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  • LAUSD considers limiting charter co-locations on vulnerable campuses

    LAUSD considers limiting charter co-locations on vulnerable campuses


    Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource

    The Los Angeles Unified School District school board drew a mix of gratitude and frustration from communities throughout the region during its discussion of a policy that prevents charter schools from sharing a campus with its 100 priority schools, Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP) schools and community schools. The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), along with charter supporters, said the board policy was discriminatory and threatened lawsuits against the district. 

    Borrowing from a previous resolution, the proposed new policy encourages the district to avoid co-location offers that “compromise district schools’ capacity to serve neighborhood children” and that “result in grade span arrangements that negatively impact student safety and build charter school pipelines that actively deter students from attending District schools.” 

    The policy would come into play when the district evaluates new charter schools, when charters request different or new sites or when “existing conditions change for reasons including, but not limited to, insufficient space, addition of grade levels, and other material revisions.”

    LAUSD’s school board directed Superintendent Alberto Carvalho to develop such a policy through a resolution passed last September, and the board is slated to vote on it in February. 

    The goal of the resolution, according to board President and resolution author Jackie Goldberg, is not to undo anything — but instead, to prioritize the needs of district students who are more vulnerable. She cited hostility on campuses and challenges with sharing spaces, including those used for enrichment activities and basic needs support. 

    “We’re on the right path to get past, shall we say, discomforts and disagreements on what it means to have a charter school on a campus,” said school board member George McKenna during Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole Meeting. 

    “Everyone may not be satisfied all the time, but I think the guidelines are a great opportunity.”

    Charter supporters, however, have claimed that the policy discriminates against roughly 11,000 charter students by closing off roughly 346 district campuses. These restrictions, they say, could lead to more school closures and instances where schools are split between various locations — leading to longer commutes and accessibility issues for disadvantaged students. 

    “If the board adopts the proposed policy presented today, CCSA will be left with few remaining options but to, yet again, meet LAUSD in court and enforce the rights of charter school students,” said the organization’s CEO and president, Myrna Castrejón. 

    Co-locations in LAUSD 

    As a result of Proposition 39 — a statewide initiative — public school districts throughout California are required to share space with charter schools. 

    While there are several ways for districts to share space with charters — such as pursuing private sites or long-term leases — LAUSD has opted for years to co-locate its campuses, meaning that both a regular public school and a charter school share one campus. 

    “What we have at play here in Los Angeles is very unusual. … We know how we got here, so we have a golden opportunity here to fix it, to make it better,” said district Superintendent Alberto Carvalho at Tuesday’s meeting. He added that the district should be “vigilant and honest about unintended consequences of well-intentioned policies.” 

    To secure a space, charters request facilities from LAUSD. The district then evaluates the request and comes back with a preliminary offer by Feb. 1 every year. 

    Charters are given a month to respond, after which the district has until April 1 to finalize the offer. 

    Currently, there are 50 co-located charters across the district spanning 52 sites. About 21 charters are located on sites that would be protected under the new policy. 

    While the proposed co-location policy has not yet been approved, several district officials said during Tuesday’s meeting that the proposed guidelines were considered when making this year’s offers. 

    And of the 13 new requests from charters this year, only two offers will likely be made on the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan, community and priority schools. Meanwhile, the district did not have an estimate on the number of charters that failed to receive an offer on their requested campus. 

    “Co-location is one of many ways to deal with the legal obligation to share space and our moral obligation to make sure kids are treated equally; and, we have a myopic focus on these co-locations, which are really difficult even in the best-case scenarios,” said school board member Nick Melvoin on Tuesday. 

    “This district, LA Unified, traditional schools, has lost a couple hundred thousand kids in 20 years. We definitely have enough space for everyone. We just don’t allocate it properly.” 

    In fact, as the district experiences declining enrollment because of larger demographic shifts — in both non-charters and charters — the number of facilities requests and co-location offers has also declined. 

    Specifically, over the past five years, Castrejón said charter schools’ need for space has gone down by more than 50%. 

    Instead of focusing on solutions, Melvoin claimed both charter supporters and opponents have attempted to “articulate the pain for political gain on one side or the other.” 

    “I remain disappointed in the unwillingness to actually try and solve this,” he said. 

    Support for the policy 

    The policy’s supporters have repeatedly emphasized that avoiding co-locations on Black Student Achievement Plan, community and priority schools is critical to promoting equity and protecting the district’s more vulnerable students. 

    “That’s not a political issue, that’s an issue of equity,” Goldberg said. 

    “An issue of equity says that the schools that are struggling the most to educate our students should not be given continuously more things to do, like figure out a bell schedule and how to share the cafeteria and how to share the playground and how to share the bathrooms. … That’s an additional burden on everybody on that school, really on both sides.” 

    Goldberg added that in order to avoid co-locations on vulnerable campuses, the district will need to reevaluate their definition of a “reasonable distance.” 

    Members of United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing district teachers, have historically sided with the district on matters concerning charters and have voiced support for September’s resolution. 

    “It’s been months since the School Board passed the resolution on co-locations, but we have schools that are in the process of losing valuable classroom and learning space. Without action, there are schools that will soon have to hold counseling sessions on the playground, or will lose their computer lab,” reads a Facebook post from the union. 

    “Enough is enough. LAUSD needs to stand by its own resolution and protect our amazing programs.”

    Yolanda Tamayo, a teachers union leader from the East Area, said during public comment that Lorena Street Elementary, where she teaches, used to be co-located with a charter. 

    During that time, 10 years ago, the school allegedly “endured the dismantling of our computer lab, lost a full-time use of our library, auditorium, eating area, yard, plus the gutting of our important resources that our school desperately needed back then and now.”

    Another speaker, who teaches at an LAUSD community school, said he fears his campus could be co-located with a charter, which he believes would cost them space used to house clothes for students in need and preclude them from opening a health center and food pantry. 

    Concerns from charters 

    Supporters of charter schools have claimed, however, that the policy discriminates against charter students and could lead to “charter deserts,” harming students from marginalized communities, who make up the bulk of charter students, according to Castrejón, the CCSA president. 

    “Charter schools do pay a fee for the use of district facilities,” Castrejón said, noting that several at-risk charters are also community schools. “The cost of going to an open market in a place that is as overbuilt and as expensive as Los Angeles could actually … result in some school closures if Prop. 39 co-location is not made available.” 

    Another potential impact of the policy is an increase in multi-site offers, where charters are split across multiple LAUSD campuses, which would force families to weigh what is feasible against what they feel is right for their children, according to Keith Dell’Aquila, CCSA Greater Los Angeles local’s vice president. 

    Dell’Aquila added that split schools also lead to longer commutes and accessibility challenges for lower-income families. 

    “You may see a charter school forcibly relocated by the district that forces a family to make a choice: Are you the type of family who can travel across Los Angeles, can travel 45 minutes, has access to private transportation to get your family to that car or not?”

    Split campuses also pose challenges for school communities, he emphasized. 

    “You start to look at a school that has to do more with less with their budget, and they’ve got to have two administrators across two different sites. They’ve got to make programs work, you’ve got to make teacher [professional development] work,” Dell’Aquila said. 

    “You have a divided school culture. We’ve talked to every one of our schools who has experienced this split site offer and have said, ‘yeah, life is harder across the board.’” 

    While they cannot fully anticipate how the policy will be implemented and its effects, CCSA sent a letter to LAUSD’s school board Monday evening addressing several of their concerns with the policy, ranging from the alleged limits placed on charter school growth to the district allegedly ignoring the intent of Proposition 39. 

    The letter also threatens legal action if the board adopts the policy. 

    “A public school policy is a promise you are making to the public,” said Shawna Draxton, who has served as an educator in both regular Los Angeles public schools and charters for more than 25 years, during public comment Tuesday. 

    “My students are watching. They admire you; they care about civics; they’ve been to these meetings. And whether or not they agree with your decisions, they are looking to you to be courageous leaders.” 

    Editors’ note: This story has been updated to add a statement from UTLA.





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  • Don Shalvey, ‘fearless’ charter school pioneer and mentor, dies at 79

    Don Shalvey, ‘fearless’ charter school pioneer and mentor, dies at 79


    Don Shalvey

    Credit: San Joaquin A+

    Don Shalvey, who created California’s first charter school in 1994 and, as an organizer, strategist and mentor, had an outsize influence on the charter movement’s growth over a quarter-century, has died.

    Shalvey succumbed Saturday to glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer that was diagnosed a year ago. He was 79 and living on the family ranch in Linden, a small town near Stockton, where for the last seven years he was CEO of San Joaquin A+, a nonprofit that underwrites charter and district early college pathways for career opportunities. He was also a longtime member of EdSource’s board of directors, returning to the board for a second time in 2021.

    “Don was a towering figure in public education with a direct influence on the opportunity of people in under-resourced communities to get a first-class education. He did it regardless of criticism or compliments because it was the right thing,” said John Deasy, former Los Angeles Unified superintendent and close friend for four decades. 

    In 1999, Shalvey founded the first multischool charter organization in California, and was its CEO for a decade: Oakland-based Aspire Public Schools is now the state’s largest charter operator, with 36 schools serving 15,000 students, the equivalent of a midsize school district.

    “He was fearless,” said Steve Barr, a political activist who started Green Dot Public Schools, the first charter school network in Los Angeles, after Shalvey emboldened and then tutored him in starting a school.  

    Don Shalvey
    Courtesy of the Gates Foundation

    Shalvey was instrumental in passing two state laws that enabled charter schools to expand. The first, in 1998, lifted the statewide cap of 100 charter schools. Two years later, Proposition 39 entitled charter schools, as tax-supported public schools, to equivalent space in district school facilities.

    In a shrewd compromise that led to the support of the California Teachers Association, Proposition 39 also lowered the supermajority needed to pass a local school facilities bond from 66% to 55%.

    Shalvey set high expectations and inspired a shared vision of what charter schools could become in high-poverty neighborhoods. Known for his variety of saddle shoes — a throwback to growing up in the ‘50s in his beloved Philadelphia — he had an encyclopedic memory of popular music and used karaoke and name-that-tune to build camaraderie at staff meetings or break the ice at conferences. Those who knew him say he was affable, persistently cheerful and unpretentious. 

    Knowing he was ill, colleagues and admirers shared remembrances over the past year through LinkedIn, chat groups and videos; others conveyed their thanks in person.  

    “Everybody wanted to make sure that he really understood how deeply grateful we are for his impact on our lives and the lives of students,” said Caprice Young, a former Los Angeles Unified board member whom Shalvey persuaded in 2003 to lead the newly formed California Charter Schools Association. She visited him earlier this month.

    Deasy said that less celebrated was Shalvey’s mentoring of thousands of people: “It was his true legacy, and Don took it seriously.” 

    Lucky charter school leaders got his cell number, knowing that from 4 to 6 p.m., he was captive to the commute from Aspire offices in Oakland to Linden. “We always knew we could ask him for advice. If you had a question about something you couldn’t figure out, he’d be there,” Young said.

    Heather Kirkpatrick, a former teacher whom Shalvey hired in 2001 to plan Aspire’s first high school, said, “Just as he has for so many people, he changed my life trajectory. There was a big feeling early at Aspire that you were along for the ride of your life,” she said. 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ428tzrON8

    When she suggested that teacher residencies might help retain teachers versed in Aspire’s teaching practices and culture, Shalvey encouraged her to start a five-year pilot program. It became a model for the state.

    Mala Batra, the current CEO at Aspire, said conversations with Shalvey profoundly affected her, too. “There isn’t a day that goes by that you are not present in our work at Aspire,” she wrote on a tribute page for him. “A ritual you created, wisdom you shared, a practice you ingrained, a mark you left, a question you posed, a song you liked, a ‘Why can’t we do it like Don?’”  

    Carrie Douglass, an early Aspire employee, recalled that Shalvey called all Aspire employees on their birthday — sometimes four and five calls a day as Aspire added school sites. “Many employees said that annual phone call got them through another year,” she wrote on a LinkedIn post.  

    Shalvey was equally committed to offering guidance and support in his volunteer efforts, including as a longtime member of EdSource’s board of directors. 

    “Don made an indelible mark on how I go about my work and how to prioritize kindness while also being passionately determined,” said Anne Vasquez, CEO of EdSource, who credits Shalvey for highlighting the need for trustworthy journalism in the rapidly growing Central Valley. “Three years ago, EdSource had zero staff based in the Central Valley. Today, we have three, including our K-12 editor.”

    ‘Purposeful test kitchens’

    Shalvey grew up an only child in Philadelphia and attended a 5,000, all-boy Catholic high school in Philadelphia and summers in the Poconos at Camp Wyomissing, first as a camper then as a counselor. It was there, he recalled, where he learned to lead. “Dad wanted me to be an engineer, and I chose not to go to MIT,” he said. “I wanted to be a teacher.”

    After graduating from La Salle College in Philadelphia, he got a job offer as a middle school math teacher in Merced in 1967. His cousins, who lived in San Francisco, said, “Sure, come stay with us, we’re right near Merced.” They were confusing Lake Merced in San Francisco for the Central Valley city 165 miles away. But Shalvey grew enamored of the Central Valley, and it became his home base for the next six decades.

    After teaching for a dozen years and serving as a principal, then an assistant superintendent in Lodi Unified, he became the superintendent of the San Carlos Elementary School District, south of San Francisco. Convinced that the state education code and inertia discouraged innovation, he established the San Carlos Charter Learning Center. He had the support of his school board and teachers, who shared his view that the charter school would serve as “purposeful test kitchens” for innovative practices in technology and multi-age instruction. It’s now the nation’s oldest operating charter school.

    “Our work was about innovating and committing to learning and sharing what we learned with teachers,” Shalvey wrote in an EdSource commentary in 2017.

    The Legislature capped the number of charter schools when it passed the state’s charter school law in 1992. The ceiling might have remained intact, even though the maximum number was reached, had Shalvey not met Reed Hastings and Barr on Sept. 17, 1997.  

    In the area to take daughter Chelsea to Stanford University, President Bill Clinton chose the San Carlos charter school to sign a bill creating a new grant program for charter schools. Barr was doing work for the event, and Hastings, in between selling a high-tech startup and starting Netflix, had extra time and was interested in charter school expansion. The two had lunch soon thereafter. They agreed on a plan for a statewide initiative to raise the charter school cap to 100 per year and gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot. Rather than spend money fighting it, CTA  agreed to legislation that included requiring credentialing requirements for charter school teachers. It also contained a provision that Hastings conceived permitting a nonprofit board of directors to oversee multiple charter schools.

    Putting his job on the line

    That authority would reshape charter schools. Aspire became California’s first charter management organization. After the first schools opened in Stockton in 1999 and then Modesto, Aspire quickly expanded to Oakland and the Bay Area, and Los Angeles; within a decade it had 21 schools.

    In an interview last year, Hastings said Shalvey risked his reputation in leading the effort to expand the number of charter schools, knowing it would be very hard to get another job as a superintendent.

    Other not-for-profit charter management organizations, known as CMOs, followed, among them San Francisco-based KIPP, Green Dot and Alliance for College Ready Public Schools in Los Angeles, Summit high schools and Rocketship elementary schools. All targeted underperforming children of low-income Black and Latino families in urban areas.

    “Don was the right leader at the right moment when leaders in Silicon Valley were looking for an alternative, and charters became the idea that you could do something differently with public education, especially for the highest-need kids,” said James Willcox, who succeeded Shalvey as Aspire’s CEO in 2009 after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recruited Shalvey to become deputy director of K-12 education.

    Wealthy donors like Hastings, Eli Broad in Los Angeles, the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation fueled the expansion of Aspire and other charter organizations by funding startup and scaling-up expenses until the schools could operate independently on state funding. Charter school growth paralleled the boom in public school enrollment in California in the early 2000s before peaking at 6.3 million in 2004-05; many district schools were already overcrowded. Then, as state enrollment declined gradually over the next 15 years, charter school enrollment increased steadily. 

    Challenging low expectations

    Shalvey would tell colleagues at Aspire that their mission was to “make a dent in the universe, one scholar at a time.”

    With the motto “College for Certain,” Aspire challenged the mindset of low expectations and replaced it with the belief that everyone would go to college. 

    “We decided that underserved kids really had to be part of a full, focused play that college was for certain for you. That’s visual, that’s cultural, that’s a series of activities,” Shalvey said. “We said everything we did had to ensure that kids were getting in, staying in and getting supported.” 

    Shalvey built a college-going culture — a novel idea in immigrant neighborhoods where most students would be the first to go to college. Each classroom had a different college banner, an idea he drew from cabins at Camp Wyomissing. Students would learn about the college, and current students or graduates would write to them about their experiences. All students had to be admitted to at least one college; in an onstage ritual, all students would exchange a letter of acceptance for an Aspire diploma at graduation. 

    In 2010, the international consulting firm McKinsey & Co. named Aspire to its list of 20 of the world’s most improved school systems. Only three U.S. systems, including Long Beach Unified, received that honor.

    A 2023 analysis by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found that Aspire was one of 22  charter organizations that significantly outperformed demographically similar students in traditional public schools in state reading and math tests.

    “We never thought we had it all figured out; we were always growing and learning,” Aspire CEO Willcox said. 

    Aspire has said that a larger percentage of its students goes on to graduate from college with either an associate or bachelor’s degree than students with similar demographics. But the figure from all graduating classes, through 2019, was only 30.5% within four years and 35.5% in six years, according to data from Aspire. 

    Last year, after surveying parents, teachers and students, Aspire changed its motto to better reflect its broader mission to prepare students to “pursue and persist in college or any post-secondary pathway”  of their choice. Instead of “College for Certain,” it is now “Empowering Minds. Transforming Futures.”

    Shalvey’s thinking evolved, too. With 70% of Central Valley high school graduates staying in the area, San Joaquin A+ focuses on developing an Early College High School model, which enables students to receive college credit while in high school and “earn as they learn” so that by age 26, “they are doing what they love and earning what they need,” Shalvey said.

    Continuing tensions with school districts

    With 1 out of 9 students in California now attending a charter school, districts often have tense relations with the charter schools that they authorize or approve over their objections. Antagonisms, especially with charter management organizations, have become more cutthroat in an era of declining student enrollments, as both districts and charter schools battle to fill classrooms.

    Shalvey acknowledged in an interview last year that the conflicts date back to the revised charter school law that lifted the charter cap; it included collaboration and competition among charter schools’ purposes. 

    “That’s the dilemma,” he said. “In the beginning, you had to do the common thing uncommonly well. So that set it up that we were competing because my school’s scores are better than your school’s scores. And that was just wrong.”

    During his 11 years at the Gates Foundation, where he was involved in initiatives to adopt the Common Core standards and incentivize reform in teacher evaluations, which met resistance in California, Shalvey also seeded collaborations between districts and charter schools. There were partnerships in Denver, Hartford, Connecticut., and a three-way collaboration between the Spring Branch district, KIPP-Houston, and YES Prep in Texas to share course offerings and post-graduate strategies.

    It wasn’t easy to bridge the mistrust in California. He cited Summit Learning, which opened its learning platform to all districts nationwide, and KIPP, which trained hundreds of school counselors and its own team in a college-completion initiative.

    “When you get together with other charters and other school systems, you learn from one another. And it grows,” Shalvey said last year. “We weren’t trying to be the only ones trying to figure this out. There are no secrets in public education. You want everyone to get it.”





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  • Charter Schools Association sues LAUSD over charter co-location policy 

    Charter Schools Association sues LAUSD over charter co-location policy 


    Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource

    The California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District, challenging the district’s policy limiting charter co-locations on nearly 350 campuses, including the district’s 100 Priority Schools, Black Student Achievement Plan schools and community schools. 

    The lawsuit, filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, argues that the policy is illegal and discriminates against charter students by not providing them with “reasonably equivalent” facilities. 

    “We have consistently maintained that this policy is a shameful and discriminatory attack on public charter school students, for which the district shares a responsibility to house,” said Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of the CCSA at a press event Tuesday. 

    “Families choose to send their children to LAUSD charter public schools because they have found programs uniquely tailored to their needs. … This policy limits options for those parents among the most vulnerable across LA Unified.” 

    The CCSA started making threats of litigation when the board passed the resolution on Feb. 13. The following month, the CCSA claimed the vote was invalid due to alleged violations of the state’s open- meetings law, the Brown Act, tied to board member George McKenna’s virtual participation during the February vote. 

    LAUSD’s school board reconvened on March 19 and passed the policy a second time with a 4-3 vote that included the support of Board President Jackie Goldberg, Vice President Scott Schmerelson and members McKenna and Rocio Rivas. 

    The four board members, along with members of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), have repeatedly emphasized negative effects of co-location, particularly on vulnerable students, including allegedly hostile school environments and challenges with accessing programmatic spaces, including computer labs, music rooms and art studios. 

    Family centers, according to Cecily Myart-Cruz, the president of UTLA, are also negatively impacted by co-locations. 

    “Implementing proper oversight and limitations on co-located schools is the fairest way to ensure that all students, regardless of their backgrounds, can access a high-quality education within LAUSD,” Myart-Cruz said in a statement to EdSource. 

    She added that the lawsuit filed by the CCSA is “a misguided response” to a policy widely supported by teachers, parents and students. 

    “All students deserve a space to thrive, and overcrowding our already resource-limited public schools has had a detrimental effect on both public and charter students,” Myart-Cruz said. 

    Charter proponents, however, have argued that taking nearly 350 schools off the table for co-locations could lead to more multi-site offers and school closures, which they say will negatively impact vulnerable students.

    The lawsuit specifically states that the 240 charter schools in LAUSD educate more than 115,000 students, who are largely low-income and students of color. 

    The lawsuit also claims that the district has failed to collaborate in good faith and points to a history of alleged violations of Proposition 39, which dealt with bonds to finance school facilities. 

    “Despite CCSA and the charter public school communities’ offer to work collaboratively with the board on a new policy that would improve the process of sharing campuses, LAUSD has disregarded the voices and needs of charter school families and adopted a new policy to harm their charter schools,” Castrejón added at Tuesday’s press event.

    LAUSD declined to comment on the lawsuit as litigation is pending. 

    Meanwhile, the CCSA emphasized its strong legal track record and said they feel optimistic about the case.

    “It is a common theme with LAUSD,” said CCSA’s vice president of legal advocacy and executive director, Julie Umansky, on Tuesday. “We’re feeling confident with the precedent on their disregard for Prop. 39 and our ability to get the court to see it the way we do.” 





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  • Thomas Ultican: Billionaires and Charter Schools in California: A Toxic Deal

    Thomas Ultican: Billionaires and Charter Schools in California: A Toxic Deal


    Thomas Ultican reviews the current state of billionaire support for charter schools in California. Most people, certainly the charter industry, has long forgotten or never knew that the original charter school idea was that they would be created by teachers and operate under the aegis of local school boards. The reason for the linkage was that charter schools were supposed to be places that tried innovative practices, especially for the neediest students, and fed their results to their host district. They were supposed to be like R&D centers for local school districts.

    They were not supposed to compete with public schools but to help public schools.

    They were not supposed to undermine public schools. They were not supposed to be for-profit or operated as chains or entrepreneurs.

    Here is Tom’s report on what’s happening today.



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  • Dozens of fixes proposed to deter more mega-cases of charter school fraud

    Dozens of fixes proposed to deter more mega-cases of charter school fraud


    A multi-ethnic group of elementary age children are playing with blocks in class at their desks.

    Credit: Christopher Futcher / iStock

    Audacious, multimillion dollar scandals by two California charter school operators within the past decade exposed vulnerabilities to fraud resulting from inept and negligent oversight and inadequate auditing. A pair of inquiries into those weaknesses have concluded that several dozen actions could help spot, address and potentially deter future attempts by charter school operators to evade state laws and regulations.

    Both reports were issued within the past two months. One is a joint effort of the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) and the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team, a state fiscal oversight agency known as FCMAT. 

    The other is by the Anti-Fraud Task Force of the California Charter Authorizing Professionals, a nonprofit association for school districts and county offices of education. Its report reminded legislators and policymakers what’s at stake in failures of oversight: “Every theft of funds from our public schools not only harms the students, but also undermines public confidence in our public education system.” 

    A third and final report, concentrating on auditing reforms, will be released before June 30 by a multi-agency task force. Chaired by state Comptroller Malia Cohen, it was commissioned by San Diego Superior Court Judge Robert Longstreth, who presided over a jaw-dropping case of financial abuse.

    That case involved the now-defunct virtual charter school network A3 Education, which thrived because of a total breakdown of accountability systems. Its founders, Sean McManus and Jason Schrock, pleaded guilty in 2021 to a conspiracy to commit theft of public dollars, extracting $400 million in attendance-based state revenue, much of it based on phantom enrollments. They siphoned at least $50 million to a company they owned while promising services to students that were never provided. In return for serving four years on house arrest, the executives pledged to repay $37 million.

    A3 operated 19 charter schools approved by small school districts in a half-dozen counties that relied on the 1% to 3% in annual fees to balance their budgets. Collectively, the fees produced millions of dollars. The districts didn’t supervise effectively, because they lacked the capacity, expertise and, in some cases, motivation to hold charter schools accountable. 

    Big revenue for a tiny district

    Among them is Dehesa School District, with 84 students and one school in the San Diego County foothills. It chartered three A3 schools. Dehesa’s former superintendent was the only superintendent of the 11 people indicted in the A3 scandal.

    Dehesa also granted charters to two schools for Inspire Charter Schools, the other suspected perpetrator of large-scale fraud. Inspire, a home-school charter network with a dozen schools in multiple counties with, at one point, 24,380 students, directed 15% of its more than $100 million income to a corporation created by its founder, Herbert “Nick” Nichols III.

    Inspire enticed families to enroll by awarding $2,600 per student to spend on academic enrichment activities of their choice, including annual passes to Disneyland and Big Air Trampoline Park.

    An audit by FCMAT found that the records of financial expenditures and transfers of money from school to school, all run by Nichols’ central office, were so poorly kept and hard to track that FCMAT couldn’t prove fraud or other illegalities — although the deficiencies in recordkeeping increased the likelihood of them, the audit said. Nichols, who received $1,056,000 in advance pay, agreed to pay it back in a severance agreement in 2019 but declined repeated requests to speak with FCMAT, according to the audit.

    A3 and Inspire may have committed the largest-scale fraud, but they weren’t the only cases of embezzlement and probably won’t be the last. Last week, Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, and Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, requested approval of a state audit of a charter school and related operations after whistleblowers told Sacramento TV news channel ABC10 about suspected fraud, waste and abuse of public funds. The audit would include examining oversight of the district authorizer, Twin Rivers Unified.

    The employees of Sacramento-based Highlands Community Charter School asserted problems that include falsified student attendance numbers, cronyism and misuse of public funds for luxury gifts for staff and students, staff bonuses, and political contributions. Highlands Community Charter enrolls adult immigrant students for career and technical courses and English language instruction.

    Reports by both LAO-FCMAT and the authorizers’ task force make similar recommendations for effective oversight, such as demanding that nonprofit charter school boards scrutinize third-party contracts for conflicts of interest and annual financial audits. In return for authorizers doing more work, the LAO-FCMAT report would raise their fees to 3% of a charter school’s Local Control Funding Formula revenue.

    The LAO-FCMAT report calls for limiting small school districts’ ability to authorize charter schools with enrollment no larger than the district’s own. It suggests creating a new entity to approve and oversee all-virtual charter schools, which currently must seek multiple distinct authorizers in many counties, complicating coherent oversight. 

    The task force calls for establishing a statewide Office of Inspector General, perhaps under the state Attorney General, to investigate and prosecute financial fraud in school districts, community colleges and charter schools. The office would have the power to issue subpoenas and prosecute.

    Demand more of charter authorizers

    Past attempts to legislate reforms broke down amid contention between school districts and charter schools’ advocates. But David Patterson, a founding member and now president of the California Charter Authorizing Professionals, said he’s optimistic that collaborative work over two years will resolve disagreements.

    He said the bulk of recommendations would not require statutory or regulatory changes and could be adopted immediately. They’d involve creating a fraud risk management program for all charter schools and charter management organizations, as well as district and county authorizers. Elements would include regularly training charter school board members and fleshing out expectations and statutory obligations for authorizers which, Patterson acknowledged, are “outmoded and insufficient.” Even some of the small authorizers “that everyone wants to pick on, deservedly so, probably met minimal requirements” under the state’s 30-year-old charter school law, he said.

    There also would be clear procedures for filing complaints of suspected fraud, including a statewide hotline, Patterson said. Currently, there are no formal channels for reporting suspected fraud. Jeff Rice, founding director of APLUS+, which advances personalized learning models for 91 member charter schools in California, said he called out Inspire for the Disneyland passes, and others complained to authorizers and county offices about illegal enrollment practices, to no avail, he said.

    ‘The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office charged A3’s founders and administrators with defrauding the state by inflating tuition revenue by purchasing children’s personal information from private and public schools and then enrolling them without families’ knowledge. FCMAT suspected Inspire did something similar by manipulating enrollments in a multitrack attendance schedule.

    Eric Premack, executive director of the Charter Schools Development Center in Sacramento, a veteran charter school adviser and advocate, put the blame on auditors and authorizers for not detecting the fraud.

    “Even the smallest authorizer spending 20 minutes in the school could have and should have found this. If it’s a brick-and-mortar school, go visit at least a couple of classrooms,” he said. “And if there’s no students in the classroom and no teaching going on, you know you have a problem. In an independent study program, go in, look at the enrollment list. And then say, ‘I want to see this kid’s work.’”

    Both reports suggest improvements in the auditing process.

    • Charter school audits are not required to extensively examine enrollment and attendance records. The LAO-FCMAT report would require an auditor to flag for the board and authorizer any monthly variation in enrollment or attendance numbers exceeding 5%. 
    • Sampling records and transactions for compliance is critical to detecting discrepancies. The standard practice is for the auditor to choose what should be sampled. But the LAO-FCMAT report said that in recent cases of fraud, the school had provided the sample. The report calls for mandating that the auditors choose. 
    • Charter schools must choose an auditor from a state-sanctioned list. But there’s no requirement that auditors have any expertise in doing school audits. That would change. Auditors on the state list would be required to take regular training in school financing and regulations.

    The anti-fraud task force and LAO-FCMAT reports focused on non-classroom-based charters because that’s where cases of fraud, including A3 and Inspire, have largely been concentrated. Non-classroom-based charters are defined as schools in which less than 80% of instruction occurs in a classroom.

    Contrary to widespread belief, few of them are strictly online schools, as the LAO and FCMAT discovered. About a quarter of the state’s 1,200 charter schools are non-classroom-based, serving 38% of charter school students. Post-COVID, the combination of hybrid schools and home-based schools that spend part of the week in school facilities is a fast-growing sector of schools. Most report they offer no virtual instruction or are primarily classroom‑based.

    Classification as a non-classroom-based charter imposes a set of requirements to qualify for full funding. Class sizes can be no larger than 25 to 1; schools must spend at least 40% of their revenue on certificated teachers and staff and 80% of their budget on instruction.  

    In a recommendation that surprised and pleased most charter advocates, the LAO-FCMAT report recommends narrowing the definition of non-classroom schools to those offering less than 50% instruction in a classroom. Schools would be able to count facilities expenses as part of instruction, and qualify for after-school funding that other schools receive.

    “We question whether a whole bunch of charter schools should have to go through the funding determination process,” said Mike Fine, FCMAT’s CEO. “The name non-classroom-based charter school is a misnomer for many schools that don’t have a virtual component, have a robust facility (operation) and a cost structure that isn’t any different from any other school.”

    In 2019, the Legislature imposed a two-year moratorium on passing new non-classroom-based charter schools, and has twice extended it. The moratorium expires in 2026.

    Fine said the idea behind the LAO-FCMAT report was to air issues and propose solutions in order to avoid another moratorium extension. “Come next year,” he said, “this will provide a foundation for a starting point of a discussion.”





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  • Charter schools should be encouraged to offer flexibility for diverse student needs

    Charter schools should be encouraged to offer flexibility for diverse student needs


    Courtesy: Connecting Waters Charter Schools

    When education policy and funding decisions are enacted into law, it is critical that they be made through the lens of what is best for students. California leads the nation in supporting a wide range of innovative education options that have the potential to accommodate the needs and challenges of a very diverse student population.

    Among the most innovative education models are flex-based, personalized-learning public charter schools, which are mistakenly referred to as nonclassroom-based schools. These 300-plus public charter schools have become recognized as leaders in providing flexible and tailored education for hundreds of thousands of students in California for whom a traditional classroom-only model is not a good match. The term “nonclassroom” is a misnomer as the majority of these schools have classroom facilities where students can learn in-person several days a week.

    There are many reasons why some students do better in a nontraditional education model. Students who were bullied at their previous school, have physical or mental health challenges or have learning disabilities often thrive in a flexible learning environment. Some are foster youth, unhoused, teen parents, or at risk of dropping out of school. Others have simply fallen behind in meeting grade-level standards because they needed a model that better accommodates their individual needs. Others thrive working independently and want to participate in the real-world learning and internships that the schools offer. 

    APLUS+ member schools, comprising about one-third of the flex-based schools in California, serve a diverse student population: 57% of students enrolled are economically disadvantaged and nearly 15% are students with special needs. Many of these students enroll with APLUS+ member schools for academic recovery to get back on track or simply because their life circumstances and challenges are better served through a more flexible and personalized approach to learning. For example, most students who enroll in Learn4Life, an APLUS+ member school, are 17 or older, lack more than 50 credits, and are reading at a fifth grade level. These students graduate from high school, and 41% pursue post-secondary education within two years.

    Flex-based public schools are tuition-free and are open to any student in the state who wants to have an individualized education plan that is tailored for their needs and goals. These schools employ credentialed teachers, abide by student teacher ratios and administer the state’s standardized CAASPP/Smarter Balanced tests. They also administer internal assessments, which showed that in the 2023-24 school year, a high percentage of students who newly enrolled in APLUS+ member schools were significantly below grade level standards in their previous schools.

    Hundreds of thousands of students across the state are thriving at their flex-based schools. Unfortunately, two bad actor organizations operating within this sector have cast a shadow on the charter school sector. As a result of these two bad actor organizations, the California State Legislature recently commissioned the Legislative Analyst Office and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team to issue a report with recommendations to improve and streamline the process in which nonclassroom-based charter schools are funded and held accountable.

    The report rightfully acknowledged that the term “nonclassroom-based instruction” is a misnomer, given the diversity of innovative models within the sector and that a significant percentage of these schools operate one or more facilities used for in-person instruction.  

    One of the report’s recommendations was to change the definition of “nonclassroom-based instruction” so that more schools within this segment would qualify for facility subsidies and funding for after-school and expanded learning programs that are currently unavailable to them. While on the surface, reclassification may appear beneficial to students, the opposite is true as it would eliminate the flexibility that accommodates students for whom a classroom-only model is not a good match.

    State education policies should be changed to allow public charter schools with flex-based hybrid programs that operate facilities for instruction to qualify for funding for facilities and after-school programs. Policies should also be changed to allow more students at traditional schools to take part in flexible independent study programs so that they too can benefit from a more tailored and adaptable education program. This change in thinking — and state policy — would allow more students, such as those who have health issues, special needs, or are accelerated learners, to participate in independent study programs.

    Technology and the pandemic have impacted traditional views of teaching and revealed that the future of education must be rooted in flexibility. As the Legislature considers potential reforms in the future, they should prioritize the needs of our diverse student population and allow high-quality schools to offer flexible education models.

    •••

    Jeff Rice is founder/director of the Association of Personalized Learning Schools and Services (APLUS+), a membership association supporting schools that provide a flex-based education.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • U.S. Supreme Court Splits 4-4 on Oklahoma Religious Charter School, Meaning No

    U.S. Supreme Court Splits 4-4 on Oklahoma Religious Charter School, Meaning No


    The U.S. Supreme Court split 4-4 on the Oklahoma religious charter school issue. St. Isadore of Seville Catholic School applied for public funding to sponsor an online religious school. The tie decision means that the last decision–which ruled against the proposal–stands.

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself because of a previous relationship with one of the school’s founders.

    The decision was unsigned, but one of the Court’s conservative Justices voted with the three liberal Justices to produce a tie vote.

    Remember, this is a Court whose conservative Justices claim to be originalists. Their decisions on matters of church and states indicate a flexible, if not hypocritical, application of “originalism.” Over more than two centuries, the U.S. Supreme Court has struggled to maintain separation of church and state. They have found exceptions to Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation, allowing public funds for textbooks and state-mandated services, but over the years the courts attempted to avoid the state paying for tuition or teachers’ salaries.

    Yet this Court seems to laying the groundwork for tearing that Wall down completely. In previous decisions, the conservative majority has ruled that failure to fund religious schools was a denial of religious freedom.

    Such a conclusion does not align with Originalism. No matter how hard Justice Clarence Thomas or Justice Sam Alito scours the historical record, they are unable to build a case that the Founding Fathers or the Supreme Court want the public to subsidize the cost of religious or private schools.

    The only thing “original” about their recent decisions requiring states to pay tuition at religious schools in Maine and Montana and capital costs at a religious school in Missouri is their conclusion. They invented a right out of whole cloth.



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  • McMahon Announces Increase in Funding to Federal Charter Schools Program, Despite Multiple Failures

    McMahon Announces Increase in Funding to Federal Charter Schools Program, Despite Multiple Failures


    Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced an increase of $60 million to the Federal Charter Schools Program, bringing the annual total to $500 million to open new charter schools or expand existing ones.

    This decision ignored research produced by the Network for Public Educatuon, showing that $1 billion had been wasted on grants to charter schools that never opened; that 26% of federally funded charter schools had closed within their first five years; and that 39% had closed by year 10.

    The charter sector has been riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse.

    See the following reports:

    Charter failures

    The Failure of the Federal Charter Schools Program:

    CSP https://networkforpubliceducation.org/stillasleepatthewheel/

    OIG report on CSP https://oig.ed.gov/reports/audit/effectiveness-charter-school-programs-increasing-number-charter-schools



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  • Carol Burris: Why the Charter Lobby Fears the Next Supreme Court Decision

    Carol Burris: Why the Charter Lobby Fears the Next Supreme Court Decision


    Writing in The Progressive, Carol Burris explains why the charter lobby is worried about how the Supreme Court will rule on the case of a religious charter school. They don’t want religious schools to be identified as charter schools. Burris, who is executive director of the Network for Public Education, explains their concern.

    She writes:

    The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools never met a charter school it did not like—until it met St. Isidore of Seville in Oklahoma City. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School is the proposed Oklahoma charter school whose fate is currently being consideredby the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to issue its decision before summer’s end.

    The Alliance’s objection to St. Isidore being allowed to open what would be the nation’s first religious charter is not because the school would be religious—an argument the Alliance’s CEO Starlee Coleman characterizes as an “ivory tower” question—but because, should the Court rule in favor of the religious charter, the decision could jeopardize charter schools having access to public funding, something all charter schools currently depend on. According to the Alliance, every state with charter school laws mandates that charter schools operate as public schools, and the federal Charter School Program, which finances charter expansion, can only fund public charter schools by law. But St. Isidore argues that it should be allowed to open a religious charter because it is a private organization.

    So to settle the question of whether St. Isidore can open a religious school, the Supreme Court must decide whether charter schools are public actors, like district schools, or private contractors that provide educational services. Those arguing in favor of St. Isidore claim that, at least in the state of Oklahoma, charter schools are not truly public schools, despite the public label assigned to them by the legislature. But a Court ruling in favor of that argument could set a legal precedent going forward that the public status—and therefore the public funding—of charter schools everywhere is in question.

    Oklahoma is one of thirty-four states that require all charter schools to have a private charter school operator—some entity that enters into the agreement to open the school and has a board which governs its operations. Most of these states require the operator to be an incorporated nonprofit, except for Arizona and Delaware, which also permit for-profit charter school governance. In the case of St. Isidore, the nonprofit operator is St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Charter School, Inc.

    However, in five states—Alaska, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, and Virginia—the charter school operator is the public school district in which the school is located and the charter school is part of the public school district. In these states, charter schools exist as they were originally intended—as innovative schools largely free of restrictions so they’re better able to serve a purpose the local public school cannot. Alaska’s charter schools, rated by the pro-charter EdNext as the number one charter state for student performance, include Ayaprun Elitnaurvik, a Yugtun immersion charter school. These schools are part of the school district and their teachers enjoy all the rights and protections of being a public school employee.

    Seven other states—Arkansas, California, Iowa, Louisiana, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin—allow both district-run and independent charters. School districts govern 75 percent of all Wisconsin charter schools. Twenty-one percent of California charter schools are dependent charter schools, meaning they are part of a public school district.  

    Because district-run charter schools are operated directly by the state without a private operator standing in between, these charter schools are government-run entities and would continue to receive public funding no matter the fate of St. Isidore.

    An advantage of having charter schools run by public school districts is that they are less apt to be plagued by the fraud and mismanagement issues that are regular occurrences in the charter school sector operated by private entities, such asinsider deals, related party transactions, for-profit operations, and outright financial misappropriation. That’s because, unlike with private operators, school operations—such as procurement, employee compensation, and  contracting—are as transparent as in any public school in the district. Teachers are professionally prepared and certified, and can claim the rights and protections of district employees. Parents and voters can voice complaints or concerns to an elected school board that governs all district-run schools, including charter schools.

    And yet any suggestion to have charter schools governed exclusively by public school districts so they can continue to operate transparently and receive federal and state funding seems to be the Alliance’s worst nightmare. According to The 74,should the Supreme Court rule in favor of St. Isidore and prompt states to reevaluate the public/private status of charters, the Alliance fears “school districts could just absorb existing charter schools to keep them public, or at least add more government oversight.”

    It is difficult to understand why profiteering, a lack of transparency, and the ability to commit fraud would be needed for school innovation. The states that operate charter schools publicly have developed stable and innovative schools responsive to the needs of their community. But the charter lobby will likely fight tooth and nail to preserve the status quo.

    The powerful charter chains—with their high-salaried executives, for-profit operator owners, and the real estate empires that have emerged—have enormous sway over charter schools proponents like the Alliance. Within the first five years after the opening of the original charter schools in 1992, four for-profit chains emerged: Leona, Charter Schools U.S.A, National Heritage Academies, and Academica, soon followed by the giant for-profit online charter chains, K12/Stride and Connections Academy. And they, along with corporate nonprofit chains, will work around the clock to protect their interests if the Supreme Court rules in St. Isidore’s favor.

    But there may be hope for those who fight for charter school accountability, transparency, and reform. As we contemplate the possibility of a ruling in favor of St. Isidore, we should think deeply about reforms that will restore charter schools to their original mission as places where educators and parents have the freedom to create new learning models in which public schooling is a reality, not just a label.



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  • Strengthen auditing to curb charter school fraud, a new task force recommends

    Strengthen auditing to curb charter school fraud, a new task force recommends


    San Diego County Attorney Sumner Stephan announces in 2019 the indictment of 11 individuals affiliated with A3 Education, including founders Sean McManus and Jason Schrock, who subsequently took a plea deal.

    Credit: Office of the San Diego County District Attorney

    A court-commissioned task force formed in the aftermath of a massive fraud by an online charter school network issued recommendations Wednesday to thwart the recurrence of similar operations.

    State Controller Malia Cohen, who chaired the task force, said that the 20 recommendations for reforming the system for auditing schools should apply not only to charter schools but also school districts and county offices of education.

    The report urges significant improvement in training, selecting, overseeing and disciplining school auditors as well as an expansion of their responsibilities. 

    “With the education of our children at stake and significant state investments of taxpayer money in education, it is crucial that all schools be held to the highest level of integrity, accountability, fiscal compliance, and transparency,” Cohen wrote in an introduction to the 50-page “Audit Best Practices for Detecting and Curtailing Charter School Fraud.”

    There were multiple failures that allowed the Academics Arts and Action Education (A3) charter network of 19 schools to pilfer tens of millions of dollars in public funding. The multi-agency task force focused on strengthening the auditing process, because a system of detecting and quickly responding to possible fraud relies on effective annual reviews by professional, independent auditors, who are overseen by Cohen’s department.   

    San Diego Superior Court Judge Robert Longstreth signed an order in September 2023 establishing the multi-agency task force after observing how A3 exploited weaknesses in the auditing system. A3 fraudulently enrolled participants in its summer athletic programs into the charter school’s academic program so that it could claim average daily attendance funding, even though the students received no education services. Additionally, private schools and other programs that participated in the enrollment scheme received a portion of the state’s per-student funding while A3 pocketed the rest, according to the report.

    In 2021, Sean McManus and Jason Schrock, A3’s founders, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit theft of public dollars for the phantom enrollments. In return for serving four years on house arrest, the executives agreed to repay $37 million.

    The State Controller’s Office and the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted A3, led the task force. It also included divergent perspectives from the California Charter Schools Association, the California School Boards Association, and the California County Superintendents.  

    Many of the recommendations will require legislative action and additional funding to implement, as noted in the report in a section titled “Obstacles and Solutions.” While charter school advocates and district authorizers agree in principle that there’s a need for changes, they have disagreed in the past over specifics of added regulation. The report called for collaboration among those with differing perspectives.

    This is the third significant report this year that looked at the multiple breakdowns of oversight responsibility and holes in transparency laws that failed to spot flagrant violations by A3 and now-defunct Inspire Charter Schools, a home-school charter network that could not account for tens of millions of dollars in state funding.  

    The first report was a joint effort of the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) and the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team, a state fiscal oversight agency known as FCMAT. The second was by the anti-fraud task force of the California Charter Authorizing Professionals, a nonprofit association for school districts and county offices of education.

    Both groups made similar recommendations for stronger oversight, including demanding that nonprofit charter school boards scrutinize third-party contracts for conflicts of interest. 

    The authorizers’ task force called for establishing a statewide Office of Inspector General to investigate and prosecute financial fraud in school districts, community colleges and charter schools.

    The LAO-FCMAT report also called for limiting small school districts’ ability to authorize large-scale charter networks. Not only do they lack the knowledge and capacity to monitor complex operations, but the oversight fees they can charge, sometimes reaping millions of dollars yearly, could create an incentive to look the other way. Dehesa School District, with one school in the San Diego County foothills, chartered three A3 and two Inspire charter schools.

    The failure of an audit to catch A3’s “exponential” fluctuations in enrollment was one area that the report said needed fixing.  It recommends tracking enrollment and attendance changes monthly; had this been in place, an auditor may have identified a potential for fraud.

    Other recommendations

    Qualifying, certifying and evaluating accountants: Currently, only 22 certified public accounting firms — less than 0.1% of licensed accounting firms in California — audit 93% of school districts and charter schools, according to the report. As a result, the report stated, “The poor performance of any one CPA firm may significantly impact the quality and reliability of school audits.”  And those auditing schools have not been required to have any training specifically on auditing schools. 

    The report recommends:

    Requiring 24 hours of training on school auditing before an auditor can be listed among certified public accountants eligible for school auditing.

    Requiring the State Comptroller’s Office to do a quality review after an auditor’s first school audit.

    Adding conditions for deleting a poorly performing auditor from the state’s auditor eligibility list.

    Frequent turnover in a charter school’s auditors can be “a red flag” for a subpar auditor or a district with possible misconduct. The report recommends monitoring for these trends.

    Conflicts of interest: Some cases of charter fraud have revealed collusion between vendors with close personal ties to charter leaders, self-dealing by charter CEOs and other conflicts of interest that could lead to fraud or waste. Some boards of directors have failed in their legal responsibility to identify and prohibit them. 

    The report recommends financial disclosure statements for the top five highest-paid school employees, the 25 highest paid vendors, and disclosure statements for charter schools’ contracts with charter management organizations.

    The report reiterates a best practice that some auditors apparently did not follow: To preserve independence, an auditor should never allow a school district or charter school to determine which financial transactions and enrollments should be sampled for an audit.

    Some of the most visible cases of abuse have occurred with non-classroom based charter schools. Those are charter schools in which less than 80% of instruction occurs in person.  

    Consisting of hybrid charter schools and home schools, they comprise about a quarter of the state’s 1,300 charter schools and nearly 40% of charter school students. Exclusively online charter schools are only a small piece.

    Non-classroom-based charter schools are also increasingly popular with parents seeking scheduling flexibility and more options in their children’s education. 

    In 2019, the Legislature imposed a two-year moratorium on approving new non-classroom-based charter schools and has extended it twice.

    Thus, there will be pressure on the Legislature to consider the auditing and oversight reforms that the three reports have suggested before the moratorium ends in 2026.





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