Charter School Advisory Board (CSAB) May Meeting

The North Carolina Charter School Advisory Board met May 6^th at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.   

The agendas are available on the State Board of Education’s website under the Meetings tab. There you can also find presentation materials for each agenda item, where applicable.

Charter School Advisory Board meetings are live-streamed and available on the NCDPI YouTube Channel.

Questions regarding this meeting should be directed to NCDPI Communications at 919-807-3450.

Greetings from Mr. Steven Walker, Vice Chair of the CSAB   We had another productive meeting of the CSAB in May. I think we are all relieved that the application review cycle (at least for the CSAB) is complete and we can go back to having one-day meetings each month!   Dr. John Eldridge and his team from Chatham Charter School presented to the CSAB and showed us how Chatham Charter has been able to have students graduate from High School with up to 51 college credits--quite the feat! We were also happy to have Dr. Thomas Tomberlin, the DPI Director of Educator Recruitment and Support to answer questions about teacher licensure.   This month we reviewed and made recommendations on seven amendment requests, heard an update on the status of all schools currently in the Ready-to-Open process, and took an initial look at the Performance Framework. We also recommended the approval of the CSP Grant Team's recommendations for the CSP subgrants that will be awarded to select charters for the first time this year. We are excited to see how the approved schools can use the funds provided for greater student achievement. All-in-all, it was a great meeting. See you in June!

Amendments

The CSAB heard amendment requests from Lake Lure Classical Academy, West Lake Prepartory Academy, Movement School East, Invest Collegiate Imagine, Queen City STEM School, and NC Virtual Academy. The CSAB approved all amendments and the recommendation will be forwarded to the State Board of Education (SBE) for final approval. In addition, the CSAB heard the request from NC Connections Academy to terminate its partnership with Pearson OBL for a third time. The CSAB recommended approval with stipulations. The SBE will hear this request at a special called meeting on May 13, 2019.

Please contact Ashley Baquero at Ashley.baquero@dpi.nc.gov with any questions about these amendments or the amendment process in general.

Twitter!   The Office of Charter Schools announced its official Twitter account to the CSAB. OCS hopes to raise awareness and promote positive news about our charter schools through this social media initiative. In addition, this will serve as another communication tool for the office. Find us at @NCCharterOffice.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT – EDDIE is the authoritative source for NC public school numbers and demographic information, is used by multiple NCDPI technology systems including: Accountability, PowerSchool, NC School Report Cards, and is used to meet federal reporting requirements. LEAs and charter schools are responsible for ensuring their data in EDDIE are complete, accurate, and current. EDDIE is located at: http://apps.schools.nc.gov/eddie