Reply to BASIS under federal investigation

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "BASIS under federal investigation"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
No, they aren't.  BASIS has chosen to operate as it's own Local Education Authority.  That makes them a school district.  A small one, for sure, but no smaller than many districts in rural parts of this country.  Like those small rural districts BASIS has an obligation to serve all the students who come through it's doors.[/quote]

That is an important point, PP.  Contrary to several inaccurate posts -- one from a self-proclaimed expert -- charter schools choose whether to be treated as an LEA for the purposes of IDEA.  In other words, if a charter does not want to be treated as an LEA, it can opt out.  The election to be treated as an LEA is usually made in the charter itself.

For reasons I don't quite understand, almost all charters elect to be treated as an LEA for purposes of IDEA.  Perhaps they fear that their autonomy will be undermined if they were treated a member school of a "charter school LEA," e.g., they get stuck with the emotional and behavioral problems that another charter school in the "charter school LEA" couldn't handle and strategically classified as special ed.

In any event, if being its own LEA becomes overly burdensome for BASIS, I see no reason why BASIS could not amend its charter to be treated as part of the PCSB LEA.  [/quote]

A.) I don't think it works the way you suggest, of "opting out" - can you name any charter that "opted out"?  Can you name any school that's "part of the PCSB LEA"?  I cannot.  In fact, does your supposed "PCSB LEA" even exist?

B.) Even so, I don't think it means entirely what you think it means.  "LEA" only has specific meaning in a few pieces of law.

C.) The charters are not in a vacuum, as sole public school option - they co-exist within the same geographic space as the public school system and with dozens of other charters.  The "public school system" is a far larger composite of all of these.

D.) PP's suggestion that rural school districts are "small" is not valid - many rural school districts span hundreds of square miles, geographically far larger than DC and typically with far more students than a typical charter.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics