School District Asks Charter Schools to Elect Boards
Posted: Thursday, March 31, 2011 11:12 am | Updated: 11:14 am, Thu Mar 31, 2011.
The San Diego Unified school board is opening up talks with two embattled charter schools about how to democratically elect their governing boards. And it is pressing another, newly forming charter to do the same if it wants to go longer without having to petition the school district to stay open.
It is a controversial step that the charters could easily wave off. Charter schools are publicly funded but independently run by their own chosen boards whose members are often chosen, not elected, by other board members. While some charters opt to have representatives who are chosen by parents or teachers, it is not required by law.
That means charter boards can sometimes veer away from what their communities want, making it hard to say who really represents the schools. The question of who