Amendment(s):
The initial charter school legislation was enacted in 1998. The
session of the 2002 Virginia General Assembly resulted in amendments
to previous statutes governing public charter schools. Senate Bill
625 required all local school boards to review and act on applications
for public charter schools. (Legislation passed in 2000 allowed local
school boards the option to review or not to review charter school
applications.) House Bill 734 required local school boards to report
the number of public charter school applications that were approved
and denied to the Virginia Board of Education on an annual basis. The
new legislation maintained the requirement that local school boards
submit annual evaluations of any public charter school to the state
Board of Education.
Authorizers:
The local school district where the charter school is located
authorizes the school.
Length of charter:
5 years
Caps on number of schools:
There is a cap on the number of charter schools in each school
district. By law, the total number of charter schools shall not exceed
ten percent of the school division's total number of schools, or two
public charter schools, whichever is greater.
Funding:
Charter schools negotiate with the local school district for funds
to operate the schools. The current eight charter schools received
funding from the federal charter school start-up grants that Virginia
received during the past three years. That grant expired in September
2003.
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