NC Charter Board Approves Guilford School, Denies Stokes Bid

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s Charter Schools Review Board this week cleared one new school for a 2028 opening, turned down another and pushed a third applicant to a second interview, while charter leaders facing renewal pressed the board to rethink how their academic results are judged.

Hawkins Charter School, a first-time applicant in Guilford County, won initial approval. It plans a museum-style K-8 program built around artifacts, primary sources and hands-on projects. The school expects to open with 260 students in kindergarten through second grade and sixth grade, then grow to 715 students across K-8 by its fifth year.

Stokes County will keep waiting for its first charter school after the board voted down Lovira Academy. A third applicant, Preparatory Leadership Academy, was told to return in January for a second interview. All three applicants had sought to open in 2028 on the standard timeline.

So far in the 2026 application cycle, the board has approved three schools and denied four, according to the state Office of Charter Schools. The last three applicants are set for interviews in December.

In Chatham County, Granite Charter Academy got the board’s OK to push its opening back two more years, its second such request. Separately, the governing board of the two Bonnie Cone academies received approval to cut ties with its education management company, Charter One, a split that will cost those schools $1.9 million.

Ahead of renewal votes this winter, leaders from 11 of the 38 charters up for renewal in 2027 briefed the board. Several objected to the academic comparability benchmark, which measures a charter school’s proficiency against that of its local school district. The board also lost a member when a Senate appointee resigned, with his term set to run through June 2027.

The review board took its current form in August 2023, when the General Assembly reconstituted the Charter Schools Advisory Board, first created in October 2013, and gave the new panel authority over charter approvals.

Filed under: Asheville NC Education News