BAC K TO S C H O O L BIRMINGHAM PARENT’S 2018
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THE CHARTER SCHOOL CHOICE By Paige Townley
While charter schools may not be the right choice for every student, they are another option that parents and caregivers can consider when deciding what is best educationally for their student.
A popular topic when it comes to education today is charter schools. According to the latest data offered by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), there are approximately more than 3.3 million students attending 7,500 charter schools across the United States. In the 2018-2019 school year, charter schools accounted for 6.5 percent of all public school students, NAPCS reports. In Alabama, charter schools began under the Alabama School Choice and Student Opportunity Act, which went into effect March 19, 2015. The first charter school to officially open its doors in Alabama was Acceleration Day and Evening Charter School. The school opened in Mobile in 2017, and its mission is to help students, especially struggling and displaced students, graduate and prepare for college and career. While the school started specifically for ninth through 12th grades, it will be adding a middle school in the 2021-2022 school year. In 2018, the state saw its second charter school: University Charter School, which is located on the campus of the University 26 | birminghamparent | JULY / AUGUST 2021
of West Alabama in Sumter County. Originally, University Charter School only served students in grades pre-K through eighth, but its goal is to add a grade each year to 12th grade. Besides these initial two, Alabama currently has three other charter schools in operation: Lead Academy in Montgomery, Legacy Prep in West Birmingham, and I3 Academy in Birmingham. “There will be four more coming online this August,” says Logan Searcy, Alabama Public Charter School Commission (APCSC) education administrator. “That will bring us to a total of nine throughout the state. Another three have been approved to start in 2022, so then we’ll have 12.” With charter schools becoming more commonplace, and controversy often surrounding their establishment, it’s critical to understand what they really are. A charter school is a public school that offers primary or secondary education and operates as a school of choice. It receives government funding just like schools in the public school system, though it does have different requirements in order to receive those funds. Just like selecting between the local public school option or a private school, parents can make the choice on whether to send their children to a charter school. “A common misconception is that a charter school isn’t a public school, but it 100% is,” explains Searcy. “They aren’t getting state money to start private schools. We track the money, and charter schools are accountable for the dollars they spend. Charter schools simply provide another choice.
