STUDY ON CHARTER SCHOOLS (LWVIL Issue)

3/26/2014: LWVIL Charter School position update: The LWV of Illinois has asked local Leagues to complete a member consensus on possible updates to our Charter Schools position. The Greater Peoria League's Board agreed to participate in this update and we formed a committee. The committee is co-chaired by Hedy Elliott and Jan Deissler.

The LWVIL (state) committee worked for 9 months figuring out the questions that will be discussed by local Leagues. The questions surround 3 issues: transparency, accountability, and finances. 


Our committee may include League members and interested community members. They study the background information suggested by the state committee, hold panel discussions, community discussion meetings, interview local leaders in the field, publish articles in our newsletter and on the website, and do fact finding. Our League will hold a general membership meeting in December to determine if our members agree or disagree with any of the LWVIL questions. We send our League's response to the state League by Jan 31, 2015.


The state League's Charter Schools position committee will compile all the local Leagues' responses. The committee will decide whether there is strong enough agreement on each question to suggest to the state League Board to make changes to our current Charter Schools position. The LWVIL Board may make changes to the state committee's report and findings. And, then that approved updated position will be sent to delegates who will attend our statewide convention in June. Those delegates will vote on the update at the June 2015 LWVIL Convention in Chicago.


The updated position is included in our LWVIL positions for local Leagues to use for possible local action. If the LWVIL Board prioritizes this item in their budget and work plan for 2015-16 at the convention, considerable effort could be used to push the issue within the state legislature.


Our committee has completed interviews. We will have articles in our newsletter in Oct, Nov, and Dec. We encourage member and public participation at our meetings:

• Oct 7, 2014 at 1:30 Lower Level conference room seats 40 - topic "Transparency" - Hedy
• Oct 14, 2014 at 1:30 Lower Level conference room seats 40 - topic "Accountability" - Jan
• Oct 21, 2014 at 1:30 Second Floor community room seats 20 - topic "Finances" - Lisa

The current local study started out with the list of questions provided by LWVIL to be presented to various parties involved in charter schools. Click here to see the questions.


Click here to see the Sept 2014 summary of the interviews.


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History:
In 2001 the Illinois State LWV published its position on Charter Schools. To read the 2001 position, click here.