Yesterday, in a significant legislative victory for the state’s charter schools, House and Senate lawmakers voted to pass Senate Bill 254 – Charter School Changes. The Coalition has been pushing intensively in recent months to get these provisions passed. Our Government Relations Team has been working, through various means (including the House and Senate versions of the budget), to secure legislative provisions clarifying and strengthening the role of the Charter Schools Review Board (CSRB) and safeguarding charter autonomy and flexibility.
As you may know, these provisions constitute some of the Coalition’s top legislative priorities for the session, so we are very pleased they have passed in both chambers of the legislature.
The Senate approved S 254 by a vote of 26-20 in the early afternoon yesterday. The House passed the bill by a vote of 73-36 shortly after 6 p.m.
In the Senate, the bill passed along party lines, with Republicans but no Democrats voting in favor. However, in the House, eight Democrats (Reps. Butler, Dew, Hawkins, Jeffers, G. Pierce, Roberson, Charles Smith, and Willingham) joined with Republicans in supporting the bill. We’re very appreciative of lawmakers’ support, also including the House conferees (Reps. Strickland, Blackwell, and Pare) as well as Senate conferees (Senators Lee, Overcash, and Daniel).
S 254 has been sent to Governor Stein, who has 10 days to sign or veto the bill or allow it to become law without his signature.
We share key provisions of S 254 below.
S 254 provides that the Charter Schools Review Board (CSRB):
- Must first approve any rule or policy adopted by the State Board of Education regarding charter schools.
- Conducts hearings around the review of financial assistance (“pursuant to 20 U.S.C. § 1231b-2, including making findings and recommendations regarding those hearings”).
- Oversees the executive director of the Office of Charter Schools at N.C. DPI and sets the salary for this position.
- May employ legal counsel without needing to obtain permission or approval.
- Approves the written terms of charters.
- Requires charter schools that are low-performing or continually low-performing to provide school improvement plans. However, the requirements of S. 115C-105.27setting parameters around school improvement plans “shall not” apply to charter schools.
- Serves as the entity, rather than the State Superintendent, to notify the State Board of Education that a charter school “has failed to meet generally accepted standards of fiscal management or has violated a State or federal requirement for receipt of funds.”
- Creates a standardized enrollment verification and transfer request document for charter schools to use to request their per pupil share of the local current expense fund from districts.
- Sets a standardized procedure, in consultation with charter schools and school districts, for the transfer of local funds. The procedure shall require, “to the extent practicable,” that transfers are made electronically.
The bill also includes the following beneficial provisions:
- Ensures that charter schools do not need to secure CSRB approval to relocate within 10 miles of the location specified in their charter, as long as the new location is within the same school district.
- Makes clear that charter schools shall not be required to report class rank on a student’s high school transcript.
- Allows flexibility with teacher evaluation tools, as long as those tools use similar standards and criteria as “those used in the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards and North Carolina Teacher Evaluation Process” or used by school districts.
- Ensures that DPI must fund a charter school’s financial platform for its first year of operation.
- Allows charter schools with remote academies of 250 or more students to request a separate charter from the CSRB through an expedited process that may not include a planning year.
- Ensures that remote academies operated by a charter school receive separate school performance grades.
Above photo: Shutterstock.
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