By Steven Allen Adams
For The Intelligencer
CHARLESTON – Years after the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals kicked a decision regarding the legalities of the state’s public charter school pilot program back to a Kanawha County judge, that same judge said current and future charter schools may require voter input.
In a 39-page order released Wednesday, 8th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Bailey ruled that the creation of the state’s five brick-and-mortar public charter schools and two statewide virtual charter schools violates the state Constitution. Those schools were authorized by the West Virginia Professional Charter School Board (PCSB)
Bailey found that House Bill 2012, the 2021 bill that amended a 2019 law that created the public charter school pilot program, violates Article 12, Section 10 of the West Virginia Constitution, because charter schools represent “independent free school organizations” that were authorized without the constitutionally mandated consent of a majority of affected county voters.
“There is no question that PCSB charter schools are free school organizations for purposes of section 10 because they are statutorily defined as free, public schools,” Bailey wrote in her ruling. “HB 2012 was designed to make PCSB charter schools as independent as they could possibly be and still be called public schools – that was the whole point, to evade county school board authorization and supervision, as the Court’s factual findings make clear.”
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