The Cleveland Metropolitan School District Board of Education is postponing a vote on new charter school partners after receiving its largest ever number of applicants.
Ten already operating charter schools applied to partner with CMSD. The CMSD Board of Education was scheduled to vote on those partnerships at a Tuesday meeting, but pushed the vote to February.
Defined in the Cleveland Plan, a partnership allows charters to receive a portion of the district’s local levy dollars in addition to the funding they receive from the state.
CMSD’s Executive Director of Charter Schools Stephanie Klupinski said the district typically gets one or two applications a year and described the increase as a positive.
“I think it’s a testimony to increased trust from the charter sector with the district," she said. "Now that we’ve been doing this for a while and they believe that they can work collaboratively with us, we’re seeing a spike in applications.”
Klupinski said the partnerships are not just about money. They allow the district to collaborate with and learn best practices from the charter schools they don’t oversee.
“The other benefit that CMSD gets is that we roll up the academic data of those students in our district report card,” she added.
In order to become a partner, charter schools must be at least two years old, be located within the CMSD boundaries, and show financial stability and academic growth.
This year's applicants include:
- West Park Academy
- Broadway Academy
- Lincoln Park
- Hope Academy Northcoast
- Hope Academy Northwest
- East Academy
- Chapelside Academy
- Cleveland Arts and Social Science Academy
- Horizon Science Academy (Denison)
- Horizon Science Middle School
