upstateguy wrote:NuclearCav90 wrote:btango wrote:They are public charter schools not private.
Now I’m a bit confused here. So who decides who goes to these public charter schools. How do they get their students?
Charter schools tend to not have distinct boundary lines in the same way private schools do not have boundary lines for enrollment. Charter school's attendance zones however I do believe have some limitations but I could be wrong. For example Greenville Tech Charter, Brashier Middle College and Greer Middle College here in Greenville County I believe are limited to only kids inside Greenville County. Whereas Christ Church has really no boundaries for enrollment.
The above 3 mentioned charter schools in Greenville county have annual lotteries for their new crop of students. You can apply for the lottery up to your 10th grade year. They do NOT accept senior year transfers to my knowledge. I know at least one of those 3 has a deal where if one sibling attends then the next sibling can bypass the lottery and auto enrolled.
Charter schools were historically found in inner city urban areas of America and were suppose to be low cost operated schools that were to serve as an alternative to traditional public schooling. Meaning we're going to eliminate extras, no sports, no gymnasium, no frills, just focus on academics because the local inner city high school is failing these kids.
About 15 years ago ABC's 20/20 did a special where they touted how awesome charter schools were and how they operated in such a way that they saved tax payers thousands of dollars that traditional public schools "wasted" because as mentioned these schools did not offer the traditional high school experience. 15 years later boy did 20/20 misfire on that one.
20 years later charter schools in many areas still serve that purpose but now many are no different than the public high school down the street. The only real difference is their size. While the local traditional high school may have 1,000 or 2,000 students, charter schools tend to be no larger than 500 students with many steadily hovering around 200-300.
Again, the point of all this was to provide kids at a large failing urban high school a small academically focused alternative that would allow them to succeed in the classroom without all the distractions of homecoming week or the big Friday night football game or prom, etc...
A charter school in a large metro area such as Charleston, Columbia and GSP is just asking to become a small school athletic powerhouse.