BP BHEAD INT S [atlas:bill]

AN ACT Relating to charter schools; and adding a new chapter to Title 28A RCW.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. INTENT. The legislature intends to authorize the establishment of charter schools for the purpose of providing a unique setting for learning that will improve pupil achievement and provide additional public school choices for students, parents, and teachers.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. DEFINITIONS. Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, the definitions in this section apply throughout this chapter.

(1) "Applicant" means a nonprofit entity as identified in section 7(1) of this act that has submitted an application to a sponsor to obtain approval to operate a charter school.

(2) "Charter" means an agreement between an applicant and a sponsor. The charter establishes, in accordance with this chapter, the terms and conditions for the management, operation, and educational program of the charter school.

(3) "Charter school" means a public school managed by a governing council and operating independently of any school district board under a charter approved in accordance with this chapter.

(4) "Governing council" means a council created in accordance with the school's charter and with this chapter that is responsible for the policy and operational decisions of the charter school.

(5) "Sponsor" means a school district, an educational service district, a board of directors of a community and technical college, or a college or program of education at a regional university as defined in RCW 28B.10.016, whichever is applicable, that has approved a charter for a charter school.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. CHARTER SCHOOLS‑-POWERS. (1) The governing council of a charter school may hire, manage, and discharge any charter school employee in accordance with the terms of this chapter and that school's charter.

(2) A charter school may enter into a contract with any school district, or any other public or private entity also empowered to enter into contracts, for any and all real property, equipment, goods, supplies, and services, to include educational instructional services.

(3) Charter schools may rent, lease, or own property, but may not acquire property by eminent domain. Charter schools may accept gifts and donations from other governmental and private entities, excluding sectarian or religious organizations. Charter schools shall not accept any gifts or donations the conditions of which violate this chapter.

(4) Charter schools shall not charge tuition, levy taxes, or issue bonds, however they may charge fees for optional noncredit extracurricular events.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 4. LEGAL STATUS. A public charter school is a public school including one or more of grades kindergarten through twelve, operated by a nonprofit entity, according to the terms of a renewable five-year agreement granted by a sponsor or the superintendent of public instruction.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 5. CHARTER SCHOOLS‑-EXEMPTIONS. (1) A charter school shall operate independently of any school district board, under a charter approved by a sponsor pursuant to this chapter. Charter schools are exempt from all state statutes and rules relating to school districts except as provided in this chapter and in the school's approved charter.

(2) Except as provided in this chapter, charter schools are exempt from all statutes and rules applicable to a school board or district, although they may elect to comply with one or more provisions of these statutes or rules.

(3) All approved charter schools shall:

(a) Comply with state and federal health, safety, and civil rights laws and rules applicable to school districts;

(b) Meet or exceed the student performance and assessment standards as established for students in other public schools;

(c) Participate in nationally normed standardized achievement tests as required in RCW 28A.230.190, 28A.230.230, and 28A.230.240;

(d) Seventy-five percent of instructional staff must be certificated in accordance with chapter 28A.410 RCW;

(e) Comply with the employee record check requirements in RCW 28A.400.303;

(f) Be subject to the same financial and audit requirements as a school district; and

(g) Report at least annually to its sponsor and to parents of children enrolled at the charter school on progress toward the student performance goals specified in the charter.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS. (1) A charter school shall enroll all students who submit a timely application. If capacity is insufficient to enroll all students who submit a timely application, the charter school shall give enrollment priority to students who reside within the boundaries of the school district in which the charter school is physically located. Priority also shall be given to siblings of students who are currently enrolled in the school. Students shall be selected through an equitable selection process, such as a lottery, to fill any remaining spaces.

(2) A charter school shall not grant or limit admission based on race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, gender, income level, intellectual ability, disabling condition, proficiency in the English language, or athletic ability. A charter school may limit admission to students within a given age group or grade level.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 7. CHARTER APPLICATION‑-CHARTERING PROCESS. (1) Applicants to establish a charter school include nonprofit corporations or cooperatives.

(2) The sponsor of a charter school shall be a local school district board of directors, an educational service district, a board of trustees of a community and technical college, or a college or program of education at a regional university as defined in RCW 28B.10.016. An applicant for a charter school shall submit its application to a sponsor, which shall either accept or reject a sponsorship of the charter school within sixty days. The timeline may be extended by mutual consent of both parties if it is in writing before the sixty-day deadline. The sponsor shall hold at least one public hearing on the charter application.

(3) The charter application shall be a proposed agreement and shall include:

(a) The identification and description of the nonprofit entity submitting the application, including the names and descriptions of the individuals who will operate the school;

(b) The nonprofit corporation's articles of incorporation, bylaws, and most recent financial statement and balance sheet;

(d) A description of the curriculum, the expected results, and the verified methods of measuring and reporting objective results that show the growth of knowledge in students attending the school and the procedures for taking corrective action in the event that student performance falls below established standards;

(e) The governance, bylaws, and management structure of the school;

(f) A description of admission policies and application procedures;

(g) A proposed five-year budget of projected revenues and expenditures, a plan for starting the school, and a description of major contracts planned for equipment and services, leases, improvements, purchases of real property, and insurance; and

(h) A description of the proposed financial management procedures, including annual audits of the school's financial and administrative operations, which shall meet or exceed generally accepted standards of management and public accounting.

(4) If the sponsor rejects the application, the sponsor shall notify the applicant in writing of the reasons for the rejection. The applicant may request, and the sponsor may provide, technical assistance to improve the application. An applicant may submit a revised application for reconsideration by the sponsor.

(5) If the applicant meets the elements in subsection (3) of this section, the sponsor shall notify the applicant in writing that the charter school has been approved.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 8. APPEAL PROCESS. (1) If the sponsor decides not to approve the charter application, the applicant may submit a motion for appeal to the superintendent of public instruction within thirty days of the sponsor's decision. The superintendent of public instruction shall accept the appeal of a charter school applicant whose application was considered but not approved by a sponsor. Within thirty days of accepting an appeal, the superintendent of public instruction shall rule on whether to approve or deny the application at a public meeting. If the superintendent of public instruction approves the application, the superintendent shall be deemed the sponsor of the charter school.

(2) Any superintendent's decision denying the application may be appealed to the state courts and reviewed to determine whether the superintendent's decision is supported by the facts. Decisions unsupported by the facts shall be remanded to the superintendent of public instruction with orders to approve the charter application.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 9. CHARTER AGREEMENT‑-AMENDMENT. (1) A charter application approved by a sponsor constitutes a charter.

(2) A charter may be amended during its term at the request of its governing council and with the approval of its sponsor.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 10. CHARTER RENEWAL AND REVOCATION. (1) An approved plan to establish a charter school is effective for five years from the first day of operation. At the conclusion of the first four years of operation, the charter school may apply to the sponsor for renewal.

(2) A charter school renewal application shall include:

(a) A report on the progress of the charter school in achieving the goals, student performance standards, and other terms of the initial approved charter; and

(b) A financial statement that discloses the costs of administration, instruction, and other expenditure objects and activities of the charter school.

(3) The sponsor may reject the application for renewal if, in its judgment, any of the following occurred:

(a) The charter school materially violated its contract with its sponsor, as set forth in the initial approved charter as amended;

(b) The students enrolled in the charter school failed to meet or make reasonable progress toward achievement of the student performance standards identified in the initial approved charter;

(d) The charter school violated provisions in law that have not been waived in accordance with this chapter.

(4) A sponsor shall give written notice of its intent not to renew the charter school's request for renewal to the charter school at least twelve months before the expiration of the approved charter to allow the charter school an opportunity to correct identified deficiencies in its operation or to apply to another sponsor for approval of the operation of the charter school. At the request of the governing council of the charter school, the sponsor shall review its decision for nonrenewal after the charter school has corrected any identified deficiencies. If the charter is transferred by application to another sponsor, the five-year term of the charter shall be repeated.

(5) The sponsor may revoke a previously approved charter before the expiration of the term of the charter, and before application for renewal, for any of the reasons specified in subsection (3) of this section. In addition, the sponsor may revoke a charter after two years if the academic achievement of its students is significantly below the academic achievement of comparable students in the school district in which the charter school is located. Except in cases of emergency where the health and safety of children are at risk, a charter may not be revoked unless the sponsor first provides written notice of the specific violations alleged, a public hearing, and a reasonable opportunity for the charter school to correct the identified areas of concern. The sponsor of a charter school shall provide for an appeal process upon a determination by the sponsor that grounds exist to revoke a charter.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 11. FUNDING. (1) The superintendent of public instruction shall separately calculate and allocate to charter schools moneys appropriated for basic education under RCW 28A.150.260. The amount of funding for charter schools shall be determined by the number of full-time equivalent students enrolled in the school multiplied by the estimated state-wide annual average per full-time equivalent student allocation under RCW 28A.150.260 and applicable rules.

(2) State funding to charter schools for students who are eligible for special education under chapter 28A.155 RCW; the learning assistance program under chapter 28A.165 RCW; and the transitional bilingual instruction program under chapter 28A.180 RCW shall be determined in accordance with applicable statutes and rules that apply to school districts.

(3) State funding for the transportation of students who are transported shall be based on the average full-time equivalent student transportation allocation for transported students in the district in which the school is located or on the allocation formula used by school districts.

(4) For each annual full-time equivalent student enrolled in a charter school, the charter schools shall be entitled to an amount equal to two-thirds of the maintenance and operation excess tax levy rate per annual average full-time equivalent student of the district in which each full-time equivalent student who attends the charter school resides. These funds shall be paid to the charter school by the school district in which the student resides in equal monthly installments, adjusted for any changes in enrollment, between October and July each year, by the fifteenth of each month.

(5) The superintendent of public instruction shall establish rules for the calculation and payment of state and school district funds to charter schools.

(6) On or before October 15th of each year, the superintendent of public instruction shall transmit to charter schools one-tenth of the total state amount to be apportioned during the fiscal year. The remaining funds shall be apportioned in equal monthly installments, adjusted for any changes in enrollment and other factors, between November and July by the fifteenth of each month.

(7) Charter schools are eligible to apply for education grant programs and special education safety net funding.

(8) Transportation of students attending a charter school may be provided by the sponsoring school district, if applicable, through a cooperative agreement with another school district, through a contract with a third party, or by parents.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 12. VACANT BUILDINGS. The superintendent of public instruction, in conjunction with the department of general administration, shall annually publish a list of vacant and unused buildings and vacant and unused portions of buildings that are owned by this state or by school districts and that may be suitable for the operation of a charter school. The superintendent of public instruction shall make the list available to applicants for charter schools and to existing charter schools. The list shall include the address of each building, a short description of the building, and the name of the owner of the building. This section does not require the owner of a building on the list to sell or lease the building or a portion of the building to a charter school or to any other school or to any other prospective buyer or tenant.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 13. EDUCATIONAL EMPLOYEES' LEAVES OF ABSENCE. (1) If a school district employee makes a written request for an extended leave of absence to work at a charter school, the school district shall grant the leave. The school district may require that the request for a leave be made up to ninety days before the employee would otherwise have to report for duty. If the employee returns to the school district, the employee shall receive first consideration for rehire.

(2) During a leave, the employee may continue to aggregate benefits and credits in the employee's retirement system account if appropriate employee and employer contributions are made. The department of retirement systems may impose reasonable requirements to administer this section efficiently.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 14. CHARTER SCHOOLS ASSISTANCE ACCOUNT. The charter schools assistance account is created in the custody of the state treasurer. All receipts from appropriations shall be deposited into the account. Expenditures from the account may be used only to provide financial grants to approved charter schools for start-up costs. Charter schools may receive up to twenty-five thousand dollars per building for start-up costs. Only the superintendent of public instruction or the superintendent's designee may authorize expenditures from the account. The account is subject to allotment procedures under chapter 43.88 RCW, but no appropriation is required for expenditures. Start-up moneys shall be distributed to schools with approved charters on a first-come, first-served basis.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 15. RULES--GRANTS. The office of the superintendent of public instruction shall adopt rules to implement section 14 of this act.

If an applicant for a charter school receives a grant under this section and fails to begin operating a charter school within the next eighteen months, the applicant shall reimburse the office of the superintendent of public instruction for the amount of the grant plus interest calculated at a rate of ten percent a year.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 16. CAPTIONS NOT LAW. Captions used in this chapter do not constitute any part of the law.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 17. Sections 1 through 16 of this act constitute a new chapter in Title 28A RCW.