Gov. Tom Wolf is urging the Pennsylvania General Assembly to pass his comprehensive charter reform legislation. | Shutterstock
Gov. Tom Wolf is urging the Pennsylvania General Assembly to pass his comprehensive charter reform legislation. | Shutterstock
Gov. Tom Wolf (D-PA) has vetoed, disapproved and then returned what he deemed a “deficient charter resolution,” but on June 21, he announced that new regulations for the Charter School Law (CSL) are ready to be published.
The Official Pennsylvania Government Website said that the new regulations provide “transparency, equity and accountability” in their implementation of the CSL. Wolf said in his veto message that the current resolution was “procedurally deficient,” as the General Assembly did not follow the timetable outlined in the Regulatory Review Act for disapproving a resolution.
“Pennsylvania needs these regulations to clearly define for the first time charter schools’ responsibilities to the taxpayers who fund them,” Wolf said, according to the website. “Charter schools received nearly $3 billion in publicly paid tuition in the past school year. Parents and taxpayers deserve a thorough accounting of how those billions of dollars were used.”
Wolf added that the CSL is outdated and has not been significantly amended since its passage over 20 years ago.
The regulations were created by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) and were put in place to clarify aspects of the CSL so they would align public charter school operations with those of public schools. They were approved by the Independent Review Commission in March and last week were sent to the Legislative Reference Bureau, so they would be published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.
The regulations started being developed in August 2019 and involved about 2,000 comments from charter schools, school districts, lawmakers, professional organizations and members of the public.
The regulations include providing clear application requirements for those looking to open a charter school, regional charter school and cyber charter school; ensure that all students in Pennsylvania have the option to access a charter school; to clarify the ethics requirements for charter and cyber charter school trustees; to require school districts and charter schools to follow the same fiscal management and auditing; to streamline the process for charter schools to request tuition payments from school districts, as well as the state; and to provide consistent, common-sense methods for the charter school to meet for employee health care.
Information about the state’s education policies can be found at the Department of Education website.
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