Back to April SBOE Meeting Highlights

Out of 23 that Applied to Open in 2023-24
Nine Charter District Applicants Survive
To Advance to Next Consideration Stage

  • Note: This article summarizes the discussion about charters during the SBOE Committee on School Initiatives meeting that consisted of these two agenda items:

    -- The current “Generation 27” charter applicants (agenda/webcast-click Item 5) and

    --The upcoming Generation 28 application process (agenda/webcast-click Item 6).


TEA charter school staff told the committee that of the 23 applicants for new “Generation 27” charter districts to open in School Year 2023-24, nine applicants survived the extensive vetting process to move to the next round of consideration.

All are either in the D/FW, Houston, Austin or San Antonio areas, staff told the committee.
  • Note: For links to the applications of the charters still under consideration, type Interview Pending in the search bar here. Type gen_27 in the search bar for the application links, and status updates, for all 23 applicants.
The nine semifinalists, along with the ISD areas where they are seeking to open their first campus, are:
  • Academy of Visual and Performing Arts (Fort Worth ISD).

  • Celebrate Dyslexia School (South San Antonio ISD).

  • Heritage Classical Academy (Houston ISD).

    Note: The SBOE vetoed a charter application from this entity last year. Also: Another applicant vetoed last year — for a S.H. James Charter in San Antonio — submitted an application for this year, but the application was subsequently withdrawn.

  • NextGen International Business and Entrepreneurship Academy (Spring Branch ISD).

  • Oasis Academy of North Texas (Dallas ISD).

  • One Collegiate Charter School (Houston ISD).

  • Patterns High School of Technology (Del Valle ISD).

  • Sankofa Academy Public School (Houston ISD).

  • Spelligent San Antonio (North East ISD).

The nine finalists will undergo “capacity interviews” via Zoom with TEA staff and SBOE members from Tuesday, May 10 to Thursday, May 12, with officials from three charters to be interviewed each day. The final stages in the process include the commissioner’s announcement, in late May, of final choices for new charter districts and the SBOE’s decision, at its June meeting, on whether to veto any of the commissioner’s selections.

Controversial Applicant Rejected
One of the charters that didn’t make this year’s cut — due to its application not receiving high enough scores by external reviewers — was for a New Hope Resiliency Academy in South Texas. The proposed charter’s sponsoring entity (Sunny Glen Children’s Home) has been accused (according to various media reports) of abusing children housed in federal migrant centers in the Rio Grande Valley.

In response to a question from a School Initiatives committee member — who was obviously referring to concerns about how the TEA could vet charter applicants for this type of controversy in the future — Marian Schutte, who head’s the TEA’s charter school authorizing and administration division, said the next round (Generation 28) of charter applications will include a question to capture these types of issues.

Longer New Charter Consideration Cycle
sboe-marian-schutte
Schutte said that she will present more info to the School Initiatives Committee about changes for the upcoming Generation 28 application process for charters seeking to open in School Year 2024-25 (and about the application itself) — during the board’s June meeting — one month before the TEA inaugurates a uniform, longer charter consideration cycle. (The education commissioner, in consultation with the SBOE, is entirely responsible for the charter application process.)

Schutte said that the TEA plans to accept charter applications from July to early November every year. That’s much earlier than has typically occurred. (The current Generation 27 application cycle set a Sept. 17 to Dec. 7, 2021, application submission window.)

The new adoption schedule will allow for more time for vetting the applications, the committee was told, because the rest of the schedule will remain unchanged — capacity interviews for the semifinalists in early May, the commissioner continuing to make his final sections in late May, and the SBOE continuing to make its veto decisions at the June board meeting.

Charter Schools’ Testimony
sboe-kara-belew
The committee also heard testimony from Kara Belew of the Texas Public Charter Schools Association, who (during separate testimony during both of the charter agenda items):
  • Asked that the upcoming Generation 28 charter applications omit the section asking how a prospective charter plans to demonstrate innovation. Belew said that state law describes a number of rigorous factors that should go into the selection of new charters — and that innovation is not one of them. She asked that the charter application process instead focus entirely on the operational, financial and academic success factors to ensure that high quality charters are chosen.

    This prompted SBOE member Matt Robinson, R-Friendswood — who chairs the School Initiatives Committee — to label as “vague” the criteria contained in the Texas Education Code of the factors that should be considered in the charter selection process.

  • A
    sboe-ruben-cortez-jr
    sked SBOE members to not limit the approval of new charters in light of the recent TEA report (see TEN, March 21) that 58,588 students were on “waitlists” this school year to enroll in Texas charter schools.

    This prompted SBOE member Ruben Cortez Jr., D-Brownsville, to wonder why many charters, which he has personally visited in various areas of the state, have empty seats and are operating far below their capacities.

    Belew responded the issue may be that some charters may not have the resources to produce marketing campaigns to inform parents about the availability of a tuition free high quality public school alternative — and that they do not have to stay with an ISD campus that has an F accountability rating.

Belew also reported that her association has just released a report reflecting that Texas charters serve far more disadvantaged students than do traditional ISDs.