As Val has noted above, it is commonplace for charter schools to elicit information about disability (and about academic ability, too) from prospective students, in spite of the questionable legality of such practices in a public school. Every school-of-choice I ever spoke with asked those questions about my child. Private, charter, out-of-district/zone, and online-- and most wanted to have the conversation in person, even when I'd made my inquiries in writing-- presumably so that they knew I'd have no proof it had occurred.
We have not applied to Davidson, but I expect that the application there has criteria which are rather clearly explained in terms of which students are eligible to apply.
Beyond that, I seriously doubt that Davidson is ignoring the applications of some children who meet those criteria. Charter schools which are run by educators seldom suffer from this type of problem (again, in my experience). It is mostly those in the for-profit sector which do.
Some charters have also been dinged in my own region for cherry-picking students from higher SES, which no doubt helps when it comes time to raise funds. That might explain why some such schools don't seem to struggle with funding the way that their conventional brethren do.
But the big one is that they can exempt themselves from providing pricey "services" to eligible students with IEP's. Well. Not legally. But they do seem to have a disturbing pattern of doing just that.
Let's put it this way-- if your child were attending a "school of choice" and didn't have something very basic, very fundamental-- like a chair, or any learning materials in their own language-- how long would you put up with that before just... leaving? You know-- your CHOICE. That's what I've seen happen to a lot of 2e and disabled students in charter schooling. The student's needs just get ignored, or parents get excuses about poor staffing, so-sorry-too-busy-for-a-meeting-maybe-next-month, etc. etc.
High turnover is the biggest red flag in charter schools-- and it's a figure that most charters are very secretive about, in my experience.
I am curious to learn exactly how the magic of privatization is supposed to result in a functional system of education in a broad sense-- can anyone explain why they think it is an idea with a high chance of success?
