A School Policy Dispute Reveals Deeper Governance Issues

How Chesapeake Science Point’s BYOD Rationale Shifted and Why It Matters

In February 2024, the Chesapeake Lighthouse Foundation (CLF) Board of Directors approved a sweeping change for families at Chesapeake Science Point Elementary School (CSPES): a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy. Starting in the 2025–2026 school year, every student would have to bring a personal Chromebook to school or rent one from the school for $100 per year.

At the time, the reasoning seemed straightforward, even if debatable. Meeting minutes from the approving board framed the policy as an operational convenience, saying it would “make the principal’s job easier” by shifting the burden of providing devices from the school to families. There was no mention of budget shortfalls, expiring federal aid, or changes to Maryland’s education funding formula.

One year later, the school’s public explanation looked very different.

Governance and Operations: Who Runs CSPES and How Decisions Are Made

CSPES sits inside a layered governance and operational framework involving three distinct boards and their corresponding organizations. Understanding these relationships is essential to understanding who had the authority and responsibility for the BYOD policy.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS)

• Governance: Elected AACPS Board of Education.
• Operations: Superintendent and central office divisions (Technology Services, Curriculum, Finance, Legal).
• Role in CSPES:
  • Authorizes the school’s charter.
  • Allocates per-pupil funding.
  • Ensures compliance with state and federal education law.
  • Does not control most internal policies for charter schools.

Chesapeake Lighthouse Foundation (CLF)

• Governance: CLF Board of Directors.
• Operations: Charter Management Organization staff, including CEO, operations managers, HR, finance, IT, and academic oversight teams.
• Role in CSPES:
  • Holds the charter contract with AACPS.
  • Sets network-wide policies for all CLF schools.
  • Approves or rejects proposals from local school boards.
  • Provides centralized operational support (budgeting, HR, purchasing).

Chesapeake Science Point Elementary School (CSPES)

• Governance: CSP Governing Board.
• Operations: Principal, teachers, and support staff who run day-to-day school functions.
• Role in CSPES:
  • Oversees local concerns and parental engagement.
  • Can propose school-specific policies (like BYOD).
  • Relies on CLF Board approval for implementation.

Why This Matters for BYOD
The BYOD mandate at CSPES did not originate from AACPS as a countywide requirement. It began at the school level (CSP Governing Board), was approved by CLF’s Board of Directors, and then implemented by CSPES’s administration. AACPS’s role was limited to funding and compliance oversight, a structure that blurs accountability for parents.

Public Records Response: “AACPS Does Not Have a BYOD Policy”

In June 2025, the governance complexity surrounding CSPES’s BYOD policy came into sharp relief through a Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) request.

The Civic Ledger sought AACPS records from February 2023 to the present relating to the legal, privacy, and technical implications of a BYOD policy. The request covered topics such as Fourth Amendment analyses, CIPA compliance, device monitoring procedures, risk assessments, governance deliberations, and vendor contracts.

AACPS’s Office of General Counsel responded with the same refrain across nearly every category:

“AACPS does not have a BYOD policy.”

The response emphasized that:

• AACPS does not configure or install software on student-owned devices.
• AACPS provides AACPS-owned devices to students, governed by district technology policies (Policy DI, Regulation DI-RA).
• AACPS holds no board minutes, legal memos, or incident reports relating to BYOD.

When asked about CSPES, AACPS’s counsel stated plainly that CSPES is a charter school and is run independently from AACPS, and that responsive CSPES records would come from the school or CLF.

Policy Oversight and the Validity of the Denial

AACPS’s position is technically accurate: as the chartering authority, it has no districtwide BYOD policy and no central-office records about one. Maryland law allows charter schools to operate with broad autonomy, and CSPES’s policy originated from its own governance chain.

But Maryland’s Education Article, Title 9, makes clear that charter schools “operate under the supervision of the public chartering authority from which [their] charter is granted” and that the county board remains the public chartering authority. That means AACPS’s supervisory role is not optional — it must ensure that charter operations comply with law and policy.

From this perspective, the MPIA denial sidesteps the larger issue: even if AACPS did not create the BYOD policy, should it have been aware of it before rollout? And if the policy carried potential constitutional or equity concerns, does AACPS have a duty to review it?

Legal Responsibility to Intervene

Charter autonomy has limits. Under Maryland’s Education Article § 9–106(a), a public charter school “shall comply with the provisions of law and regulation governing other public schools” unless it has a lawful waiver. Under § 9–107(a), a county board may not authorize or allow the continued operation of a charter school whose policies violate public policy initiatives, court orders, or legal requirements.

In practice, this means that once AACPS becomes aware of a charter policy that may violate constitutional rights or statutory protections, it has both the authority and the obligation to act. That authority is not limited to passive review, it includes the power to halt implementation while the policy is examined.

AACPS’s potential interventions could include:

• Immediate suspension of the policy pending legal and compliance review.
• Requiring revisions to bring the policy into compliance.
• Rescinding the policy if it cannot be legally justified.
• Investigating whether the charter operator exceeded its authority under the charter agreement.

Given that violations of constitutional rights can result in both legal liability and damages, AACPS should err on the side of caution. When a charter policy presents even a plausible risk of infringing on protected rights, the district’s safest course is to pause or suspend the policy while conducting a thorough review. Proactive intervention not only protects students and families but also shields AACPS and, by extension, taxpayers from avoidable litigation and financial exposure.

In this light, the MPIA denial may be procedurally correct but substantively incomplete. Awareness of a legally questionable policy should not end with “we have no such policy” but should trigger AACPS’s supervisory power to review, suspend, and, if necessary, terminate that policy before it is enforced on families.