5 new NC charter schools OK’d to open in 2022. Why Wake officials tried to block one.

Five new North Carolina charter schools were approved Thursday to open in 2022, including a school that had been opposed by the Wake County school system.

Wake school leaders argued that allowing Triangle Math and Science Academy to open a second charter school would increase segregation in the district. But the State Board of Education voted Thursday to grant the additional charter, siding with Triangle’s track record of academic success and promise to diversify the new school.

“What you have is a highly performing charter school that has been successful for many years in the state and is replicating, which is something frankly that we don’t see enough of,” Alex Quigley, chairman of the N.C. Charter Schools Advisory Board, told the state board during its discussion last month.

Also on Thursday, the state board approved the charter school applications of American Leadership Academy in Johnston County, Bonnie Cone Leadership Academy in Mecklenburg County, Central Carolina Academy Charter in Lee County and Dogwood Classical Academy in Cabarrus County.

Both American Leadership and Bonnie Cone would become the latest North Carolina schools managed by Glenn Way, a charter school operator who made millions of dollars building, selling and leasing properties to the schools he runs in Arizona.

Amy White, the state board member whose committee oversees charter schools, called Way’s company, Charter One, a highly successful school operator with a strong track record of serving disadvantaged students.

Picking strong charter applications

Charter schools are taxpayer funded schools that are exempt from some of the regulations that traditional public schools must follow. There are now 200 charter schools open statewide.

Supporters say charter schools provide more choices to families. Critics say they take money from traditional public schools and increase school segregation because charters on average have more white students.

Of the 21 charter schools that applied to open in 2022, only five were recommended by the advisory board. Quigley said they only recommended the ones they felt confident could open on time.

Triangle Math and Science Academy’s request was unanimously recommended by the advisory board. The school has been popular since it opened in 2012, particularly among the fast-growing Asian community in Wake. Its parent organization also operates the Triad Math and Science Academy in Greensboro.

Last month, the state board approved Triangle’s request to relocate its high school students to a new campus in Apex. The K-8 students will remain in its Cary campus.

Triangle applied to open a second charter school in Wake County based on its academic success and how more than 2,000 students are on its waiting list. The new charter is slated to open in 2022 with just elementary students but eventually will also offer middle school and serve 900 students total.

‘A shocking lack of diversity’

The Wake County school system, which like many other districts has been losing students to charter schools, quickly opposed the application.

In their letter to the state board, Wake school leaders accused Triangle of having “a shocking lack of diversity.” The letter points to how Triangle has a much higher combined percentage of white and Asian students and a much lower percentage of students receiving federally subsidized lunches than the district.

“Far from providing a unique educational opportunity to a diverse array of students, charter schools like TMSA do little more than contribute to the segregation of the surrounding school district,” Wake County Superintendent Cathy Moore and school board chairman Keith Sutton wrote in the letter.

“We do not believe the current TMSA has benefited our community and would respectfully request that you deny a duplication.”

Pledge to serve disadvantaged students

In a response letter, TMSA says it intends to build a diverse community in the new school that goes beyond just race and ethnicity, with diversity in things such as immigration status and languages spoken. The school also says that the current numbers of free and reduced lunch students isn’t a true depiction of its population due to the lack of lunch service at the campus.

But for the new school, TMSA plans to give economically disadvantaged students priority in the application lottery and provide those students with school meals and transportation.

TMSA plans to apply for a share of a federal grant providing North Carolina charter schools with $36.6 million to increase the number of disadvantaged students they serve.

“The weighted lottery will help provide students with educational disadvantages a choice,” Fatih Oguz, TMSA board chair, writes in the letter. “Local families are eager to enroll their children at TMSA because they believe we do make a difference in our community, and we are equally eager to serve them.”