Moratorium on charters no longer in legislation

Measure calls for agency to devise growth plan

Stopping new charter schools in Nevada until 2021 is no longer on the table after the substantial modification of the bill that first proposed a moratorium but now requires the State Public Charter School Authority to establish a plan for charter school growth.

Assembly Bill 462 no longer contains a moratorium on new charters, which have grown substantially over the past decade. The authority — which sponsors the largest number of charters in the state — must develop a plan that will project the number of new charter schools and campuses it will approve in five years.

Charter school sponsors must also assess the potential demographics of a planned school, a requirement aimed at giving considerable thought to diversifying the charter school population, which has fewer at-risk students than traditional public schools in Clark County. Those evaluations must be conducted each year for each charter school.

Assemblyman Tyrone Thompson, chairman of the Assembly Education Committee, which sponsored the bill, said the growth of charters requires mindful planning and oversight. That includes planning so that charter operators open in areas of need.

“The higher-performing schools have very little students of color in them,” he said. “That’s a problem.”

The bill also requires site evaluations of schools to be conducted by June 30, 2020, that will examine student achievement and school performance.

The change mostly won support