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Board OKs criteria for charter partners

 

 

CMSD NEWS BUREAU

12/14/2018

 

The Cleveland Board of Education has approved criteria that charter schools must meet to partner with CMSD.

The board approved criteria for new applicants this week. Requirements for eligibility include:

  • District residents must account for at least 80 percent of the partner charter’s enrollment.
  • The charter’s average performance index for the most recent three-year period must rank in the top third of all CMSD and charter schools located within the District’s boundaries.
  • If a partner charter is a high school, its four-year graduation rate for the most three-year period must equal or exceed the national average.
 
The Cleveland Plan, a customized blueprint for school reform in the city, calls for students to receive the best possible education, regardless of the provider.
 
The District asked the Cleveland Transformation Alliance to recommend partnership criteria. The Transformation Alliance, which was created to monitor schools' progress under The Cleveland Plan, worked on the project with representatives of CMSD and the charter sector over the course of two months.
 
“Our intention, as we drafted this set of criteria, was to take an inclusive approach while holding partnering charter schools to high standards of practice," said Piet van Lier, executive director of the Transformation Alliance.

CMSD partners with 19 charter schools, including 11 that the District sponsors. CMSD provides technical assistance to charters it sponsor and receives a percentage of the charter’s state funding.

Based on the number of District residents enrolled, partner charters share one mill of a 15-mill levy that voters approved in 2012 and renewed in 2016. CMSD is the only district in Ohio and one of the few in the country to share local tax money with charter schools.