Saturday, February 23, 2008

TPS Board Approved Early Termination of Deborah Brown Charter School Contract


The founder and director of the absolutely outstanding Deborah Brown Community School is the person pictured at right. Her charter school is the first one granted in Tulsa. It has a long and distinguished record of achievement and progress. It is a bright and shining star on the city's north side when it comes to public education.

It appears that Deborah Brown Community School has already taken steps to end the sponsorship of their charter with TPS and may instead be sponsored by Langston University-Tulsa. The TPS Board approved the early termination this week and you can read about it here. This became possible when our state legislature passed an amendment to the Oklahoma Charter School Act in 2007 which allows certain higher education institutions to become sponsors for charter schools.

The TPS lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the OCSA has cast a cloud of doubt over the future of charters in the state. As a result, there have been no new charter applicants step forward. Until the TPS suit is settled, I don't foresee any sponsor stepping up to the plate.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am surprised to see such praise for a school that I just read in the Education Report for 2006 had 145 cases of corporal punishment in one school year. 145 paddlings for 225 students, 1/2 of which were first graders which the 14,000 other students in Tulsa Public Schools weren't subjected to. Also, in the Tulsa World an article claiming teachers not certified and lack of financial records.