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Judge won't force BESE to add Impact Charter School contract renewal to December agenda
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BATON ROUGE — A judge said Monday that he won't force BESE to add a charter school's contract renewal to its December meeting agenda.
Impact Charter School, which is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Legislative Auditor, sued last week asking the state court to order the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to add its automatic contract renewal to the agenda for a board committee meeting set for Tuesday.
State District Judge Ron Johnson denied the school's request after a hearing Monday.
BESE and the state Department of Education argued in court that the school was not excluded from the agenda because of the ongoing audit. The agencies said the problem was that the school did not maintain an A or B grade for three consecutive years, which they said was required for an automatic contract renewal.
The school's attorney, Ron Haley, cited different requirements outlined in another part of the law, arguing that the school did meet those standards.
BESE's attorney argued that the board has the discretion to choose what goes on its agendas.
Haley said the choice was not made fairly.
"We just found it very interesting that you have 17 schools similarly situated as my client, all of them up for renewal. Whether they're going to get it, whether it's automatic renewal, or it's just renewal subject to limited number of years, everybody's on the agenda except Impact Charter School," he said.
Haley said his clients were told in prior conversations with the agencies the unresolved audit was at the root of the school's exclusion from the agenda.
He said they're looking at what other legal options exist in light of the ruling, and school authorities hope the contract renewal will be added to the BESE's January agenda.
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