Students to have more options under charter school law
Law allows charter school students to participate in extracurricular activities at school they would have attended
MAY 18, 2012 8:55 a.m. 
(1)
South Carolina law will no longer force some of the state’s middle and high school students to choose between academics and athletics – attending a charter school that could better meet their educational needs versus a traditional public school that offers their sport.
“This says we are not going to punish children who don’t go into traditional public schools by denying them access to athletics and things that they should automatically have the ability to do,” Gov. Nikki Haley said during a bill-signing ceremony Monday at Greenville Tech Charter High, one of the state’s most successful charter schools.
The state’s new charter school law allows charter school students to participate in extracurricular activities at the traditional public school they otherwise would attend, if the sport or activity is not offered at their charter school.
The law has been nearly four years in the making.
At the 2008 YMCA Youth in Government model legislature program, Noah LaBelle, then a Langston Charter Middle School student, introduced a bill to allow charter school students to play for the high school sports teams they otherwise would be zoned for.
The bill caught the attention of some state legislators.
The new law also allows single-gender charter schools, authorizes colleges and universities to sponsor charter schools without going through a local school district or the state charter school district, and fines school districts that don’t release money to charter schools on time.
State officials expect the law to increase the number of charter schools in the state, but aren’t sure by how many.
State Education Superintendent Mick Zais, who attended the signing, said he hopes the new law will increase the number of charter schools operated by the state’s 31 colleges and universities that have teacher education programs.
“The problem with the traditional model of teacher education programs is that students spend three and a half years on campus and one semester in the classroom,” he said. “By having charter schools sponsored by colleges and universities, the classroom experience could be the central focus, not a tack-on.”
Zais has made increasing school choice his top issue.
“One thing that every parent knows is that while every child is special, every child is different,” he said. “Yet our traditional school model puts every child in the same classroom, expects them to learn the same material in the same way on the same schedule. Should we be surprised that that doesn’t work for some children?”
Greenville Tech Charter High Principal Fred Crawford said he has had a handful of students each year not attend his school because it did not offer the sport they wanted to play.
“It’s a little unfair to ask a student to make the choice between academics and athletics,” he said.
Some public school district officials have expressed concern that they’ll have to pay for coaches to coach students they don’t get money for and that charter school students could take a spot on a team that otherwise would go to a student who attends the school.
SEPTEMBER 20, 2010 8:44 a.m. (0)
AUGUST 2, 2010 10:20 a.m. (9)
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