Open Meeting Law Complaints Filed Against 113 Arizona Charter Schools

Arizonans for Charter School Accountability has recently filed complaints with the Arizona Attorney General against 113 charter holders for failing to post school board information on their websites as mandated by Arizona’s Open Meeting Law. Among the charter companies subject to the complaints are Great Hearts, EdKey, Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, Khalsa Montessori Elementary Schools, and Sonoran Science Charter schools.

The alleged failure to comply is striking in the cases of Great Heart and Benjamin Franklin. Rep. Paul Boyer, who chairs the Arizona House of Representatives Education Committee is an employee of Great Heart, and Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, owns Benjamin Franklin charter company.

Those charters however are only some of the 288 charter holders out of 411 total that complied with the law.  Many have completely transparent board meetings and offer their parents access to information and the governing process.  Arizonans for Charter School Accountability say those schools are to be commended.

A total of 113 charters did not state where public notices are posted or supply school board meeting notices on their websites as required by Arizona’s Open Meeting Law. Some of the largest Arizona charter companies including Great Hearts, EdKey, Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, and Sonoran Science Charter schools failed to comply with the law.  Further study revealed that 147 charters did not post notices for any board meetings in 2017 and 91 charters have no notices of any board meetings – ever.

Charter boards are not elected in Arizona – they are appointed by the charter owner.  Charter school boards are only required by statue to “set the policies of the school” and can turn over all of the day-to-day operation of the school, including hiring all staff, to the charter corporate board, even if the charter is non-profit.  All curriculum, personnel, and management decisions can be made in secret by the corporate board that is a private organization and is not bound by open meeting laws or public records requests.  The charter school board only sets policy.

As a result, a number of charter holders seldom have school board meetings, and when they do little is discussed.  For example, Basis Inc. has one school board meeting for all 20 Basis schools in the state.  The BASIS April 2017 board meeting (the first meeting since August 2016) had one item on the agenda – a website accessibility policy and nothing else.

Prior to 2000, Arizona statues required charter school boards to make “operational and policy decisions” for the school.  The 2000 Arizona Legislature struck the word “operational” from the law, taking all requirements for operational transparency away from public charter school boards and allowing all management decisions to be made in secret at the corporate level.

Jim Hall, founder of Arizonans for Charter School Accountability, noted, “The lack of transparency in Arizona charter schools has been carefully crafted by conservative state legislators since the initial charter legislation in 1994. Charter oversight is so lax in Arizona that 113 charter schools fail to supply school board meeting information on their websites as required by the Open Meeting Law.”

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Hall continued, “Arizona charter school board meetings are so meaningless, by statute, that many charter owners don’t bother to have meetings.  And many that do only discuss things like their website access policy.  Charters are allowed to hide all aspects of their operations from the public in secret corporate meetings.  How can they be considered public schools?”

The full report is at azcsa.org

Table 1 – Charter Holders not following Open Meeting Laws