Baltimore City Public Schools settles yearslong dispute with charter schools

The Baltimore City school board voted Tuesday to end years of fighting over funding its 30 publicly subsidized, privately run charter schools.

By the end of the month, Baltimore City Public Schools must cough up an additional $5.2 million “to be used for educational programming” at its charter schools, which educate over 13,000 students, according to a Tuesday settlement.

Baltimore charter school leaders have previously argued that they’re owed $30 million for the 2025-26 school year, a number the district disputed last spring.

For more than a decade, Maryland charter school leaders have argued that school districts have been shorting them the cash they need to educate thousands of public school students while district leaders have said that charters don’t want to pay their fair share for essential services.

The issue has been particularly contentious in Baltimore, and disputes have gone all the way to the Maryland State Board of Education and Maryland’s Supreme Court.

Baltimore has by far the largest number of charter schools in any Maryland school district. Most districts have none.

The settlement agreement between the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners and the more than 20 nonprofits that operate city charter schools says that the extra money will flow to those that ran schools in the 2025-2026 school year. That includes New Song Academy and the Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys, which will close next school year.

The settlement’s allocations to each school are based on the number of students they enroll, varying from as few as 161 students — equal to over an additional $103,000 — to nearly 1,400 students, netting almost $900,000.

The agreement also says that charter operators will start paying the district for school police services, such as on-call emergency response, routine safety patrols and conflict deescalation. The fee ranges from $150 to $192 per student, depending on which grades each school educates. The fee can increase by up to 8% each year based on rising prices for needs such as staffing and equipment.

The Maryland state school board recently cleared up how school districts should be funding their charter schools and how much money districts can withhold for big-ticket expenses like union negotiations and health insurance. Districts can charge an additional 5% administrative fee, which under Tuesday’s settlement will cover the costs of legal services for Baltimore charters.

The agreement says it resolves all issues related to charter funding for this and prior fiscal years. It says the district will start applying a new funding formula for the next fiscal year, which will stay in place until budget year 2030. All parties involved agreed not to challenge the terms for those four years.

In a joint statement provided by André Riley, a district spokesperson, Baltimore City Public Schools and the city’s charter operators said they were pleased to reach a four-year resolution that “provides greater clarity and stability around charter school funding while reinforcing our shared commitment to serving all students and families across Baltimore City,” regardless of the type of public school a student attends.

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