The Naperville (Ill.) Unit District 203 school board voted unanimously Monday night to reject the application for the Illinois Virtual Charter School @ Fox River Valley, the Daily Herald reports. The denial by District 203 was expected.
The application for the charter school has been rejected by many of the 18 school districts in the western and northwestern suburbs where an application was submitted, setting up an all-but-inevitable hearing before the Illinois State Charter School Commission, an appointed committee that has the legal authority to override the denials of the charter by local school boards.
In recommending the board reject the proposal, District 203 Superintendent Dan Bridges said officials from the St. Charles-based charter school company made a poor showing at a public hearing earlier this month and then failed to answer more than 100 follow-up questions from the district.
Although the organization that would run the school is based in Illinois, as required by law, its curriculum provider would have been K12 Inc., which is based in Virginia.
“At its core we have in front of us a substandard application to provide a program that has, itself, proved to be substandard,” the Daily Herald quoted one board member as saying. “I also wonder how an organization that could not rouse itself to provide a rigorous application or enthusiastic answers to ‘should have been expected’ questions is going to summon the energy to provide a rigorous and enthusiastic education for its students.”
