Last issue, we told you the twisty story of VLT Academy – a charter school in the Cincinnati area that ended up closing for good before the 2014-15 school year. The saga included unprecedented efforts by the Ohio Department of Education to rein in poor authorization practices, a court challenge, a last-minute stay, and parents left scrambling for schools for their children just days before the school year began.
That chapter of the story ended with a new charter school – Hope4Change Academy—setting up a tent outside the locked doors of VLT, looking to sign up families for their school, even though their own sponsor contract was in question and it was entirely possible they wouldn’t open either.
Fast-forward. Ten days later.
The Ohio Department of Education referred the top two leaders of the Portage County Education Service Center for investigation, saying the agency attempted, as sponsor, to open Hope4Change despite being warned not to due to unsatisfactory vetting procedures. Officials of both entities have since traded barbs in the media, indicating yet another chapter to come.
The heart of the matter is that bad charter school authorization practices must end, or parents and students somewhere else—just like those in Cincinnati—will end up scrambling to find quality schools under pressure when their own are shuttered.
