The Florida Board of Education today supported the appeal of one rejected charter school’s application, and denied another, amid concerns about the ability of small, upstart charter schools to secure financial support.
Laura Pincus, an attorney representing the Palm Beach County School board, said it rejected an application from Lake Worth Classical Academy in part due to concerns about the school’s proposed budget. Plans relied on competitive grant applications, parent fundraising and activities like a proposed distance run to support its operations in the early going.
The Palm Beach school district, home to one of Florida’s largest charter school populations, had seen six charters shut down since July, Pincus said, including one that never opened and one that closed shortly after school started, due to financial problems.
“We cannot approve a charter school application when its financial viability depends on a 5k race,” she said.
Nobody from the school appeared before the board, which voted to support the school board’s rejection of the charter application during its meeting this morning in Tallahassee.
State board member Rebecca Fishman Lipsey said the local school board was right to be concerned about the Lake Worth application. However, she added, if the state wants to encourage new, quality charter schools it should think about “policies that potentially make it difficult for financial viability” of upstart schools backed by parents or teachers.
Right now, she said, it often “is necessary that you either have cash in your pocket already or you have a large organization behind you” to start a charter school.
The state board supported a separate Palm Beach charter school’s appeal. The board had rejected the proposed school after arguing it was not sufficiently “innovative,” an argument the school’s attorney contended was “self-serving.”
Pincus, the school board attorney, said the proposed school would be the district’s seventh run by Charter Schools USA, and the six existing schools have yet to reach their projected capacity.
She also contended the board was acting on the authority of state law, which requires school districts to ensure the charters they sponsor are innovative. A school whose application mimicked that of other existing schools would not meet that requirement, she argued.
“It is about looking beyond what is currently done,” she said.
