new life in a rule change set to come before the state Board of Education when it meets next week in Tampa.
The change would add some new forms to the state’s model charter application. Anyone applying to open a charter school, plus any management company they intend to hire, and the members of the school’s governing board, would have to disclose three years of history, including:
- What schools they’ve operated in the past.
- What percentage of their students qualified for free and reduced-price lunch.
- Their school’s state letter grade or school improvement.
- Their schools’ fund balances at the end of the year.
- Whether state auditors found any financial problems in their most recent reports.
The state board’s meeting materials note the changes “would make it easier for charter school sponsors to assess an applicant’s history of operating schools, as well as that of a governing board and management company.”
Amid the controversy over shuttered charter schools, some charter school advocates have maintained state law already gives school districts the authority to raise these questions. From time to time, school boards do reject schools based on their operators’ histories.
This year’s legislation was aimed at clarifying the situation, by requiring would-be charter operators to disclose information about other school’s they’ve been involved with.
