Mea culpa -- it WAS the school board, not the city council that said no more charters. Sorry.
Board OKs charter school moratorium for 2007 By ANDREA EGER World Staff Writer
2/7/2006
Existing schools will still be allowed to seek three-year contracts.
The Tulsa school board approved a moratorium on new charter schools that begins in 2007 instead of the current year, as originally proposed.
After hearing from supporters of the three existing charter schools that are sponsored by the Tulsa district, the board decided Monday to continue to allow those schools to seek three-year contract renewals.
Under the proposed language of the resolution on charter schools, the existing schools would have been allowed to seek only one-year contract renewals.
Superintendent David Sawyer recommended the moratorium on new charter schools and the changes regarding existing contract renewals because the school board's attorney, Doug Mann, has called into question the constitutionality of the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act, which became law in 1999.
Mann told the board that the outcome of a lawsuit between the city of Enid and the Public Employees Relations Board of Oklahoma, which is pending before the Oklahoma Supreme Court, could set a precedent for a challenge to the charter school law.
Under the Charter Schools Act, only school districts with 5,000 or more students that are located in Tulsa and Oklahoma counties or counties that abut them can serve as charter school sponsors. Norman Public Schools and Yukon Public Schools are specifically exempted under the law.
Mann said the Charter Schools Act could be considered to be a "special or local" law because it effectively limits the number of school districts that must consider sponsoring charter schools to about 13 in and around Tulsa and Oklahoma City.
Such special or local laws, he said, are specifically prohibited by the Oklahoma Constitution for regulations dealing with school districts and cities, such is at issue in the city of Enid case.
Board President Matt Livingood called on the Oklahoma Legislature to address the issue in its upcoming session.
The resolution approved by the board gives Sawyer the authority to initiate a legal challenge to the Charter Schools Act with only the board president's concurrence.
Livingood said he hopes it doesn't come to that.
The board made changes to the resolution as it was originally proposed after supporters of the Deborah Brown Community School, Dove Science Academy and the Tulsa School for Arts and Sciences said one-year contract renewals instead of three would cause them hardships in retaining teachers and continuing contracts with vendors.
With the amendments proposed by member Lana Turner-Addison and approved unanimously by the board, two applications for new charter schools will be considered by Tulsa Public Schools, although only for contract terms of one year.
Charter schools receive public funds through sponsoring school districts but are governed by independent boards.
In other business, the school board got its first look at a proposal to offer retirement incentives to almost 25 top-ranking administrators and assistant school principals.
Under the proposal, full-time administrators who serve as department directors or program coordinators and assistant school principals could qualify for six months' pay if they retire by March 20.
They would have to meet the criteria of at least seven continuous years of service to the district and be eligible to retire under the rules of the Oklahoma Teachers' Retirement System.
The board could vote on the proposal at its Feb. 21 meeting.
Andrea Eger 581-8470
[email protected]