State relents; online school to stay open

After years of acrimonious court battles, the Minnesota Department of Education has abandoned efforts to close the BlueSky Online School for alleged violations of academic standards and graduation requirements.

The decision by Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius was delivered Thursday afternoon to attorneys and officials associated with BlueSky, which bills itself as the first fully online school in Minnesota.

"We're ecstatic, just ecstatic," Don Hainlen, director at BlueSky, said Thursday afternoon after skimming through the decision.

The BlueSky battle was believed to be the first time the state has tried to shutter a charter school for academic reasons. It also was the first time the department had investigated a school's curriculum, according to BlueSky officials.

Charlene Briner, Cassellius' chief of staff and communications director, confirmed Thursday night that the department had delivered the ruling and decided to forego further attempts to close BlueSky on the current academic charges.

"The commissioner has concluded that there were instances of noncompliance at BlueSky regarding academic standards and graduation requirements," Briner wrote in an e-mail. "There was insufficient evidence as required by law to demonstrate a history of major or repeated violations to the extent termination was justified. Beyond that, the decision speaks for itself."

The timing of the decision caught BlueSky officials and others by surprise since it had been expected Cassellius would take until March 22 to make a ruling.

Last November, Krause sided with BlueSky and against the Department of Education, despite finding some academic shortcomings at the school. He ruled that attorneys for the state had not proved that the violations regarding an algebra lesson and a few social studies courses showed the school had "a history of major or repeated violations of law."

The Education Department appealed that recommendation and, in an odd bureaucratic twist, Cassellius served as judge and jury to hear the appeal and make a final decision on whether to close BlueSky, drop the action or modify the judge's opinion.

Complaints against the school, according to Cassellius' ruling, began in January 2009, just two weeks after BlueSky was certified by the state as an online school.

The investigation began after two former BlueSky employees notified the state about what they considered graduation and curriculum violations.

What followed were allegations of students graduating improperly and of academic standards not being met.

At one point, the state attorney invoked the Nazis as she compared actions of BlueSky officials to those of Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, and his infamous dictum that "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." BlueSky's reputation took a beating during the turmoil as students fled, school officials said. At its peak BlueSky had more than 900 students, according to Dan Cook, school spokesman.

By this week, Cook said, that number had dwindled to about 400. The loss of students, he noted, also meant the loss of millions in state financial aid.

At one point, Cook said, the school had a deficit of nearly $1 million because of legal fees and shrinking enrollment.