Oklahoma City School Board denies charter schools, declines to reveal reasons
The Oklahoma City School Board rejected two charter school applications at a meeting Monday.
The Oklahoma City School Board on Monday night denied applications from two charter schools but kept the reasons for the denials secret.
The board voted unanimously to reject applications from Harper Academy and Lighthouse of Hope Academy, a vote that matched a recommendation by a school district committee tasked with evaluating the charter school requests.
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AT A GLANCE
Oklahoma City charter schools
Oklahoma City Public Schools is home to several charter schools, and another one is in the works for downtown Oklahoma City. Here is information about the current schools, including the A to F school evaluation grade from the state Education Department. For reference, the poverty rate for the district as a whole is about 88 percent, and the district received a grade of D overall.
Address: 2401 NW 23
Enrollment: 385 students
Grades: Nine to 12
Poverty rate: 74 percent
School grade: B
Address: 2401 NW 23
Enrollment: 379 students
Grades: Six to eight
Poverty rate: 94 percent
School grade: C
Address: 4901 N Lincoln
Enrollment: 296 students
Grades: Kindergarten to five
Poverty rate: 76 percent
School grade: B
Address: 919 NW 23
Enrollment: 473 students
Grades: Six to 12
Poverty rate: 81 percent
School grade: A
Address: 3333 N Shartel
Enrollment: 467 students
Grades: Nine to 12
Poverty rate: 42 percent
School grade: A
Address: 3333 N Shartel
Enrollment: 317 students
Grades: Nine to 12
Poverty rate: 55 percent
School grade: B
Address: 3232 NW 65
Enrollment: 303 students
Grades: Six to eight
Poverty rate: 49 percent
School grade: B
Address: 12600 N Kelley
Enrollment: 480 students
Grades: Three to 12
Poverty rate: 100 percent
School grade: D
Address: 1901 NE 13
Enrollment: 272 students
Grades: Five to eight
Poverty rate: 83 percent
School grade: A
Address: 1537 NE 24
Enrollment: 181 students
Grades: Prekindergarten to eight
Poverty rate: 93 percent
School grade: D
Address: 4712 S Santa Fe
Enrollment: 381 students
Grades: Six to eight
Poverty rate: 93 percent
School grade: C
Address: 301 SE 38
Enrollment: 551 students
Grades: Nine to 12
Poverty rate: 88 percent
School grade: C
Address: 1508 NW 106
Enrollment: 330 students
Grades: Prekindergarten to five
Poverty rate: 91 percent
School grade: C
SOURCE: State Education Department
The board heard presentations from the applicants at a meeting last month, but discussion Monday night at the board's public meeting was brief.
Tammy Carter, legal counsel for the school district, gave a “confidential memorandum” outlining problems with the charter school applications to school board members.
“The specific reasons are listed in the memorandum I provided to you,” Carter told the board Monday night.
Carter rejected a state Open Records Act request from The Oklahoman for a copy of the memorandum, citing attorney-client privilege.
“Those memorandum were not from the committee,” Carter wrote in an email. “They were from me to the board. They are covered by the attorney-client privilege and I cannot release them.”
State law allows documents to be kept private because of attorney-client privilege only if the documents are related to pending litigation where “disclosure will seriously impair the ability of the public officer or agency to process the claim or conduct a pending investigation, litigation or proceeding in the public interest.”
Attorney-client privileges are strictly limited when the client is a government entity, said Joey Senat, an open government expert and an associate journalism professor at Oklahoma State University.
Keeping the memorandum secret is “nonsense,” Senat said.
“Just because it's from an attorney doesn't mean that it can be kept from the public,” he said. “The school district's playing games with the Open Records Act.”
Committee reviewed applications
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