Todd Ziebarth, senior vice president of state advocacy and support at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, released the following statement:
“We have been increasingly concerned to see how our model law’s provisions regarding open meetings and open records have been misused by charter school opponents in Washington, D.C. to try to undermine the good work being done by D.C.’s public charter schools and the D.C. Public Charter School Board.
To be clear, our model law includes a provision that requires charter school governing boards to subject to and comply with state open meetings and freedom of information laws. And this provision isn’t in place in D.C.
However, the overriding value that this provision is focused on is transparency. And the charter school movement in D.C., through all of the policies that the D.C. Public Charter School Board has put in place, meets the intent of this provision in a way that respects the unique nature of D.C.’s chartering and education governance structure.
One would have to willingly defy common sense to look at the long list of the D.C. Public Charter School Board’s open meeting and open record requirements and conclude that D.C.’s public charter schools aren’t transparent.”
