140 Stoneridge Drive

Suite 420
Columbia, SC 29210
Office: 803-253-6222
Fax: 803-253-6279

September 2017

Dear SCVCS Families:

You may have read in recent media reports that the board of directors of South Carolina Virtual Charter
School (SCVCS) has decided to transfer its charter to a new authorizer, Erskine College, at the end of the
2017-2018 school year. SCVCS is currently in the process of working with its current authorizer, the
South Carolina Public Charter School District (SCPCSD), and Erskine College to facilitate this transfer so
that we can continue to provide the high quality instructional program to your children into the future
with an authorizer who is willing to provide multiple educational opportunities and which recognizes the
need for diversity within charter schools. In an effort to help you understand why SCVCS has made this
decision and why we believe it is the right move for our school and our families, we would like to provide
the following history and information.

In order to operate, South Carolina public charter schools must be sponsored by a state-approved
authorizer. SCVCS is authorized by the South Carolina Public Charter School District, which, until now,
was the only authorizer available to the school. Under the South Carolina charter school law, colleges and
universities also are allowed to register as charter school authorizers.

Erskine College recently registered as a Charter School Sponsor with the South Carolina Department of
Education and created its new Charter Institute at Erskine. Shortly after, representatives with the Charter
Institute at Erskine and SCVCS Board and administration began to discuss the potential of Erskine
College authorizing our school. After several meetings and conversations, it became clear Erskine
College wanted to become our authorizer, has an interest in online instruction and is committed to our
schools success. SCVCS determined that transferring our charter to Erskine College is in the best interest
of our students.

Erskine College shares our mission of expanding educational opportunity to all students in the state,
regardless of their geographic locations, socio-economic backgrounds, or academic needs. The college
has a strong interest in fostering quality online learning and advancing meaningful accountability. They
are committed to virtual education and the model of online charter schools. Erskine College appreciates
the capabilities and strengths of online charter schools, and they also understand the unique challenges
these schools face.

SCVCS currently partners with public colleges and technical schools benefiting our high school students
affording them the opportunity to earn college credit while in high school. An expansion of our model
through the Charter Institute at Erskine further benefits both entities exponentially. SCVCS and Erskine
will enjoy the ability to provide student mentoring opportunities, research and development, teacher
training, dual credit options, and much more. Specifically, Erskine has shared with our administrative
team more robust opportunities that will significantly benefit SCVCS.

SCVCS, in its tenth year of operation is considered by the education community as the pioneer in virtual
education, has realized that virtual education is NOT an appropriate pathway for all students. We also
now realize remaining under the current authorizer is not the appropriate pathway for our virtual school.
While we appreciate the relationship weve had with the South Carolina Public Charter School District,
the SCPCSD does not currently share Erskines philosophy about virtual education and is either unable or
unwilling to provide SCVCS technical assistance or related services a local education agency by law
should provide.

Moreover, there are growing concerns that the SCPCSD is not fully committed to the long-term success
of SCVCS and other virtual and brick and mortar charter schools, online charter schools that are chosen
by thousands of South Carolina families every year. Specifically, we believe the SCPCSD has failed to
legally or equitably assess SCVCSs performance as a virtual charter school. The SCPCSD implemented
a new performance framework, which is what the SCPCSD uses to assess its charter schools. Since its
implementation, the performance framework has been criticized by the South Carolina charter school
community because it was not agreed to by the individual charter schools, nor was it included in their
respective charter contracts. Virtual schools leaders met numerous times to provide specific input
regarding the performance framework, but questions and suggestions were disregarded by the charter
district staff. The charter community feels that it was not given a reasonable opportunity to review and
provide meaningful feedback on this one-size-fits-all framework prior to implementation. The SCPCSD
applies its new performance framework uniformly, without distinguishing between virtual charter schools
and brick-and-mortar charter schools. The existing framework only measures a few metrics set at
arbitrarily high levels and fails to adequately measure graduating seniors, scholarships attained, ACT
scores , SAT scores, student retention, pass fail rates, summer school academic achievement, or graduate
success rate to mention a few. There are numerous measures which are ignored by the SCPCSD that are
available to truly assess the health of a school. They also fail to recognize how students who remain in a
virtual school for 2+ years score comparable to their peers. In other words, even though each charter
school has different goals and serves different student populations, the SCPCSDs performance
framework views every school as essentially the same and applies an identical set of standards. Thus, it
rewards some schools and unfairly penalizes others. Further, the SCPCSDs new performance framework
creates different standards from what is required of all other public schools in the state. Already the
SCPCSDs staff has used this new framework to notify many schools, including SCVCS that they are in
breach of their charter contracts. SCVCS has contested the notice of breach, and on multiple
occasions SCVCS has made a written request for the SCPCSD to cite provisions in the SCVCS charter
that the SCPCSD believed SCVCS was breaching. To date, the SCPCSD has not responded to SCVCS
with any citations to our charter. We believe SCVCS is in compliance with the terms of its charter
contract.

SCVCS leadership and teaching staff are lifelong educators in S.C. We do not shirk our responsibility to
provide a strong education experience for students in our state. We believe in strong accountability in
public education, but at the same time we believe that it must be fair and equitable. It is important to note
that our school will continue to be held to the exact same state accountability standards with Erskine
College as the school agreed to in its charter renewal contract with the SCPCSD.

Parents who chose SCVCS have done so because they believe it is the right option for their children. We
are committed to providing high quality education programs for your children, and to do everything we
can to protect the school choice you have made for your children.

We believe transferring our charter from the SCPCSD to Erskine College or any higher education
institution is in the best interest of everyone in our school community. We look forward to partnering
with a college authorizer that is fully devoted to virtual education, our school, and our students long-term
success.

Sincerely,

SCVCS Board of Directors

c: Ms. Molly Spearman, South Carolina Superintendent of Education