Good day, CharterFolk.
Today we are pleased to share a Contributor Column
We provide a bio for Katie below.
Katie Charnley is the Founder and Executive Director of the Virginia Charter School Alliance and Assistant Principal at Middleburg Community Charter School in Loudoun County, Virginia. With more than 13 years in public education, she has served as a classroom teacher, instructional leader, and school administrator.
Katie holds degrees from James Madison University and Shenandoah University, with additional credentials in educational leadership and gifted education from Longwood University. She is an Education Reformers Academy Fellow and is currently pursuing Project Zero Certification in Visible Thinking through Harvard’s Project Zero. Her work has been recognized through Loudoun County’s 40 Under 40, VFW Teacher of the Year, Chick-fil-A Teacher of the Year, and nominations for Best of Loudoun and Virginia Lottery educator honors.
Virginia’s Charter Schools Are Working. So Why Aren’t There More?
Virginia has more than 1,800 public schools. Just seven are public charter schools.
Yet five of the six Virginia charter schools receiving a rating under the Commonwealth’s School Performance and Support Framework earned Distinguished status, the highest designation available.
That deserves some context.
To be named Distinguished, a Virginia school must earn at least 90 points under a framework measuring student mastery, growth, readiness and, for high schools, graduation. The designation means a school is exceeding the Commonwealth’s expectations and is considered a model of best practices from which other schools can learn.
Statewide, just 23% of Virginia public schools earned Distinguished status. Among Virginia’s rated charter schools, five of six, or 83%, did.
And the other two charter schools deserve celebration, too.
Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts earned On Track status while serving a Title I population in the City of Richmond. Its designation tells only part of the story: Virginia Department of Education data show the school’s mathematics pass rate climbed from 63% to 85% in a single year, a 22-percentage-point increase.
Richmond Career Education and Employment Academy (RCEEA) serves an entirely different purpose. The school prepares students with disabilities for life beyond school through functional academics, career education, communication, independent living, and employment readiness. Its small, specialized population means its success is not captured through the same statewide rating.
Together, all seven tell a compelling story: Virginia’s public charter schools are working, even when success looks different from one school to another.
Their models are remarkably diverse. Across just seven schools, Virginia has charters focused on arts integration, STEAM and project-based learning, environmental education, International Baccalaureate programming, career and technical education, student-centered learning and specialized programming for students with disabilities.
That is precisely what chartering was intended to foster: public schools with the flexibility to innovate while remaining accountable for results.
Strong Results, Limited Growth
Despite these results, Virginia’s charter sector has barely grown.
Seven charter schools operate across a Commonwealth serving more than one million public school students. Local school boards serve as Virginia’s charter authorizers, and the pathway from a promising idea to an operating charter school remains extraordinarily difficult. No Virginia school division has approved or formed a new charter school since 2016.
The contrast is striking.
Virginia has created a small collection of innovative public schools. Five of the six receiving state performance ratings have reached the Commonwealth’s highest designation. Yet the sector remains remarkably small.
Why?
Part of the answer may lie in something more fundamental than authorization policy: Virginia still lacks a broad understanding of what public charter schools are.
A charter sector requires more than a law on the books. It requires infrastructure, leadership, advocacy, public understanding, and organizations that can support quality schools as the sector begins to take root.
That description feels remarkably familiar in Virginia.
Building the Infrastructure Before the Sector
It is also the environment in which we created the Virginia Charter School Alliance (VCSA).
Our strategy is intentionally measured.
We are not beginning by demanding dozens of new schools.
Our first goal is educating Virginia about the charter schools it already has.
Too often, charter schools here are confused with private schools, vouchers, microschools, or efforts to dismantle traditional public education. Virginia’s seven charter schools tell a very different story.
They are public schools.
They serve public school students.
They are open to children residing within their school divisions, with enrollment determined by lottery when demand exceeds available seats. And demand is not theoretical: principals across Virginia’s small charter sector report substantial waitlists, with more families seeking seats than some schools have space to serve.
They operate within Virginia’s public school divisions.
They also show what can happen when educators and communities are given room to rethink how a public school can serve its students.
Before Virginia can build a larger charter sector, we believe it must first understand and support the one it already has.
That means strengthening existing charter schools, connecting their leaders, documenting and sharing what is working, building relationships with school divisions and policymakers, and developing the organizational infrastructure necessary to support future applicants.
It also means resisting the temptation to measure success simply by how quickly the number seven grows.
We believe Virginia can grow its charter sector, but growth should be intentional, collaborative, bipartisan, and relentlessly focused on quality. Our goal is not simply more charter schools. It is more high-quality public-school options built around the needs of Virginia communities.
Five Distinguished schools are powerful proof points. Patrick Henry’s academic growth reminds us that a single designation never tells the entire story. RCEEA reminds us that some of the most important student outcomes (independence, employability, communication, and preparation for adult life) do not always fit neatly into a statewide accountability formula.
For a national charter movement accustomed to counting schools by the hundreds, seven may seem insignificant.
We see it differently.
In Virginia, seven is the foundation.
The results give us something worth building upon. Now our job is to make sure Virginia understands what it already has, learns from the schools that are succeeding, creates the conditions for high-quality ideas to emerge, and thoughtfully builds what comes next.