Senator George Runner’s (R- Antelope Valley) charter school accountability measure, Senate Bill 430, unanimously passed the Assembly Education Committee late yesterday afternoon.
“Charter schools were created to be free from many bureaucratic hurdles in order to provide a creative atmosphere where students can achieve academic excellence. Accountability must go hand in hand with that freedom in order to ensure appropriate use of our tax dollars,” said Senator Runner.
Senate Bill 430 is sponsored by the Governor’s Office of the Secretary for Education. Specifically, it allows charter schools to contract with the Financial Crisis Management and Assistance Team (FCMAT) to provide fiscal management assistance to help charter schools avoid fiscal crises. These are the same services that are currently offered to school districts. SB 430 also allows the county superintendent to audit or review a charter school if there is a reason to believe there is a misappropriation of funds, and requires a conflict of interest policy to be adopted and adhered to by all charter school board members and officers.
“This legislation addresses recent problems that surfaced in charter schools by providing better parameters to protect taxpayers and ensuring more stability for the nearly 200,000 students currently being served in California charter schools,” said Runner.
Public charter schools were established in 1992 and now there are over 470 California schools. Many of the charter schools serve students that are on probation or have dropped out of high school.
SB 430 will be voted on by the full State Assembly in the next few weeks.