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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Charter School Commission juggles monitoring of schools while dismantling agency

TACOMA – At a meeting Thursday, the state agency that oversees Washington’s charter schools will consider how it can keep monitoring the independent public schools while making plans to dismantle itself.

On the agenda for the Charter School Commission’s meeting in Tacoma is a budget for shutting down the agency as well as a plan for the best way to monitor charter schools.

The agency has to go down two different paths simultaneously in response to the Washington Supreme Court’s September decision that the state’s new charter school law is unconstitutional.

The state attorney general’s office and others are asking the court to reconsider its decision. Meanwhile, lawmakers are discussing ways to work around it. Although the state’s nine charter schools and the commission continue to get state dollars, that could change as soon as the court makes a decision on the requests for reconsideration.