Charter schools rules still being written in 2013

OLYMPIA - No Columbia Basin school districts met the deadline for applications to host charter schools approved by Washington voters in 2012.

The subject hasn't even come up in many districts, according to their superintendents.

"We have enough going on right now," said Moses Lake Superintendent Michelle Price.

"It's not something we're considering here," said Ephrata Superintendent Jerry Simon.

"It hasn't been on our radar presently," said Quincy Superintendent Burton Dickerson.

Under the terms of the initiative approved by voters in 2012, charter schools are public schools, but are subject to different rules and are not administered by the districts where they are located. They operate under a contract that outlines powers, responsibilities and performance expectations.

State education officials are in the process of making another revision to achievement tests, installing new standards for assessing administrators and implementing new, federally mandated lists of content, Price said. In addition, district officials are

working on a two-year project to find and implement solutions to secondary school overcrowding. The district is planning to establish a committee to look at the district's long term space needs, she said.

"We just have more than enough on our plate right now," Price said.

Simon said Ephrata district officials have concluded that right now, hosting a charter school would be a lot of work for what the district would receive.

The initiative included two methods for establishing charter schools, either by operators using the local school district as a host district, or by direct application to a state charter school commission.

Local school districts had to apply as hosts by April 1. Spokane and Eastmont in East Wenatchee both applied, but Eastmont decided against pursuing it, said Jack Archer, the lead staffer on charter schools at the Washington State Board of Education.

Archer said individuals who want to apply to start a charter can't do anything until an authorized agency, i.e. an authorized school district or the charter school commission, requests proposals. No date has been set to issue that request, Archer said.

The commission will consider rules for issuing proposals at its May 8 meeting, Archer said.

"There's so much unknown about it (the charter school process) right now," Price said. The statute is "very defined, very specific" on the qualifications to apply to open a charter school, but the regulations are still being written, Archer said. Under the circumstances "we're definitely taking a wait and see attitude," Price said.

If there is a way to operate with less obfuscating regulation, Price said, district officials will take a look at it. But she would like to see the rules written in such a way that all schools could benefit from them, she said.