La. Admin. Code tit. 28 § CXXXIX-105

Current through Register Vol. 50, No. 11, November 20, 2024

Section CXXXIX-105 - Purpose of Charter Schools

A. The charter school law was enacted by the Louisiana Legislature to create a structure whereby city, parish, and other local public school boards and BESE can authorize the creation of innovative kinds of independent public schools for students in Louisiana.

B. The Charter School Law provides a mechanism for all persons with valid ideas and motivation to participate in the development of innovative schools and a mechanism to analyze results of charter schools. Analysis of results allows for the positive results to be repeated or replicated, if appropriate, and the negative results identified and eliminated.

C. The charter school law expresses the intention of the legislature that the best interests of economically-disadvantaged pupils shall be the overriding consideration in implementing the provisions of the law.

D. The purposes of charter schools include providing opportunities for educators and others interested in educating pupils to form, operate, or be employed within a charter school, with each such school designed to accomplish one or more of the following objectives:

1. improve pupil learning and, in general, the public school system;

2. increase learning opportunities and access to quality education for pupils;

3. increase educational opportunities for students in formerly failing schools;

4. increase learning opportunity choices for parents and students;

5. encourage the use of different and innovative teaching methods and a variety of governance, management, and administrative structures;

6. require appropriate assessment and measurement of academic learning results;

7. account better and more thoroughly for educational results;

8. create new professional opportunities for teachers and other school employees, including the opportunity to be responsible for the learning program at the school site;

9. provide competition within the public school system in order to stimulate continued improvement in all public schools; and/or

10. expand the capacity of the public school system.

E. It is not a purpose of the Charter School Law or this bulletin to permit the establishment of a charter school to be used as the means of keeping open an existing public school that otherwise would be closed. Such a circumstance, however, shall not preclude approval of a proposed charter that otherwise fulfills a purpose of the Charter School Law and for which the application/proposal clearly demonstrates that the educational program proposed to be offered will improve the achievement levels of the students enrolled in that school.

1. For the purposes of this bulletin, the term existing public school shall be defined as a school that is open during the school year in which the charter applicant is submitting a charter application or was open in the school year immediately preceding the school year in which the charter applicant is submitting a charter application.

F. It is not a purpose of the Charter School Law or this bulletin to provide a means of funding for nonpublic schools or any home study program.

La. Admin. Code tit. 28, § CXXXIX-105

Promulgated by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in LR 34:1358 (July 2008), amended LR 40:1322 (July 2014), Amended LR 442130 (12/1/2018).

AUTHORITY NOTE: Promulgated in accordance with R.S. 17:6(A)(10), 17:3972, and 17:3981.