Nonprofit Mississippi News An oversight committee investigating why the Mississippi charter school authority board renewed the contract for a Jackson school that was underperforming earlier this year is asking questions. The Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board granted a three-year renewal contract for Midtown Public Charter School, Jackson. This despite the fact that the school has maintained a rating of ‘D’ since its opening in 2015. Mississippi law requires charter schools to meet specific goals in order to be allowed to continue operating. They are renewed every five years. The Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review, or PEER committee, cited an earlier evaluation of Mississippi’s charter schools performance measures by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) in its report. “MCSAB’s renewal policies (charter school renewal policies)… reduce the quality of the renewal process. According to the report, an underperforming school could be renewed solely on its performance in one year without considering previous years of low performance. Midtown Public was granted renewal by MCSAB, even though it didn’t meet the performance framework. MCSAB’s renewal conditions are not strict and rely on future improvements. “Performance framework” refers the accountability mechanism for charter schools within the state. It consists of many components that include indicators of school’s academic and financial performance as well as organizational performance. Lisa Karmacharya is the executive director of the authorizer boards. She stated that the board followed both external and internal evaluators’ recommendations when it made its decision. Midtown’s renewal conditions require that the school set performance targets with its board, be rated as a “D” in 2021 and a “C” in 2022 and 2023, and enroll underserved students according to state law. It must also “restructure its governance plan in order to ensure that all board members are aware” of the contract between school and board. The plan must be aligned with its future fiscal plans to improve student outcomes. Karmacharya said that Midtown is moving forward really well considering COVID-19. She noted that the school and board have set performance targets, and Midtown now serves more students than the minimum percentage. She said, “We can see that they are making progress.” The PEER report noted that, while the board had improved its oversight of federal grants to states to open more charter schools and it is still “significantly behind” in projected grant expenditures. The board has only spent 12% of $15 million of funds as of the time of the report. This is despite its expectation that it would have spent almost half of its funds by now. Karmacharya assumed the role as executive director at the beginning of 2019. He stated that because there was no executive director on the board for nine months, charter schools were not making claims to the board. A total of six charter schools are currently operating, while only a few operators have applied for open schools in recent decades. She said that the first drawdown of the $15 million grant was not until 2019. “And in regard to an overall lower number (charter school operator), applicants has resulted (of charter schools) in fewer approvals which impacts the number (subgrant recipients.” The 2019 PEER report highlighted this issue. The board responded that there are no restrictions on the transfer of funds from one year to the next and would request a free extension for the fifth year. The PEER committee highlighted an inequitable amount of local per pupil funding between traditional public schools and charter schools. Charter schools received more. “In the case JPSD (Jackson Public Schools District), charter schools within the district received an average daily attendance of 3000 students, while JPSD received $2,774.12, which is a difference in funding of $237.72 per pupil.” Public Charter Schools in Mississippi are funded per pupil by the state based on the average attendance of the school or the number of students attending 63 percent or more of school days. Local dollars are also available from ad valorem taxes. A charter school allows students to enroll in money that would otherwise have been paid to the district to go to the charter school. The committee recommended that the Mississippi Department of Education and the board submit an amendment to the state law to ensure equal funding for local ad valorem students. In 2013, the Mississippi Legislature passed its charter school law. The Mississippi Legislature passed its charter school law in 2013.