For the second year in a row, the Howard and Lillian Lee Scholars Charter School will not open on time.
The State Board of Education denied the school’s request to delay its opening, said Joel Medley, the director of the state’s office of charter schools. He said the school has to reapply for a new charter by Dec. 6 if the administration wants to open in the 2014-15 academic year. Medley said the state board denied the request for a delay after reviewing the school’s difficulties with opening. The school applied for two other charters but has failed to open on time due to issues with facility and management. “The state board, looking at the situation, (saw) that the group had received two charters and had not been able to open either one on time,” Medley said.
The school originally applied for a fast-track charter, which would have allowed it to open in August 2012, and it voluntarily gave the charter back. The school then reapplied in the normal round and received the charter that would have given it a full year and allowed it to open this month, had it not been for the ongoing management issues. “Anytime that you are granted a charter and do not open as planned, that undercuts some of the community support that may have been there,” Medley said.
The school originally partnered with National Heritage Academies, a for-profit charter school management company located in Grand Rapids, Mich. But the National Heritage Academies dropped the Howard and Lillian Lee Scholars Charter School in March.
Medley said the board’s decision does not mean the school’s next charter application will be denied.
“Is it feasible that they can get an additional charter granted to them? Absolutely,” he said. “You can’t forecast that far down the road.”
The charter school has long been a concern for local minority groups and education activists who worry the school will segregate low-income students.
The Rev. Robert Campbell, the president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, has openly opposed the charter school. He said he believes the school would only draw in underperforming black children, keeping those children in a separated environment.
The school was originally created to close the achievement gap in Orange County, according to the school’s original charter submitted to the state board in 2011 .
