Committee
Education
Author
Rob Roberson
Session
2025 Session
Latest Action
HB 1432 died in committee on March 4.
Explanation of the Bill
As amended, House Bill 1432 would make numerous technical and substantive changes to the Mississippi Charter School Act of 2013. Significant changes are outlined below.
Technical Changes
Legal Status for Charter Management Organizations
HB 1432 would provide a clear legal status to charter management organizations (CMOs), which are entities that operate more than one charter school. It would allow a CMO to operate as a local educational agency (LEA) that oversees multiple schools, similar to a school district. Currently, each school under a CMO is treated as a separate LEA.
The bill clarifies how charter management organizations should manage funds for its schools and be held accountable for fiscal management. It also clarifies that multi-charter organizations can file a single audit for the entity.
CMO Contract
The bill clarifies that an authorizer must allow a CMO or other nonprofit to hold a single contract for all approved schools without requiring a CMO to re-apply for the right to hold the single contract.
The bill provides for terms and structure of a single CMO contract that align with the rest of the act as well as rights and responsibilities of the CMO and authorizer. It clarifies how to manage the process of reorganizing multiple school contracts and LEAs into a single CMO contract and single LEA and clarifies audit and accountability requirements for schools within a single contract.
Education Service Providers
The bill clarifies that an “educational service provider” (ESP) is a vendor, not an entity holding a charter contract. Further, it removes “charter management organization” from the definition of an ESP.
School Expansions
The bill clarifies that the authorizer must approve all school expansions as a material contract amendment rather than requiring a new application. It provides for a process for considering and approving such amendments.
Clarification of the Definition of a Charter School
HB 1432 clarifies that a charter school is a construct of a charter contract that has been approved by an authorizer. The contract is held by a nonprofit organization that has applied to operate the school. The nonprofit organization is not the same as the school, as the nonprofit organization can exist without the charter contract; however, a charter school cannot exist without a charter contract.
The bill requires a charter applicant to have achieved nonprofit status prior to the execution of a contract if the applicant was not a nonprofit prior to submission.
Transfer of Charter Contracts
The bill clarifies how charter contracts may be transferred to other eligible nonprofit entities by request of the governing board and approval of an authorizer.
Reorganization of Charter Contracts
The bill clarifies that mergers, consolidations, grade reconfigurations, transfers, or reorganizations of charter contracts do not constitute or require closure and restart or reversion of assets. The authorizer would deal with such situations through the contract amendment process.
Clarification of Roles on Charter School Authorizer Board
The MCSAB is composed of one appointee from the State Superintendent of Education, three appointees from the Governor, and three appointees from the Lieutenant Governor. HB 1432 includes specific language to clarify that the State Superintendent’s appointee to the Authorizer Board need not be an employee of the Mississippi Department of Education.
Clarification of Responsibilities of Charter School Authorizers
HB 1432 includes language clarifying that charter school authorizers have implied authority that is inherent to serving as an authorizer. This authority includes, for example, the ability to amend charter contracts and approve school mergers.
The bill clarifies that authorizers may use a rolling application process. An authorizer may also choose to accept abbreviated charter school applications that only include the essential elements of the application, provided that all elements are submitted and evaluated prior to final approval.
The bill requires authorizers to use written, adopted, and published procedures as well as clear standards in evaluating charter applications. It also requires authorizers to disclose the required points necessary for approval.
The bill would require authorizers to provide charter school applicants that progress past the initial stage of the application process, but are ultimately denied approval, the chance to remedy any deficiencies in their application. It would require the authorizer to reconsider the updated application before the next regular application process.
The bill deletes a requirement for charter school applicants that already operate a charter school to submit evidence of “statistically significant gains in student achievement” in their current schools, as this data is difficult to collect.
The bill clarifies that the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board is subject to the Open Meetings Act, Public Records Act, and the Mississippi Administrative Procedures Law for any rule, policy, guideline, or other regulation, including performance framework, renewal framework, or any other relevant document with which schools are mandated to comply. It would require authorizers to act in accordance with law or written, adopted, and published policies, and would require investigations to be based on reasonable suspicion.
Authorizer Staff
The bill describes that an authorizer can both delegate and withdraw delegation of powers to staff. It deletes references to “general counsel” to ensure an authorizer does not feel obligated to hire a general counsel.
Contracts with Multiple Schools
The bill requires that a contract that includes more than one school must contain a separate addendum for each school listing the term of operation. It maintains an initial contract of five operating years for each school.
Enrollment
The bill clarifies that charter schools may serve students in pre-kindergarten but will not receive additional state funding for this purpose.
The bill clarifies that the authorizer should compare the same grade spans when determining if they meet the required threshold for the underserved composition of their school.
It also enables the authorizer to consider state or federal remediation plans for the disproportionate identification of students with disabilities in a traditional district when determining the appropriate level of students with disabilities in a charter school.
The bill allows charter schools to stop its enrollment preference for underserved students once it has met its required underserved enrollment.
The bill permits children who transfer schools within a CMO or who graduate from one level to the next (e.g., elementary school to middle school) within a CMO to enroll in the school without reapplying or going through the lottery process.
Additionally, HB 1432 clarifies that children in the same household may attend the same charter school regardless of the years in which they enroll. It allows the siblings and foster siblings of an enrolled charter school student, as well as the children of employees, to attend charter schools regardless of the district grade at the time of the child(ren)’s enrollment.
Student Transfers
HB 1432 enables students who qualify to transfer between traditional public school districts under the existing law to choose to transfer to a charter school.
Audit Deadline
The bill moves the audit filing deadline to December 1 to align with traditional district timelines.
Teacher Licensure
The bill clarifies that provisionally licensed and licensed-but-teaching-out-of-field teachers may not be counted against a charter school’s licensure exemption percentage.
PERS Participation
The bill clarifies that charter schools (not their parent nonprofits) are political subdivisions of the state solely for the purpose of participation in PERS. It also clarifies that charter school employees may participate in PERS if the governing board consents.
Fees
The bill clarifies that charter schools may not charge fees that traditional public schools may not charge, in addition to not charging tuition.
Non-Technical Changes
Chairperson of Charter School Authorizer Board
HB 1432 would require the chairman of the MCSAB to be selected from the six appointees of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor. The current law allows any of the seven appointees to be selected as chairman.
Funding of MCSAB
The current law requires charter schools to provide 3% of their per-pupil allocations to the MCSAB. HB 1432 would remove this requirement, so that the authorizer would only be funded through a specific appropriation from the state.
Pre-Opening Conditions
HB 1432 requires an authorizer to publish pre-opening conditions for every authorized school and requires documentation that each school has met pre-opening conditions prior to opening.
Charter School Renewal
The bill requires renewal for schools meeting overall expectations and clarifies that conditions can be imposed on schools not meeting overall expectations. It grants charter schools that are renewed for fewer than five years the same rights to appeal as they possess if they are revoked or not renewed, and it requires the authorizer to describe its rationale in such cases.
The bill moves the renewal application deadline to December 1 of the final year of a school’s contract. It allows charter schools to apply for early renewal (in Year 4 instead of Year 5) based on authorizer rules for early renewal.
The bill requires non-renewal for schools with a history of poor performance (which it defines as receiving an “F” for a school’s five most recent consecutive years of operation).
The bill requires an authorizer to justify why a school received a shortened renewal term and base such their reasoning on existing law for non-renewal or revocation.
It prohibits mid-year school closures unless an imminent health and safety concern is present.
Performance Evaluation of Charter Schools
The bill prohibits the performance framework from duplicating the letter grades of MDE and requires achievement gap comparisons only for proficiency between applicable subgroups. It removes some postsecondary indicators due to a lack of data.
The bill allows the authorizer to consider unusual circumstances (e.g., a pandemic) in determining whether a school has met expectations.
The bill requires financial performance indicators to be used in evaluating charter schools.
Reporting Requirements
The bill updates the date of the legislative report to December 1. It separates the authorizer report on the charter sector into an annual report on school performance and market demand and a report every five years comparing students in charters with similar students in traditional public schools. It clarifies the substance of each report (substantively the same information as already law) and prevents the authorizer from using such a report to evaluate a specific school.
Schools for Special Needs
The bill allows the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board to approve applications for schools designed to serve students with autism, emotional disabilities, intellectual disabilities, or dyslexia in any district, regardless of that district’s letter grade.
Accounting Standards
The bill establishes accounting standards for charter schools and requires the State Auditor to consult with nationally recognized experts to develop rules and regulations for charter schools. It prohibits the use of the MDE accounting manual.
Executive Director of Authorizer
The bill requires charter school authorizers to use national best practices in setting the qualifications for the executive director of the body.
Expansion of Districts Eligible for Charter Applications
The bill allows potential charter school operators to submit applications for charter schools to open within the bounds of school districts with an accountability grade of “C,” until the Mississippi Department of Education adjusts the cut scores under the current accountability model. This adjustment is expected to be piloted in fall 2025 and become permanent in fall 2026.
Currently, applications for charter schools may only be submitted in districts with a rating of “D” or “F” at the time of application, unless the applicant has approval from the school board of the district in which they wish to open the school.
District Crossing
Currently, students who reside in a district that was rated “C,” “D,” or “F” when a charter school was approved, or at the time they enroll, are permitted to cross district boundaries to enroll in a charter school. This bill would change this so that students could only cross district boundaries to attend a charter school if their district already had a charter school and was rated “C” prior to or during the time that the MDE adjusted the accountability cut scores or a “D” or “F” rated district until the cut scores are adjusted. This amendment was inserted on the floor; the language is now confusing as to which children will be allowed to cross district boundaries.
Teacher Licensure
The bill increases the percentage of teachers in a given charter school that are exempt from state teacher licensure requirements from 25% to 50%.
Authorizer Oversight
The bill requires PEER to select a nationally recognized charter school authorizing expert every three years to conduct an evaluation of the authorizer to examine its performance and recommend whether it should be decommissioned or required to meet specific conditions for its continued operation. If no funds are appropriated for such an evaluation, the authorizer would be required to fund it.
In-person, Synchronous Instruction
The bill requires all charter schools to provide “live, in-person synchronous instruction.”
National Board Certification Supplement Program
The bill enables charter school teachers and other relevant employees to participate in the state’s National Board Certification supplement program.
Pre-Opening Delay
The bill allows a delay of up to two years pre-opening before reauthorization is required.
Establishment of Legal Standards
The bill establishes the legal standard for launching investigations and requires oversight activities to adhere to written policies and procedures. It also establishes the legal standard for sanctions in response to deficiencies.
Conditions on Schools Not Meeting Expectations
The bill clarifies that conditions can be imposed only on schools not meeting overall expectations. It grants charter schools that are renewed for fewer than five years the same rights to appeal as they possess if they are revoked or not renewed, and it requires the authorizer to describe its rationale in such cases.
The bill would take effect on July 1, 2025.
Date | Details |
---|---|
3/4/25: | HB 1432 died in committee on March 4. |
2/12/25 | On February 12, the House amended and passed HB 1432. |
2/4/25 | On February 4, the House Education Committee passed a committee substitute for HB 1432. |