Charter school denied: Local school board turns down first application filed in KY.

The first application ever filed in Kentucky to open a charter school was denied by the Newport Independent school board on Thursday night.

The Kentucky General Assemby approved charter schools in 2017 with the stipulation that a local school board would have to approve an application.

No one in the state applied until October when River Cities Academy filed a 1, 062-page charter school application with the Newport Independent Board. Superintendent Kelly Middleton said in a statement that the school board made the unanimous decision after following the recommendations by a review committee that included representatives of public school districts in Northern Kentucky, Northern Kentucky University and others.

“The applicant lacked specificity and provided unfinished planning in multiple areas that leave significant question as to whether or not the school will be able to launch successfully for a proposed August 2020 start date,” Middleton told the Newport Board of Education, citing major concerns expressed by the review committee. “The applicant does not provide data to support the complexities of the population to be served and relies on generalized notions of what the applicant believes should be good for all children.”

Among the concerns raised by the review committee, according to a news release, was the lack of authentic evidence of community support for the charter school and a lack of evidence to support competency and capacity for providing services to students with special needs.

The committee noted a lack of a transportation plan for elementary school students and said the charter group displayed questionable integrity for indicating a partnership with The Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky had been secured when no such agreement existed.

The news release said there was “significant plagiarism in the application process, including the use of external sources without providing proper citation.”

Lynn Schaber, a leader in the proposed River Cities Academy, said her group will ”likely” appeal the decision to the state board of education.

“We believe in our vision, and will likely appeal on behalf of those in our community who want to see an excellent public school flourish in our region,” she said.

Appointed by Gov. Andy Beshear earlier this month on his Inauguration Day, the new state board members and the new governor are not viewed as friendly to charter schools as were the state board members approved by former Gov. Matt Bevin, a charter school proponent.

River Cities Academy proposed drawing up to 200 students from Newport and Northern Kentucky’s other river cities — Covington, Dayton, Bellevue, Fort Thomas and Ludlow. But superintendents from Fort Thomas, Covington and Ludlow spoke in opposition to the charter school during a Dec. 18 public forum in Northern Kentucky on the application, a news release said.

“We were very disappointed to have our application denied last night,” Schaber said in a statement. She said her group had concerns about the school board deferring the recommendation to the Superintendent and concerns about many of the comments made about the application.

“ Simply put we did not plagiarize,” said Schaber. “Our intent was only to describe what we hope for in RCA (the charter school). While we do pull information from outside sources into our application as best practices we wish to implement, we make no intent to deceive anyone into thinking that all of these practices are of our own creation.”

Schaber said the group is waiting for more specifics about the denial.

Other potential charter school operators in the state said they have held off filing applications because the General Assembly has not approved a funding mechanism for charter schools.

More recently, several Kentucky school districts are asking the new Kentucky Board of Education if they can skip mandatory charter school training since it appears unlikely that more applications will be filed.

This story was originally published December 27, 2019 at 7:44 AM.