Montana’s Board of Public Education unanimously approved applications for 19 new charter schools across the state Friday, giving the 11 public school districts that submitted them the green light to proceed with standing up the new institutions.

The new charters represent Montana’s first wave of schools made possible by House Bill 549, which was passed by the Legislature last year and allows existing public school boards to set up and manage charter schools with narrowly tailored educational goals. The approved charters will see new schools established in Billings, Great Falls, Helena, Kalispell, Missoula, Bozeman, Frenchtown, East Helena, Hamilton, Boulder and Corvallis.

State board members have reviewed a total of 26 charter proposals submitted under the new public district charter school law in recent months. One proposal was rejected early in the process as the applicants had not consulted their local school board, and another was withdrawn by the applicants Friday just prior to the board’s action. The board denied five other proposals in a separate vote Friday.

Thursday’s discussion also revealed a number of higher-level dilemmas board members have faced in their first bid at implementing district-run charters. One such pain point involved legal questions about the ability of charters to offer online enrollment and instruction for students outside their district’s boundaries. Hamman noted Montana law currently contains several contradictory provisions related to out-of-district enrollment that could raise legal issues for charters built around widespread online instruction.

Board members also wrestled with the more existential question of what one of HB 549’s primary charges — that charters offer “innovative” instruction — actually means, with Hamman quipping that one proposal had her turning to “the dictionary and thesaurus” to better define the term. The board had rated several proposals expanding pre-existing programs in certain districts as lower in terms of their innovative appeal, but rated similar charter applications in districts where such programs hadn’t been tried yet as higher. Despite those ratings, board member Anne Keith pointed out some applications built around pre-existing district programs had fallen higher on the board’s ranking list than others proposing the same model of instruction.

The board expressed particular concern over a charter proposal submitted by the Park City Schools, which involved administering online instruction with the aid of a for-profit vendor, Pearson Online and Blended Learning. That detail — coupled with the proposal’s projected long-term enrollment of more than 1,000 students statewide — prompted several board members to question the charter’s potential impacts on enrollment in other districts throughout Montana.

Members also got a look at the latest totals of teachers licensed by OPI for the 2023-24 school year. Crystal Andrews, the agency’s director of accreditation and licensure, told the board the number of new educator licenses issued this academic year was 246 higher than in the 2022-23 school year — a promising development in a state contending with ongoing teacher recruitment and retention challenges.

Montana Free Press: Board of Public Education approves first wave of Montana charter schools