The leaders of a West Columbia charter school opened a new campus this fall, but did not qualify it as a new school despite the fact the campus sits in a completely different school district zone.
That decision, which the state’s education department signed off on, allowed Gray Collegiate Academy to bypass a lengthier application process that would’ve made the local school district aware of its new campus in Irmo earlier. It’s raised questions about the legality of so-called “satellite” campuses from a charter school expert.
Every time a charter school or authorizer does something that people say ‘Hey, that doesn’t seem right,’ they’ll say, ‘Well there’s nothing that says we can’t do it.’ And that is not how government agents or government contracts work,” said Derek Black, a University of South Carolina law professor who has written extensively about charter schools. “The absence of a statute speaking to it says, to me, you can’t do it.”
What does the law say about new charter schools?
Under state law, charter schools are typically overseen by authorizers, usually an institution of higher education or the South Carolina Public Charter School District.
In Gray’s case, the Charter Institute at Erskine is its authorizer. The Charter Institute, which came under legislative scrutiny in 2024 after reporting by The State Media Co. raised questions about its spending, operations and ability to provide objective oversight of the schools it regulates, is the state’s largest authorizer of charter schools. It oversees 28 schools across South Carolina.
State law governs the process through which charter schools must undergo to open a new school, including laying out the typical application process. The law does allow for the replication of successful charter schools and those replications undergo the typical application process.
Read more in The State….