FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin

March 9, 2005

Public Charter School Board Seeks to Revoke Charter of SouthEast Academy PCS; Two Other Schools Cited

At its monthly meeting on Monday the Public Charter School Board voted to begin the charter revocation process for SouthEast Academy PCS, a 670-student K-8 school in Ward 8. SouthEast has been on probation since December 2002 because of academic performance concerns, high teacher turnover, governance problems, and other issues. The school will remain open for the rest of this academic year while the revocation process goes forward.

According to the Board, the revocation move is a result of SouthEast’s poor performance on the recently-completed 5th-year review process mandated by the School Reform Act, D.C.’s charter school law. Charter schools in the District are granted 15-year renewable charters, but must demonstrate every five years that they have met “the goals and student academic achievement expectations set forth in the charter.”

According to the Board, SouthEast met none of its academic expectations and only half of its nonacademic expectations. Members of the school's board responded that they felt confident that their new board composition and continuing partnership with Edison Schools, a school management company, would improve the school significantly in the coming years. Even so, the Board voted unanimously to begin the revocation process. As part of that process, Southeast will be entitled to an informal hearing and, if the Board decides to revoke its charter after the hearing, to an appeal to the courts.

Closure for academic or financial mismanagement reasons is one of the major advantages that charter schools have over traditional public schools. Unlike traditional public schools, which are permitted to miseducate generation after generation of children, charter schools must prove themselves capable of both improving the academic performance of their students and properly managing public funds. To date, seven D.C. charter schools have been closed; six of these were Board of Education charter schools chartered in the early years of the charter school movement.

In other actions, the Board issued Howard Road PCS a “notice of concern” for problems including a 40% teacher attrition rate and failure to develop a master plan for their middle school. Sasha Bruce was issued a notice of probation for, among other things, failure to implement their Expeditionary Learning curriculum and failure to provide adequate special education services. The Board expressed concern that the school may be in violation of its charter and requested that the school submit a plan for improvement within three months.

Friends of Choice in Urban Schools
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Washington, DC 20036
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