The Montgomery County school board is likely to reject two charter school applicants Monday following a scathing state board ruling that ordered the county to reconsider the applications. In a memo dated March 28,
school board President Christopher Barclay told his fellow board members that serious flaws existed in the schools’ proposed curricula, facilities and more, concluding that the board should deny both charters.
The county originally voted down the charters in June, saying the applications were not fully thought out, nor “ready for prime time,” as some board members called it.
Ashley Del Sole, a founding member of Global Garden Public Charter School, said the Montgomery school board never gave the charters a fair shake, and that its members never contacted Global Garden following the state board’s remand.
In a 17-page verdict, the Maryland State Department of Education charged the local school board’s members with holding biases against charter schools and failing to comply with their own evaluation process, cutting the charter applicants off from important feedback.
The state decided that Montgomery had not given the schools a logical rationale for denying the applications, and gave the local board 90 days to revisit the decisions.
Del Sole said school board members never reached out to her for more information, nor was she aware of any public meetings when the board discussed her application.
Barclay did not return calls for comment.
In the memo, Barclay raises concerns that Crossway Community, a private school looking to go charter, would “blur the boundaries” by mixing public and private school students in the same classroom. He also saw gaps in Crossway’s curriculum and said its assumption that parents would transport their own children “does not constitute an adequate transportation plan.”
Crossway’s director did not respond to requests for comment.
Barclay also voiced issues with the Global Garden curriculum’s emphasis on memorization, its proposed foreign language and International Baccalaureate programs, and more.
Del Sole said Global Garden always sought comments from the school board and would have been open to revision if feedback were provided.
“But they’re like a dog with a bone — they didn’t want to give it up, and we couldn’t wrest any information from them,” she said.
