Every time this subject comes up here I feel like I'm the lone dissenter and charter school defender. I find it stereotypical and unfounded to say a blanket "charter schools kick out disabled students". While some charter schools do, many traditional public schools have the same set of problems and chase away disabled students. There are a multitude of reasons why the graduation rate is what it is in public high schools, and it's not all charter schools' fault.
I have been a school administrator and a teacher in a CA charter school for the past 12 years, off and on. We have a public lottery each year, an open application process and parents are asked on the application to list any special services including IEPs, 504s and gifted ed. Just by having this on the application, people panic and don't mark the right box to withhhold information because they believe it will impact the lottery. It does NOT. Anyone who has worked in CA schools knows that it takes forever and a week to get a cumulative file from a school, and even longer to get the IEP. Allowing us to order these before summer means that the child will be better served in the fall.
In addition, SOME students will not be served well in a charter and it is not the best educational environment. For example, in our charter, students are expected, starting in 6th grade, to transition between 7 teachers, 5 days a week. They have 1-2 hours of homework, and additional performance rehearsal time (art school.) A student who has been in a self-contained special education program for low-functioning autistic students anda full-time aide, will likely not be able to keep up, regardless of the accomodations. Yet I've seen parents blatantly lie, refuse to list this information and not have an open conversation because they want their child to go to the school so badly. It's a safe school in a bad neighborhood, who can blame them?
The school also has a GPA requirement. I have seen teachers and administrators bend over backwards for kids, private tutoring for free, giving tons of chances and working with students who really want to be there. But if a kid/family, isn't willing to put in the effort, it is not the right place. I've had these kids too- those that didn't want to go to the school but whose parents chose safety over student desire. These kids WILL fail out, learning disabled or not.
One more point of clarification that I feel is necessary. In CA, the reputation is that charter schools kick out bad kids right before the standardized testing in late spring. While it is possible to kick a kid out then, it certainly doesn't matter for testing. To prevent this exact issue, students' scores are reported with the school they were enrolled in the FALL. The date depends on the school's start date. You can kick a kid out in May but if he was there in October, you still get his scores in your AYP.
