CHARLESTON — The executive director of the agency that oversees West Virginia’s small but growing public charter school program said he was pleased Wednesday that the Legislature passed two bills that would be helpful to the charter school system.

Professional Charter School Board Executive Director James Paul provided an update to board members during its regular monthly meeting Wednesday morning.

Paul praised the passage of House Bill 2167, relating to public charter schools code provisions; and Senate Bill 746, allowing the West Virginia Board of Education to delegate its Medicaid provider status to public charter schools.

HB 2167 makes several changes to existing State Code regulating public charter schools, including limitations on tuition and fees, provisions for managing employee participation in retirement and insurance plans, updated procedures for tracking withdrawn students, allowances for non-certified teachers to proctor state assessments under specific conditions, and modified application deadlines for certain types of charter schools.

“House Bill 2167 makes several, mostly technical changes to the charter school code,” Paul said. “These are important improvements to the charter school law, and I think they’re going to make a great difference for us in West Virginia.”

The bill also creates a new “alternative high-risk population public charter schools,” defining eligibility criteria for both these schools and the students they would serve. These schools would serve high-risk students, including expelled students, habitually truant students, recovered dropouts, and students with high-level transiency, among others. The bill assigns responsibilities to the West Virginia Board of Education for oversight, training, and reporting related to charter schools.

“These are focused on students who have significant academic or behavioral needs, and this is a category of charter schools that have opened up in other states and have been quite successful at serving this unique student population,” Paul said. “Now there is language in West Virginia’s charter law that specifically identifies this as an option to apply to an authorizer and to open in West Virginia.”

SB 746 would allow the state Board of Education to authorize public charter schools to act as Medicaid providers. The bill extends the ability to provide and seek reimbursement for school-based Medicaid services to public charter schools, placing them on a similar footing with county boards and educational services cooperatives.

“This would allow charter schools to bill Medicaid for eligible students for special education services,” Paul said. “This bill is really about fairness and equality with the county boards of education because the county boards can have this status with Medicaid and previously charter schools did not, so the Legislature addressed that and now there’s an opportunity for charter schools to get this status.

“Based on my research and other states and discussion with some school leaders, this could be a significant source of funding for the charter schools,” Paul continued. “More importantly, it’s a way for them to provide services that are needed for their students and to get reimbursed for them.”

One priority for Paul that he was not able to get across the finish line when the Legislature adjourned its 60-day session on April 12 was funding to help with public charter school start-up costs. The Legislature created the Charter School Stimulus Fund in 2023. Eligible schools may receive an initial grant up to $300,000 during or before the first two years of operation. But the Legislature has never appropriated money to the fund.

“Without an appropriation into this fund or creating some other mechanism to support school founders — their pre-opening costs — there will continue to be challenges for new schools to open,” Paul said.

West Virginia’s public charter school pilot program was created in 2019 by the Legislature and updated in 2021. There are two statewide virtual charter schools that require no need for physical buildings, but there are now four brick-and-mortar public charter schools serving students in the Eastern Panhandle, Monongalia/Preston counties, Harrison County, and Kanawha County. Two more public charter schools could be open by next fall in Berkeley and Monongalia counties.