Upcoming NN4DA Webinars
The NN4DA is hosting two webinars for district authorizers. These interactive webinars share ideas and resources that district staff may find helpful and provocative.
- NN4DA Webinar on diversifying the authorizing profession and how small authorizers with few staff and resources can incorporate diverse perspectives into their work. This session builds on the National Association of Charter School Authorizers’ (NACSA’s) work on this topic. Dr. Kelli Peterson and Veronica Brooks-Uy, will discuss the NACSA initiative and how districts can act on these ideas. This session will present the impetus and work of the NACSA initiative as well as ways that authorizers with limited staff and resources can incorporate more diverse perspectives and voices into their authorizing processes. Read more about the NACSA initiative in Closing the DEI Gap in Authorizing. Wednesday, August 9, 2023; 12:00 to 1:00 pm, MDT. Register here.
- NN4DA Webinar with Author Steve Rees: helping authorizing decision-makers understand the limits of data. Rees is the coauthor of Mismeasuring Schools’ Vital Signs: How to Avoid Misunderstanding, Misinterpreting, and Distorting Data, which describes the challenges that school district leaders and others encounter in trying to understand school performance data. This session will explore ways district staff can improve how they interpret data and how to responsibly inform decision-makers, like school board members, about the strengths and limits of the available data on schools when making decisions about charter schools. Thursday, September 7, 2023; 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm MDT. Register here.
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Developments in the Public Nature of Charter Schools
Two developments this month show the continuing conflict over the public nature of charter schools. The NN4DA Working Group on this topic meets monthly. The next meeting is on Monday, August 28, 2023, from 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm, MDT. Contact Alex Medler for information on joining the working group.
Oklahoma: Several organizations and a group of Oklahoma parents have filed a lawsuit in state court to stop a religious charter school from opening in the state. The suit seeks to stop the opening of the St. Isidore Catholic Virtual School, which was recently approved by a state-wide charter authorizing board after a series of legal debates about the constitutionality of the proposed school. Among other problems, the lawsuit argues that the proposed Catholic charter school, “will discriminate in admissions, discipline, and employment based on religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other protected characteristics.” The suit was filed on behalf of parents, including parents of LGBTQ students and students with disabilities, whom they argued the school would discriminate against according to the applicant’s description of its programs and policies. As an ACLU summary of the suit explained:
- Isidore plans to discriminate in its policies and practices based on religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other protected characteristics. Students could be denied admission, disciplined, or even expelled if they or their family members are LGBTQ+, a different religious faith, or do not otherwise conform to certain Catholic religious beliefs.
- Isidore reserves the right to discriminate against students on the basis of disability and failed to show that it would provide adequate services to students with disabilities.
- Isidore plans to provide a religious education and indoctrinate its students in Catholic religious beliefs. The school’s application states that the school will “participate in the evangelizing mission of the [Catholic] Church” and will fully incorporate the Church’s teachings “into every aspect of the School,” including “all subjects” taught and all activities offered.
- The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City will have control over the school in violation of board regulations that require a charter school to be independent of its educational management organization.
Guam: Guam enacted legislation that amended their state charter law to allow religious charter schools. Under the new law, “Private, religious schools shall be eligible to apply to convert to an Academy Charter School.” The Guam developments mirror the debate in Oklahoma, after the Guam Attorney General opined that the legislation was constitutional after the Governor’s veto message had argued otherwise. To pass the new language, Guam’s legislature over-ruled a July gubernatorial veto, making the U.S. island territory the first charter jurisdiction to explicitly permit pre-existing religious private schools to convert to become religious charter schools in their state charter law.
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NN4DA at NACSACON 2023
Look for several sessions at the NACSAcon 2023 in Oakland in October. NN4DA and our members will be sharing strategies and ways to help districts. From Colorado, learn about the Denver Public School’s (DPS’s) efforts to evaluate the first year of new charter school’s launch after several schools suffered rocky starts. Other sessions will discuss ways to address the unique challenges faced by small authorizers and ways to help school board members and other interpret school data responsibly. In addition, the NN4DA will be gathering our state partners for the NN4DA Annual Meeting on October 21-22, before the NACSA meeting kicks off. Contact Alex Medler for more details on the NN4DA meeting and the NN4DA-sponsored sessions at NACSA.