Committee moves charter school authorizer regulation to full committee, recommends withdrawal pending S454

A legislative committee voted to send a proposed Board of Education regulation governing charter school authorizers to the full committee, recommending that staff withdraw the rule and resubmit it to conform with a charter school bill referred to in the meeting as S454.

Philip, the agency official who presented the item, said the regulation “restructures the current regulation and puts some framework around it” and would allow the department to receive registrations for charter school authorizers. He warned the current authorizer process behaves like a paperwork filing system: “It’s kind of like the secretary of state with LLCs…that’s how the current authorizer process works,” he said, arguing the change would create a registration mechanism and additional structure.

A committee member asked about the regulation’s intent and legislative context; Philip said the earlier single-section rule was withdrawn after the state board introduced the new rule and noted concerns raised in April and the pending Senate bill. The committee member then moved “that we move this to full committee … with the recommendation that the bill be withdrawn and resubmitted to conform to the charter school bill S454 as enacted.” Representative James Stiefel seconded the motion. With the members present, the committee moved the item to full committee with that recommendation.

The committee’s action does not change the regulation immediately. According to the motion, if S454 is enacted by the end of the legislative session staff will try to resubmit the regulation to align with that law; if the bill is not enacted the regulation will remain withdrawn. The committee did not record a formal roll-call vote during the meeting minutes beyond the two members present agreeing to the motion.

Next steps: the regulation will appear before the full committee with the recommendation to withdraw and resubmit; staff indicated they will await developments on S454 before preparing a new filing.