by April Corbin Girnus, Nevada Current
Nevada charter schools this week will be able to apply for dedicated transportation funding, the state’s primary authorizer and governor’s office announced jointly Friday.
Up to $7 million in dedicated funds for charter school transportation is available for the upcoming 2023-24 school year, with an additional $7 million available the following year. The money was allocated to charter schools through Assembly Bill 400, an omnibus education bill sponsored by Gov. Joe Lombardo during this year’s legislative session.
The State Public Charter School Authority, or SPCSA, which sponsors the majority of charter schools across Nevada, will begin accepting applications on July 7. The applications will appear before the state charter school board for approval on a rolling basis, with the first batch expected to go before the board at their July 28 meeting.
Charter School Authority Executive Director Rebecca Feiden says the state anticipates it could receive “up to 25 or 30” applications based on responses to an initial survey the authority conducted after the legislation passed. But she added it is difficult to accurately predict given the newness of the program.
Charter schools are publicly funded, privately managed schools. They receive the same base per-pupil dollar amount allocated to district schools through the Pupil Centered Funding Formula, but until now they have not been eligible for dedicated transportation dollars from the state.
Only three state-authorized charter schools are currently approved to offer daily transportation to students, according to Feiden. One of those three schools, TEACH Las Vegas Charter School, received approval to transport students but has been unable to implement their plans because of the financial cost. Another of the three, Discovery Charter, buses sixth graders from its eastside campus to its Summerlin campus.
Only Nevada Prep, located near Nellis and Lake Mead boulevards on the eastside of Las Vegas, offers a transportation program similar to that of traditional school districts with designated pickup spots in different neighborhoods.
Providing transportation is a costly endeavor. According to the Nevada Department of Education, the four-year average for K-12 transportation costs statewide was $194 million in 2020. The four-year average for Washoe County School District — whose total enrollment the Charter School Authority is on track to surpass — was $24 million.
AB400 caps the amount of transportation funding a charter school can receive at the average per-pupil cost for transportation at the school district in which the charter school is located. That ranges from $359 in Carson City to $968 in White Pine County, according to the SPCSA. In Clark County, where the majority of the state’s students and charter schools are located, the per pupil transportation cost is $481.
Feiden told the Current that in the event there are more requests than available funding, the authority may opt to prioritize schools serving low-income communities.
Advocates of public school districts have argued that because charter schools are not required to offer transportation they are inaccessible to students whose parents or guardians lack the ability to provide transportation themselves, furthering inequities in education by burdening school districts that cannot rely on self-selection to weed out children who typically need more resources.
Charter school advocates have lobbied the state to increase their dedicated funding for transportation and facilities.
School districts receive transportation funding based on a four-year average of their actual costs — a formula the Commission School Funding has acknowledged doesn’t translate well to funding new, autonomously run charter schools. The commission has recommended the state establish parameters for new charter schools with no history to base funding on.
Feiden says the forthcoming charter school transportation spending may provide the state with a baseline for that discussion in future years.
“Hopefully this helps us get there,” she added.
The $14 million in funding secured in AB400 is not ongoing, meaning the issue of sustaining funding for the programs that are established through it are likely to arise during the 2024 legislative session.
“Charter school transportation funding is a critical part of expanding and enhancing school choice opportunities in our state,” said Lombardo in his statement announcing the opening of applications. “I’m proud that my administration was able to deliver this essential funding, and I look forward to seeing this funding directly benefit Nevada students, families, and charter schools.”
