Seattle Schools Community Forum

I guess hope springs eternal for some charter school operators.  Or they don't think anyone will check their backgrounds (and to those I say, welcome to Washington State).  Over at KUOW , they DID check. But a KUOW analysis found that the six established out-of-state charter organizations that hope to open schools here are failing to consistently meet state standards where they operate.   Pioneer Youth Corps' military charter school in Springfield, Ore., is currently ranked in the bottom 5 percent academically among Oregon schools. The organization is pitching a similar school in Washington. CAL Elementary, which has filed to open a branch of its Ohio reading- and math-focused charter school in Seattle, has an "F" rating from that state's department of education. And in Texas, the state has notified the Por Vida charter chain that it is falling so short of state standards at one of its three schools that its acc...

It appears that the Washington Charter Commission must have gotten a flurry of submissions because the final count is 28 letters of intent to apply to become a charter school. (I spoke to Spokane School district - the only school district authorizer in the state - and they received three letters of intent .  They say they have one unused building in their district currently so that may be up for grabs among the three applicants, if they follow thru on applying.) I would be surprised if half of the letters of intent applicants follow-thru, given the heavy lift that is the charter application.  So I'm guessing there will be about 16 applications for 8 charters.   Newest entries to the Charter Commission: