AUGUSTA – The Maine Charter School Commission voted Wednesday to move the Maine Virtual Academy one step closer to opening in Maine.

The vote means the full commission will now review Maine Virtual Academy’s application in more depth, and vote Nov. 13 on whether to go into contract talks with the school. Those talks would last up to 60 days, after which the commission would take a final vote on whether to approve the school to open in fall 2015.

It would be the second virtual charter school in Maine. Maine Connections Academy opened this fall.

Virtual charter school students learn largely from home and get lessons online, with limited face-to-face interaction with teachers and administrators. Supporters say the schools are good for students who don’t “fit” at traditional schools, from athletes doing intense training to students who have been bullied. Virtual charter schools also have drawn criticism, in part because local school boards outsource their management to for-profit companies that are beholden to shareholders.

Maine Virtual Academy plans to contract with K12 Inc. of Herndon, Virginia, the nation’s largest online education company, for academic services.

This is the third time Maine Virtual Academy has applied. It withdrew its application the first year and was rejected by the commission last spring.

Among the commission’s concerns last spring were that the board did not have enough independence and oversight of key school functions, such as hiring teachers; the company contracted to provide education services, K12, couldn’t provide the commission with SAT and Advanced Placement test results for its students; and some Maine Virtual Academy board members were not as engaged in the process as others.

On Wednesday, the review team said the school had addressed all of the commission’s concerns. Among the changes are having the board employ all staff, having a physical location in Maine, increasing the pay scale for teachers, and guaranteeing all teachers, administrators and staff will live and work in Maine.

“The contract provisions that are going to be expected of (K12) are different than those nationwide. They will have more autonomy than most K12 (schools) nationwide,” said Michael Wilhelm, a commission review team member.

Wilhelm noted several other changes, including expanding the board and requiring that the chief executive officer supervise and evaluate all staff.

The changes “allow this school to be as autonomous as possible from K12 while using K12 as a service provider,” Wilhelm said.

A public hearing and interview with school officials will be held Oct. 27, at Central Maine Community College.

The commission also voted to not move forward with two other applications: from All of ME Academy, a kindergarten through fifth-grade school based in either Lewiston or Auburn; and Inspire ME Academy, a York County-based school for fourth- through eighth-graders.

There are currently four spots available for new charter schools in Maine under the state’s 10-school cap through 2021. The six existing charter schools are Maine Academy of Natural Sciences in Fairfield; Cornville Regional Charter School; Baxter Academy of Technology and Science in Portland; Fiddlehead School for Arts & Sciences in Gray; Harpswell Coastal Academy; and the virtual charter school, Maine Connections Academy.

Maine Connections Academy contracts its services from Connections Academy, a division of Maryland-based Connections Education, a for-profit company that manages virtual charter schools in more than 20 states. The company is owned by Pearson PLC in London, a multinational corporation that formulates standardized tests and publishes textbooks for many schools in the United States.

A 2012 Maine Sunday Telegram investigation of K12 and Connections Education showed that Maine’s digital education policies were being shaped in ways that benefited the two companies, that the companies recruited board members in the state, and that their schools in other states had fared poorly in analyses of student achievement.

In 2013, K12 settled a federal class-action lawsuit in which some claims, including those alleging K12 made false statements about student results, were dismissed for lack of merit, while other allegations – that K12 boosted enrollment and revenues through “deceptive recruiting” practices – were dismissed as part of a $6.75 million settlement to the shareholders.

In April, the NCAA announced that it would no longer accept coursework from 24 schools operated by K12, saying the courses were out of compliance with the NCAA’s nontraditional course requirements.

Nationwide, there were 2.1 million students enrolled in charter schools in 2011-12, and 5.6 percent of all public schools were charters, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Maine charter schools are publicly funded but operate independently of public school districts.

Staff Writer Noel K. Gallagher can be contacted at 791-6387 or at:

ngallagher@pressherald.com

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