A second charter school has been proposed for Loudoun County

An application that seeks to establish Loudoun County’s second public charter program has been met with a mix of encouragement and concern from Loudoun County School Board members in recent weeks.

The proposal was submitted to the board in August and has been under review by a school board charter committee since October. It aims to transform historic Hillsboro Elementary School into the Hillsboro Charter Academy, a free public charter program open to all Loudoun students.

Last month, the board’s charter school committee endorsed the application, forwarding the lengthy document to the full school board for review.

But several board members, including those who serve on the charter committee, also identified several areas of concern with the application, including the composition of the school’s board of directors and the question of whether the school’s principal should be trained or supervised by Loudoun public school officials. At a meeting March 10, school board members suggested that the committee should continue its work on the proposal before the full board makes its final vote.

Hillsboro Elementary is among a handful of small historic Loudoun schools that have repeatedly faced the possibility of being closed during annual budget discussions. It is the second school in Loudoun to pursue a public charter program as a way to keep its doors open. Last year, the school board approved a community-led application to convert Middleburg Elementary School into a year-round, project-focused charter school, the first of its kind in Northern Virginia.

The Middleburg Community Charter School opened in August and has since faced substantial challenges, including being placed on probation after the school board learned that the principal lacked the proper state license to run the school. The board has since lifted the probation.

Members of the Loudoun Education Association, an advocacy group that represents thousands of public school employees, recently said that the association has received numerous complaints about the school and that a majority of the school’s teaching staff has requested permission to transfer next year.

Although the school board generally requires a full year of planning between the approval of a charter program and the opening of the school, that requirement was waived for Middleburg Community Charter School. Such an exception is unlikely to be granted again, school board members have indicated, which means that the Hillsboro Charter Academy, if approved, would most likely open for the 2016-2017 school year.

[Loudoun opens Northern Virginia’s first charter school]

At a school board meeting March 10, member Brenda Sheridan (Sterling) expressed particular concern about having a principal hired, trained and employed by the Hillsboro charter’s board of directors rather than Loudoun public school officials. Sheridan, who did not attend the meeting but submitted comments that were read aloud, said she could not support a charter application with the same organizational structure as Middleburg Community Charter School.

“There have been significant issues ... and it would be irresponsible of the Loudoun County School Board to allow this model to once again be put in place,” she wrote.

School board member Bill Fox (Leesburg) acknowledged that there had been “rocky issues” in the Middleburg charter’s inaugural school year but said that it would be problematic to require Hillsboro’s principal to report to the public school system rather than the charter’s board of directors.

If the school board insisted on a principal from Loudoun public schools, he said, “we’ve just disconnected the [Hillsboro board of directors] from the charter school, and I don’t think that makes any sense.”

Sheridan and school board member Jeff Morse (Dulles), chairman of the charter committee, also said they were worried that the Hillsboro charter’s board of directors lacks the educational experience necessary to lead a new charter school.

The proposed academy would offer an “experiential, project-based” curriculum with a “STEAM” focus on science, technology, engineering, arts and math. Each child would have a unique “student learning plan” and would be encouraged to participate in hands-on, creative projects, the school’s board of directors said.

School board member Jill Turgeon (Blue Ridge) said at the recent meeting that she was pleased with many elements of the application but that she thought the curriculum should be more clearly detailed.

“We see a curriculum that is in the application — it is very general, though, in many respects,” Turgeon said, addressing the school board members. “This is a charter, and I think we need to allow you some creativity and some leeway in how you achieve those goals, but I think they still need to be written down so that you know where you’re headed.”

School board Chairman Eric Hornberger (Ashburn) praised the committee’s “great work,” but said that he would like to see the group continue to move toward a finalized application before the board makes a final decision.

Morse said the committee members would be happy to continue their work, but only with clear guidance from the full board.

“If you think we are on the right path, and that’s the consensus of the board, by all means, we would take it back to the committee,” Morse said. “But we want some of that interim input from the rest of the board members, to tell us that this is an application that they are interested in us continuing to pursue.”

The school board agreed to provide feedback on nine specific issues raised by committee members. Those topics will be addressed at the board’s meeting Tuesday.

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