HARTFORD, Conn. — Advocates for Connecticut’s public charter schools spent February addressing legislators amid the 2025 Legislative Session, delivering testimony on multiple key issues to the Appropriations Committee on February 20 and the Education Committee on February 26.
As part of the Appropriations Committee consideration of budgetary matters, their hearing on Elementary and Secondary Education brought supporters of 7 new public charter schools to testify, asking the General Assembly to deliver funding to open these schools.
Five of these new schools — Big Picture Learning Academy and OLAM Public Charter School in Stamford, PROUD Academy in Ansonia, and Taino CoLAB Academies in New Haven and Waterbury — earned initial approval from the State Board of Education in January. Two others — Danbury Charter School and Capital Prep Middletown — have now been waiting multiple years since for funding since their approval. Each earned significant support from their communities throughout the approval process.
CTCSA joined advocates in calling on legislators to fund these 7 new charter schools, while also testifying on the need for increased weighted funding for Connecticut’s public charter schools. While Governor Ned Lamont’s budget proposal includes an increase in weighted funding through the state’s Education Cost Sharing Grant for our state’s public district schools, there is no scheduled weighted funding increase in statute for public charter schools. This weighted funding is intended to address the needs of schools with underserved student populations. As public charter schools serve a higher proportion of students of color and students form low income communities than any other public schools in the state, their weighted funding should reflect that.
CTCSA staff also submitted testimony to the Education Committee as it considered a bill that proposes adjustments to the state’s two-step approval process for the opening of new public charter schools. We shared our expertise and perspective in hopes of guiding legislators to correctly addressing the issue and helping communities get the new tuition-free, public school options for which they’re asking. You can read the current form of Raised Bill No. 1349 here.
The governor’s budget proposal can be read in full here. We will continue to keep our member schools and the charter community updated on any relevant developments.
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