Charter Policy Issue Brief prepared by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
Charter school access to underutilized district facilities
This document examines state policies that provide charter school access to underutilized district facilities, either through lease or purchase. These policies may pertain to co-locating with district schools, providing solo access to district buildings and giving access to available district land.
This document is divided into two sections: The first one focuses on a table that presents various details about each state’s policies for charter school access to underutilized district facilities; the second section outlines some policy considerations for state policymakers and advocates to wrestle with when designing policies for charter school access to underutilized district facilities.
“Many state statutes clearly state charter schools should have access to available space. However, with no corresponding oversight or enforcement mechanisms in place, charter schools fail to get access to much available space.”
Section I: State policies for charter school access to underutilized district
As of this writing, 32 states and the District of Columbia have enacted policies that attempt to provide charter
schools with access to district facilities. The table below presents various details about each state’s policies for
charter school access to underutilized district facilities. The states are listed in order of the percentage of charter
schools in district facilities, from largest to smallest. The text box after the table provides more information
about what each column of the table represents.
It is important to highlight a few key points about a handful of the top 10 states:
• The top four states each have less than 10 charter schools, which are primarily district-authorized
in these states.
• Louisiana’s percentage is largely the product of New Orleans being recreated as an all-charter school
district after Hurricane Katrina.
• Arkansas and Wisconsin feature an unusually high percentage of charter schools converted from
district-run schools.
