Charter School Law Basics

History
Sponsorship
Legal Status
What Charter Schools Can and Cannot Do
Organization and Governance
Teaching Requirements
Funding
Accountability 

History of Charter School Law
The Wisconsin Charter Program was established in 1993 with authorization for 10 school districts to establish up to two charter schools for a total of 20 state wide. Thirteen charter schools were created under this law. In 1995, revisions to that first charter school law gave chartering authority to all school boards statewide and eliminated the cap on the total number of charter schools. In 1997, the state legislature made another revision to the law. This revision gave chartering authority in Milwaukee to the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), to the Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC), and to the Common Council of the City of Milwaukee.

In the 1998 budget adjustment session, the state legislature made additional changes to the law, allowing for a school district to contract with a cooperative educational service agency (CESA) to operate a charter school as long as it is located within the CESA. Another change requires that a

school board receiving a petition to establish a charter school or to convert a nonsectarian private school to a charter school must hold a public hearing on the matter and must consider the fiscal impact of the establishment of the charter. A final change requires the school district in which a charter school is located to determine whether or not the charter school is an instrumentality of the school district. (Instrumentality is defined in the section entitled Legal Status.)

The changes that occurred in the 1999-2001 Biennial Budget revolved around Milwaukee per pupil aids and statewide assessments. In the 2001-2003 budget bill, limited chartering authority was granted to the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. (See appendix B for specific language.)

Sponsorship
School boards in Wisconsin are the primary charter school authorizer in Wisconsin. The Milwaukee Common Council, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, MATC, and the University of Wisconsin - Parkside also have chartering authority. With the exception of University of Wisconsin - Parkside, each may establish, sponsor, and operate an unlimited number of charter schools. The chartering entity reviews submitted petitions and reserves complete discretion in granting or denying a petition. The chartering entity must give preference to an applicant who would establish a charter school to serve an at-risk student population. No state appeals process exists for denied petitions; in Milwaukee, denied petitioners may appeal to the Department of Public Instruction (DPI).

Legal Status
In school districts, the school board may determine whether or not charter school is an instrumentality of the school district in which it is located. If the board deems it an instrumentality, the district employs all personnel for the charter school. If, the board determines the charter school is not an instrumentality, the personnel are considered employees of the charter school.

While some charter schools are identified as an instrumentality of the district, the word instrumentality is not defined in the charter school law and has had limited use in Wisconsin. The word was initially included in the charter law to ensure continuing eligibility of charter school teachers in the Wisconsin Retirement System. Instrumentality as used in the retirement law defines the employer, making it clear that the employing school district is the entity responsible for worker's compensation, insurance, unemployment compensation, employee insurance and benefits, liability for acts of school staff members, and so forth.

A charter school in Milwaukee that receives its charter from the Common Council, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, or MATC is not an instrumentality of the Milwaukee Public Schools, and the school board may not employ any personnel for the charter school. However, if the Milwaukee Common Council contracts with an individual or group operating for profit to operate the school, then that charter school is an instrumentality of the Milwaukee Public Schools; the board of education will then employ all personnel for the charter school. If the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside contracts for the establishment of a charter school, the board of regents of the University of Wisconsin System may employ instructional staff for the charter school.

What Charter Schools Can and Cannot Do
Charter schools in Wisconsin are exempt from most state requirements regarding public education. However, teachers in charter schools must be li- censed by the DPI. (See Appendix A, Teaching Requirements for Charter Schools.) Also, students in charter schools may be counted for membership in the local school district. State law provides that the charter or contract under which the school operates may be for any term not exceeding five years and may be renewed for one or more terms, again not exceeding five years. This law also stipulates that the charter must describe the methods the school will use to enable pupils to attain the general educational goals listed in § 118.01, Stats. Health and safety requirements, of course, apply to charter schools as well as to all Wisconsin public schools.

Charter schools are not exempt from federal laws governing regular or special education or civil rights policies, nor are they exempt from local school board policies unless negotiated in district contracts. This last provision does not pertain to noninstrumentality charter schools. For specific information regarding special education, go to www.dpi.state.wi.us/dpi/dlsea/een/index.html.

A charter school cannot charge tuition and must be equally accessible to all students in the school district. Preference in admission must be given to students living within the attendance area of an existing school that is converted to a charter school. Nonresident students may enroll in a district and be assigned to a charter school under the Wisconsin public school open enrollment program.

Charter schools may not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, religion, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy, marital or parental status, sexual orientation, or physical, mental, emotional, or learning disability. The charter school contract must clearly spell out how the school will achieve a racial and ethnic balance among its pupils that reflects the balance in the school district as a whole.

Attendance at a charter school must be voluntary, and the district must provide alternative public education for pupils who do not wish to attend the charter school or who are not admitted to the charter school. This provision also applies should a school board enter into a contract that would result in the conversion of all the public schools in the district to charter schools.

Charter schools receiving federal grant funds are subject to the Non- regulatory Guidance of the Public Charter Schools Program of the U.S. Department of Education. This guidance clearly spells out admission and lottery requirements.

Organization and Governance
Charter schools are free to be creative in setting up their administration and governance structures, so long as parental involvement is demonstrated. Many charter schools break from traditional management models by establishing decision-making boards that include school staff, parents, and area employers. Others have parent and teacher committees that address school needs, such as fundraising and the budget. Others include student representatives in their governing bodies.

Parental involvement and participation are hallmarks of charter schools. While many parents readily volunteer, parental service may not be made a condition of pupil admission.

In many school-within-a-school charters, the administrative structures are similar to traditional public school administrations because districts share resources such as transportation, food service, accounting and payroll, libraries, special education programs, and special classes like art, music, and physical education.

Teaching Requirements
Generally, the DPI licenses teachers in specific subject areas and at specific grade levels. To give charter schools more flexibility in their staffing, the DPI has created a charter school teaching license to allow licensed teachers to teach any subject or any grade in the charter school. Charter schools can also employ other professionals who are not trained as teachers by using a DPI-issued charter school teaching permit. Applicants for the charter school teaching permit must have either a bachelor's degree in the subject area to be taught or in a related field or formal proof of mastery in the trade they are assigned to teach. Permit holders must be supervised by a fully licensed teacher.

The chief administrator of the chartering authority may request that a charter school teaching permit be granted to an individual hired to perform instructional duties if a search for a qualified, licensed individual is unsuccessful. The charter school teaching permit is valid for one year and can be renewed if the applicant completes six credits in an approved teacher education program. For additional information on charter school teacher licensure, please see the Wisconsin Administrative Code in Appendix A or call Teacher Education and Licensing at the DPI.

Teachers in regular public schools are normally members of the teachers union and are afforded the rights and privileges of the master contract, including enrollment in the Wisconsin Retirement System. The same is true for staff members of a charter school that is formed by and is an instrumentality of the school district.

The staff members of noninstrumentality charter schools, as noted, are not employees of the school district or chartering authority. Thus, they are not eligible to participate in the Wisconsin Retirement System and are not members of the local teachers union.

Funding
Approximately two-thirds of the money that funds K-12 education in Wisconsin comes from state funds raised primarily through state income and sales taxes. The remaining one-third comes from other sources, including property taxes, federal aid, and local fees.

In schools chartered by a school district, the contract or charter determines the amount of funding. In some cases, the district's per-pupil expenditure follows the student as he or she moves from a regular public school to a charter school. In other cases, the charter school functions with less money. This is made possible by locating the charter school within an existing district facility, sharing management costs with the school district, and participating in district services such as transportation, operation, co-curricular activities, psychological services, and food service. The ! school district counts charter school students on its regular "average daily membership" count for state aid purposes.

In schools chartered by the City of Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, MATC, or the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, the amount of funding is determined by state law. Specifically, the law provides that state aid in the amount of the previous year's shared cost per member will be deducted from state aid to the Milwaukee Public Schools and paid directly to the operator of charter schools which are authorized by OW-Milwaukee, MATC, or the City of Milwaukee. The total amount is based on the number of eligible students attending the charter school.

Several charter schools have received grants and gifts from community, state, and national organizations; foundations; businesses; and private individuals.

Public Charter Schools Program grants also help in the planning and implementation of charter schools in Wisconsin. Grant funds may be used for planning and implementation activities such as professional development, assessment strategies, curriculum development, investments in technology, and, in some cases, renovation of facilities to bring them up to health and safety codes. Grants may generally be used to defray costs not covered by state and local funds, but they may not be used for regular on- going operational costs of the charter school.

The Wisconsin DPI received a three-year Public Charter Schools Pro- gram grant from the U.S. Department of Education covering the period from October I, 1996, through September 30,1999. Total funds received in the state exceeded $6.4 million during the three-year period. Ninety-five percent of those funds were immediately awarded in subgrants to charter school planning groups and in start-up funds to charter schools open to serve students. The grant was reauthorized October I, 1999, through September 30, 2002, with the third-year funding authorization rising from $4.4 million to $8.75 million. The Department has been authorized to receive $26.9 million for the 2002-2005 federal budget period. Information regarding the grant program and application forms may be obtained from the charter school Web site at www.dpi.state.wi.us/dpi/dfm/sms/csindex.html.

Wisconsin's public school districts are operating under strict revenue limits. Therefore, the more successful charter schools are those that have used the flexibility of teacher licensing and the relief from state regulation to operate as an "alternative delivery system," teaching district students without adding a significant number of new staff members.

Accountability
Charter schools are assigned individual school codes by the Wisconsin DPI. A charter school is a public school that is exempt from many traditional state and local rules and regulations, thus allowing greater flexibility in their means for achieving student success. In exchange for this flexibility, charter schools are held accountable for reporting the achievement of the high academic standards described in their charters. A charter school that fails to meet these standards risks being closed by its chartering agency, hence the motto of charter schools: Autonomy for accountability. Pursuant to Wisconsin law, charters may be granted for any term not exceeding five school years and may be renewed for terms not exceeding five years. A charter may be revoked if the chartering entity finds that the charter school violated its contract or failed to comply with generally accepted accounting standards of fiscal management, or if enrolled pupils failed to make sufficient progress in attaining educational goals.

The best charter schools in Wisconsin and across the country balance clear educational goals and expectations with their unique styles and missions. These schools and their chartering entities draw up written agreements specifying the measurable pupil performance indicators they will use and what constitutes progress sufficient to renew the charter. These agreements call for regular reports to the developer and are in place prior to the time the school opens.