charter school Archives • Alabama Political Reporter

How a group of concerned citizens killed a bad charter school

A bad charter school died in Alabama on Tuesday. For that, we should all cheer. For that, we should thank Betty Brackin and the concerned parents, teachers and citizens of Washington County. Because the system that was supposed to provide checks and balances and weed out bad charter schools and bad actors failed miserably. Instead, … Continued

June 10, 2020

Praise The Lord. Woodland Prep gets bad news from charter commission

Finally. Thankfully. Mercifully. The colossal mishmash of an attempt to open a charter school in Washington County has now been taken off of life support and left to flop, flounder and gasp its last breath by the state Charter School Commission. The application to open Woodland Prep was approved in May 2018 by the commission … Continued

February 4, 2020

North Carolina mother sheds light on Alabama Charter School mess

Editor’s note: Alyson Ford is a mother in the Charlotte, NC area. It wasn’t long after she enrolled one of her sons in a charter school that she began to feel something was amiss. Soon she was attending board meetings of the school and digging into financial records. What she found was disturbing and even … Continued

January 27, 2020

AEA backs former charter school principal, will investigate possible illegal activity at LEAD Academy

The former principal at Montgomery charter school LEAD Academy said Tuesday that she was pushed out of the school improperly after board members discovered that she reported concerns about students’ safety and other improprieties that violated state law to the Alabama Department of Education. APR reported Tuesday morning, citing numerous employees at the school, that … Continued

October 2, 2019

Washington County charter school opposition is about quality public schools, not one guy’s religion

The people in Washington County who oppose a planned charter school are not bigots. They’re not against the charter school because a Muslim guy is going to manage it. They aren’t all caught up in some anti-Muslim protest. They just don’t want the charter school. And they have very good reasons for not wanting the … Continued

July 24, 2019

Turmoil amidst the pines

It’s reasonable to think there might be some controversy about any new school. Maybe where it is located, what it is named, who the principal may be, what courses will be taught? But seldom do you expect the wholesale turmoil that hit rural Washington County, AL when locals learned that a handful of folks wanted … Continued

July 17, 2019

“We don’t want no charter school and we don’t want no Muslims”

The gentleman who made this statement was one of 200 people who came to the Washington County high school in Chatom on Monday night, April 29. He was probably in his 60’s. His face was weathered and he wore a baseball cap and work shirt. Like everyone else in the auditorium, he had sat attentively as … Continued

May 1, 2019

Evaluators slammed Washington County charter application

All charter school applications must be evaluated by a qualified entity before action by the state charter school commission. From the outset, this was done by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers based in Chicago. Today, it is being done by the Auburn Center for Evaluation, a part of the Auburn University College of … Continued

April 18, 2019

How a Washington County charter school failed at every step, and was approved anyway

Woodland Prep is a charter school horror story — and it hasn’t even been built yet. Located in rural Washington County, Woodland Prep, which will open as a K-7 school this fall and add a grade level each year, is everything state leaders assured us could never happen under Alabama’s charter school laws. Its land … Continued

April 10, 2019