TAMPA — The State Board of Education took steps Wednesday to prevent charter school applicants with poor past performance from opening new schools.
Saying the state should not “pass the trash” from one district to another, board members unanimously approved a rule to require applicants to disclose their past charter school affiliations for the most recent five years on their application forms.
“I just want to make sure that the school boards and the districts have a sense (of when) some guy starts a management company, shuts it down and starts another,” said board member Michael Olenick, a lawyer who has worked with charter schools. “I want to flush that out. It’s a huge problem.”
The rule will make the process easier for school districts, which sometimes can miss background information when they review applications.
