‘Tis the Season of Charter School Applications and Denials

In Florida, charter school applications generally have to be filed with the school district by August 1. The school district then is supposed to have 60 days to make a decision about whether to approve or deny a charter school application, but in almost every situation districts will ask for an extension of time within which to make that determination. That means that most decisions on charter school applications are not made by districts until October and November or, even in some situations as late as February or March. Once the decision is made however if a determination is made to deny the application, the charter applicant has 30 days from the notice of the denial of the application to file an appeal. And the filing of an appeal is not the filing of a notice of appeal but actually means you have to file your initial appellate brief as it were. And unlike normal appeals in the court system, the 30 days is jurisdictional such that it does not appear that the 30 days can be waived if so requested.

This means that when you going through the application process, if it appears that your charter application is going to be denied you need to think about whether your going to take an appeal that application even before you receive the formal denial. If you are interested in pursuing an appeal the earlier we hear from you the more help we can provide. Every year there are typically people that contact us to late for us to be able to handle an appeal for them, even if they have a good case, because we might already be working on 2 or 3 other appeals and they let most of their 30 days run.

So, good luck on approvals, but if it looks as though your application is going to be denied, be vigilant about pursuing an appeal, or the chance may be lost for another year.