Planning Board wants Charter School to Violate Terms of Charter

MCPS' first Charter School has now told the Montgomery County Planning Board that they would set aside 10% of the seats in the school for children that attend their day care center as part of a plan to mitigate traffic.


Charter Schools are supposed to be open to all Montgomery County students, countywide.  The only seats that are to be set aside are for founders children, or for siblings of students.  A special set aside would violate the terms of the Charter.  Crossway already tried asking the State Board of Education for a special exception and the State Board said "no" based on Maryland law. 

"Because the charter school law does not authorize a waiver of the open enrollment requirement for students whose parents reside at the Crossway housing facilities, we deny the waiver request." State Board Opinion 

The Charter School has also told the Planning Board that no MCPS school buses will be used to transport students.  

The applicant has indicated that public charter school students will not be bused...(page 7 of Planning Board memo)

How can a countywide school operate without school buses?  A transportation plan was part of the application.  Is this a (not so) subtle way of discouraging students from other parts of the county from applying for this public school?  

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