Washington Charter Commission Approves 7 School Plans

The Washington state Charter School Commission has voted to approve seven applications for charter schools, all in Western Washington.

Another 12 schools were denied a charter at a public meeting yesterday in southwest Seattle. A number of those schools were encouraged by commission members to keep refining their applications and submit them again in the future.

The commission voted to adopt most of the recommendations of the independent evaluators who studied the applications and interviewed people who wrote the school plans. Their plans were judged against stated requirements in the categories of education planning, financial solvency and program organization.

They approved one school that the evaluators thought was not ready.

One other school was chartered by the Spokane school district last week.