Nonprofits Overseeing Minnesota Charter Schools Refuse to Provide Documents

A group of 10 nonprofits that oversee nearly all of Minnesota’s publicly funded charter schools are refusing to hand over documents showing how they deal with contract violations by the schools they oversee, arguing they are private entities not subject to state law. requiring disclosure of all information. public records.

The Minnesota Star Tribune filed records requests in early November as part of the newspaper’s ongoing investigation into Minnesota’s troubled charter school sector. In September, the Star Tribune published a three-part series detailing oversight problems and widespread failures among Minnesota charter schools.

Nine of the 181 charter schools operating in the state at the start of 2024 have closed this year, the highest number since the collapse of the first charter school in 1996, state data show.

At least one other charter school, STEP Academy, which has campuses in St. Paul and Burnsville and is one of Minnesota’s largest charter schools, is facing termination of its contract. Innovative Quality Schools (IQS), a nonprofit organization that oversees the school on behalf of the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), has repeatedly accused it of violating contracts.

To find out whether other charter schools are on the brink of collapse, the Star Tribune asked all 12 state-authorized letters sent to schools this year documenting concerns about poor performance, financial instability or other problems that could jeopardize the school’s ability to stay on track. floating. open.

Those records are not available from MDE because the department does not typically require authorized persons to provide such records, MDE officials said in a previous interview.

The only contributors to the Star Tribune’s request are two public school districts that oversee three charter schools. One of those schools, TRIO Wolf Creek Distance Learning Charter School in Chisago, received a warning letter in June that outlined three issues, including the school’s failure to meet various “equity and inclusion” goals. The school commissioner, Chisago Lakes School District, adopted the school’s corrective action plan in September.

While private organizations are generally exempt from the Minnesota government’s Data Practices Act, that exemption is eliminated when nonprofits enter into agreements with the government to perform some of its functions, such as regulating much of the state’s public school sector, the Star reports. Tribune attorney Leita Walker.