This is National School Choice Week. The focus Tuesday night at the MO State Capitol was on charter schools. Just a couple dozen people showed up to hear from a group lobbying for changes.
Right now, starting a charter school is not an option in Mid-Missouri. They are only approved for Kansas City and St. Louis, but proposed legislation in the state legislature could pave the way.
Currently some charter schools are run by universities, but if expanded to Mid-Missouri they would be sponsored by local districts that are fully accredited. In Kansas City and St. Louis, charter schools became an alternative for underperforming schools. They usually offer a unique program like intensive education in the arts, or math and science.
Charter schools also boast control at the building level according to the Executive Director of the Missouri Charter Public School Association, Douglas Theman. "The primary difference with a charter school is that it is not bound by many of the requirements that a district school would have. It has a little more autonomy, a little more control over their funds and how that funding is spent and kept closer to the classroom," explains Theman.
Jefferson City Public Schools spokesman David Luther tells KRCG, while charter schools have not been considered in the district, there are other programs being talked about to offer choices for students. As part of a proposal to expand or build a new high school, six smaller learning communities would have their own principal and focus while being housed in the same building. Superintendent Brian Mitchell explains how the idea would work in an October 2, 1011 letter to district staff. The district has also considered an elementary school with an intensive focus on teaching a foreign language.
In Columbia, a magnet school like Ridgeway offers more building control over how students are taught.
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