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Charter School Funding Fix Slipped Through The Cracks

New Charter schools hoping to open next fall will likely have to wait a while longer before they can submit their applications to the state. A proposal to fix the charter school funding problem was delayed in the legislative shuffle.

According to the Attorney General’s office, the Department of Education can’t approve any new charter schools until a budget has been passed. That means a number of schools that were hoping to open in the fall, are hanging in limbo: unsure if they’ll have time to apply

Lawmakers like Republican representative Ken Weyler intended to tweak the budget process, so that charters could be approved any time. But he says the bill never got filed because of a miscommunication, "I think that there was a belief that it was going to be taken care of in the senate. And that didn’t happen."

Weyler now plans to introduce the funding tweak as an amendment to a different bill.

Unless that passes chairman of the board of Education Tom Raffio says they can’t approve new schools unless lawmakers increase charter funding by roughly $1.8 million in the budget: which might not happen until as late as June.

Sam Evans-Brown has been working for New Hampshire Public Radio since 2010, when he began as a freelancer. He shifted gears in 2016 and began producing Outside/In, a podcast and radio show about “the natural world and how we use it.” His work has won him several awards, including two regional Edward R. Murrow awards, one national Murrow, and the Overseas Press Club of America's award for best environmental reporting in any medium. He studied Politics and Spanish at Bates College, and before reporting was variously employed as a Spanish teacher, farmer, bicycle mechanic, ski coach, research assistant, a wilderness trip leader and a technical supporter.
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