San Antonio Standard

Amid the criticism heaped on charter schools, one veteran educator in San Antonio is touting their positives, according to a report from Spectrum News.

Jeffery Flores has worked in public education for 30 years and has at least one decade of charter school experience under his belt.

Spectrum News reported that Flores is the principal of Imelda Davis Early College High School, which is a part of the New Frontier Public Schools network, one of the Alamo City’s oldest public charter school networks.

He told the website that his campus is a public school.

“Our kids take the state assessments,” Flores said in the report. “Our teachers are certified teachers.”

Flores added that the school’s goal is to have students get “six years of school in four years.”

“So they are earning their high school diploma in addition to up to 60 hours for their associate's degree,” he said, Spectrum News reported.

Davis holds classes at San Antonio College (SAC), which enables students to get a taste of high learning at no cost to their families, according to the report.

Flores said that he came from a time when children attended schools that were geographically close to their homes. 

“You went to the high school that you went to because that was it,” he said. “There’s choice now.” 

There’s a misconception that traditional and charter schools are rivals, to which at least one San Antonio-area public school leader said isn’t true. 

“I have no issue with charters, because we can work collectively and educate children,” Edgewood Independent School District (EISD) Superintendent Dr. Eduardo Hernandez told the San Antonio Report. “This is still one big city, and until we realize the responsibility of that, that really defeats the purpose of working with children.” 

Per San Antonio Report, there are more than 150 charter schools throughout the city that are considered “open enrollment,” meaning that prospective students don’t have to be administered an entrance examination. 

In the event these schools field more applications than seats, the publication reported, a lottery system helps determine who gets in.