OKLAHOMA CITY – Today the Oklahoma chapter of PublicSchoolOptions.org (PSO) submitted official comments to the Oklahoma State Virtual Charter School Board regarding proposed administrative rules changes affecting school closure and renewal processes for the state’s virtual schools. The Oklahoma chapter of PSO is a coalition of parents working to defend parents’ right to choose the school choice option that works best for their children and has concerns regarding the proposed rule changes and the lack of parental involvement outlined in them.PSO Comment Highlights:

• The rules impact statement fails to identify the most obvious “class of persons affected” by the proposed rules: students and parents.
• Renewal Process: The renewal process should be amended to require that parents are informed, timely, of proposed actions and have meaningful avenues to participate in discussions regarding the actions.
• Termination Process: These provisions in the termination process should be amended to ensure that parents are kept fully informed throughout any termination process, in a timely manner, and allowed to participate in a meaningful way.
• Performance Framework: While collecting data on schools is important, responsible decision-makers must recognize that aggregate data provides a very narrow snapshot of what is occurring at any public school, particularly for public schools of choice where parents often enrolled their children because other options were not working for them.
• Performance Index: Simply put, Oklahoma’s children and families deserve better than “decision-making by formula,” as is proposed on page 34 of the proposed rules.
• Closure Process: The time to think about the impact a school closure might have on individual students and families is not after a closure transition team has been appointed, signaling the boards’ decision to close the school. Instead, the time to think about and understand the actual impact on individual students and families should be well before any decision on closure is made.
• We urge the Board to revisit the renewal/termination processes, and embed in those processes not only meaningful parental participation, but the requirement that the impact on students and families be carefully reviewed.

To read the full comments click HERE.###PublicSchoolOptions.org is a national alliance of parents that supports and defends parents’ rights to access the best public school options for their children. The Coalition supports the creation of public school options, including charter schools, online schools, magnet schools, open enrollment policies and other innovative education programs. Additionally, we advocate for equal access without restrictions to these public schools for all children.