New Charter Schools

Apply to Open a Charter School

This page provides information on requirements to submit a public charter school proposal to the North Carolina Charter Schools Review Board.

2026 NC Charter Applications 

The 2026 NC Charter School Application window is now open as of 5pm (ET) on 1/30/26 and will close at 5pm (ET) on 4/24/2026. Applicants who are interested in opening a charter school in 2027 under the accelerated timeline, or in 2028 under the standard timeline must submit their charter applications on or before the April 24, 2026, application close date.

Both the online application and $1,000 application fee must be submitted on or before April 24, 2026 at 5pm (ET).

Applicant boards will be expected to appear in-person for interviews at the Department of Public Instruction in Raleigh, NC that will commence during the monthly meetings of the Charter Schools Review Board meeting beginning September 2026.

For questions about the charter application process, please reach out to Melanie.Rackley@dpi.nc.gov. 

 

Please be advised that Google Sheets is not supported for use with the NC charter budget template. Due to the functions running on the back end of the workbook, it is required that applicants use:

Excel 2021 or later (PC and Mac), Excel for Microsoft 365 Subscriptions (PC and Mac Versions), or Excel Online

 

Instructions for applicants: 

The main applicant user should initiate a new application.

  1. Each applicant team should designate one person as their "main applicant" who will be the one to initiate (and eventually submit) the application. Whoever initiates the application is the only user who can submit the application.
  2. Only one person should do this and only once because each time it's done, a new application will be started (i.e. doing this more than once will start redundant applications).
  3. On future visits, there will be a link to continue this application on the user's EdLusion home page (after submission or deadline that link will go away).
  4. Other applicant users (collaborators) should wait until the main applicant user has added them as a collaborator.
  5. They will get an email notification when that happens.
  6. After that, they will have a link to collaborate on the application on their EdLusion home page (after submission or deadline that link will disappear). 

To initiate a new application

Continue the application. 

Application Resources

Post-Approval Resources

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