More of the same
Transportation difficulties for charter school students in central Ohio persist months into the school year. Several charter school leaders took their complaints to the elected board of Columbus City Schools this week in an effort to try and find some help.
Celebrating consolidation
The leaders of Mahoning Valley Community School were celebrating a $300,000 grant from their county’s commissioners this week. The dropout-recovery charter school is planning to consolidate its two older facilities into one brand new space and the award will go a long way toward helping them realize that dream.
In the courts
Seven Georgia charter schools won a court case recently in which they argued that the DeKalb County School District underfunded them for the last six years. This includes a share of federal funds for special needs students and teacher development, a share of state austerity funds, and administrative fees which the district withheld without, the schools argued, providing actual administrative services. A jury will now determine how much money schools will be awarded; their original claims amounted to more than $10 million.
On the stump
Both of New York’s candidates for governor expressed support for increasing the number of charter schools in the state by lifting the existing cap on schools in New York City. Despite this positive turn of events, the New York Sun reminds its readers that there are legislative moves afoot that would likely make the cap irrelevant by changing the way charter requests are approved.
The view from Chicago
The Illinois Network of Charter Schools recently released a report looking at four charter school systems in Chicago that have implemented innovative efforts to address gun violence in the city. The schools, they say, leverage their “flexibility and autonomy” to reduce the impact of gun violence on their students, and the report details a number of the best practices developed.
The connections between districts and charters
Fordham’s Mike Petrilli published a blog this week discussing why so many charter schools stayed closed for in-person learning for so long during the last three pandemic-disrupted years when he is convinced that teachers unions are the reason that district schools did so. His hypotheses as to the interplay at work are worth a look.
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