“Now, with the ruling today, it’s even more evident that the responsibility of keeping these schools open falls at the feet of the legislature”, said Cynara Lilly, a spokeswoman for Act Now For Washington Students, an offshoot of the Washington Charter School Association.
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The Washington State Supreme Court denied several motions to reconsider its September 4 decision that the state’s charter-school law is unconstitutional, which means the ruling is expected to become final on December 14.
On Thursday, however, the court justices deleted a footnote from the ruling that discussed how the lack of local voter control over charter schools violates the state constitution’s promise of “a general and uniform system of public schools”.
But this news out of Washington’s high court doesn’t appear to mark the end of the fight for the state’s charter schools.
Whether the charters will also receive the more than $700,000 in funding for November is still up in the air, and it’s unclear when state payments to the schools will cease altogether, said OSPI spokesman Nathan Olson.
The Office of the Attorney General is the chief legal office for the state of Washington with attorneys and staff in 27 divisions across the state providing legal services to roughly 200 state agencies, boards and commissions. That court would then issue a final order. Katie Wilton, a ninth grade student at Summit Olympus in Tacoma, called the Supreme Court ruling unfair and asked lawmakers to be courageous and do whatever they can to save her school.This goes against the will of Washington state voters, Wilton said. We should be open to modifying the language in our decision for the sake of clarity.Senate Republicans budget writer, Sen.
He said clarification on that issue could come next week.
In September, justices ruled charter schools could not receive state funding because they’re not overseen by elected boards.
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“This is disappointing because it takes away a parent’s choice and leaves many students wondering where they will attend school next year”, Tillie Elvrum, president of publicschooloptions.org, said in a statement. School districts are getting the same number of dollars per student that they were before..
