Dive Brief:

• At a Wednesday Senate committee meeting, a number of charter school changes were approved, including a law that makes charter personnel records subject to public inspection and charter board meetings and minutes subject to open meeting laws.  
• Other changes include the removal of re-authorization fees, the dropping of the requirement that the Charter School Advisory Board make decisions in writing, and the allowing of single-gender charter schools to exist without penalty for denying admission based on gender.   
• The changes also allow teachers to sit on charter school boards as non-voting members.  

Dive Insight:

Whether all of the changes ultimately go through is still unknown, but this list definitely contains some substantial changes. Committee chairman state Sen. Jerry Tillman (R-Randolph) said the changes were created to tweak charter vetting laws and make the process more fair.  

Not everyone is in agreement. Sen. Malcolm Graham (D-Mecklenburg) said the rules move away from the original intentions of charter schools.

This list of changes feels a bit too diverse for many to agree completely one way or the other. Grouping them all together also makes it more difficult to discern what is necessary and what is not. Overall, the rule making charter information public sounds like a great step forward for transparency.