Minnesota charter school website requirements: what must be posted, and when

A Minnesota charter school carries about twenty standing website duties. Two have hard dates: the standardized testing calendar by October 1 and the literacy plan by June 15. Several run on rolling clocks: board minutes within 30 days of approval, the authorizer’s evaluation within 15 business days of receipt, a management company’s proposed contract 20 business days before the board adopts it. The rest have to be posted and kept findable, which is a maintenance job, not a launch job.

I have built websites for two Minnesota charters, Gateway STEM Academy in St. Paul and Midway Star Academy, and in both cases the compliance shelf was the part nobody owned after launch. This article is the list I wish someone had handed those offices, with the statute next to every item so you can check it yourself. Minnesota has 173 charter schools serving about 70,000 students, according to the Department of Education, and most of them have one person doing this between attendance and lunch counts.

This is general information from a web studio, not legal advice. Your authorizer and your attorney get the final word.

Who has to follow these rules?

A charter school “is a public school and is part of the state’s system of public education” under Minn. Stat. 124E.03, and it is exempt from the statutes that govern districts unless a law names it. Section 124E.03 then names a lot of them: chapter 13 on data practices, chapter 13D on open meetings, the Pupil Fair Dismissal Act, the bullying statute, the Human Rights Act, and the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness reporting in 120B.11. That is why the website list below mixes charter-specific sections with district statutes that reach charters by cross-reference.

The Department of Education maintains a voluntary Charter School Website Requirements Checklist, updated in October 2025 and aligned to the 2024 statutes as amended in 2025. Neither the school nor its authorizer has to submit it, and the compliance site csemn.org mirrors its items with citations. The table below covers the statutory core; the checklist adds conditional items such as full-service community school reports where they apply.

What must a Minnesota charter school post on its website?

What	Statute	Timing or wording
Board minutes, including committees with delegated authority	124E.07 subd. 8	Within 30 days of the earlier of board approval or the next regular meeting; kept at least 365 days
Board directory information; authorizer identity and contact	124E.07 subd. 8	Authorizer information also goes in other public materials
Election policies, dates, procedures; candidate names, bios, and statements	124E.07 subd. 5	Dates at least 30 calendar days before the election; candidates at least 10 calendar days before
Lottery policy and process, and any early-admission policy	124E.11	“Develop and publish, including on its website”
Board-approved annual report: enrollment, attrition, governance, staffing, finances, management agreements, academics, innovation, plans, board training	124E.16 subd. 2	“Must post the annual report on the school’s official website”; no statutory posting date, but the audit goes to MDE and the authorizer by December 31
The authorizer’s written performance evaluation	124E.16 subd. 4	Within 15 business days of receipt; kept 365 days; shared with families in their languages
A conspicuous link to the authorizer’s page holding the charter contract, amendments, performance reviews, and termination, nonrenewal, or intervention notices	124E.17 subd. 1(d), new in 2025	The authorizer must keep those published for at least five years
Comprehensive achievement and civic readiness report (formerly the World’s Best Workforce report)	120B.11 subd. 5, via 124E.03	Newspaper, mail, or electronic posting on the website, plus an annual public meeting
Calendar of standardized tests, with the rationale and whether each is local, state, or federal	120B.306 subd. 1(c)	At least a week before any assessment, and no later than October 1
Local literacy plan under the READ Act	120B.12 subd. 4a	Annually by June 15; from 2026-27 the plan must cover library media centers
Student journalist policy	121A.80 subd. 4, 2024	“Must adopt and post on the district or charter school website”
School meals and unpaid-meal policy, for schools in the National School Lunch Program	124D.111 subd. 1	“Adopt and post to its website”; bans lunch shaming
Bullying policy	121A.031 subd. 3	In the handbook and electronically, in the languages that appear on the site
Mental-health services information, including free and sliding-fee providers	121A.55	“Must also be posted on the district or charter school website”
Link to Minnesota health care program application help	256.962 subd. 6	Required if the school maintains a website
Where lead-testing results are available, and remediation taken	121A.335 subd. 5	Annual parent notice; the website updated at least annually
CMO or EMO: the proposed contract and amendments, an annual statement of assurance, an independent evaluation	124E.27, new in 2025	Contract at least 20 business days before adoption; evaluation at least 30 business days before the contract ends
Title IX coordinator contact and policy	34 CFR 106.8	“Prominently display” on the website and in each handbook
The LEA report card and assessment information, for Title I schools	20 U.S.C. 6311 and 6312	Report card on the website; assessment information “in a clear and easily accessible manner”

Conditional items apply when the condition exists: a building corporation’s name, bylaws, minutes, and board under 124E.13; a district collaboration agreement under 124E.08; the group health insurance policy named in the Department’s checklist; and a restrictive procedures plan under 125A.0942.

The rolling clocks

Four items in that table are not annual tasks. They are deadlines that start whenever something happens, which is exactly the kind of obligation a small office misses.

• Minutes, 30 days. Every approved set, including committees with delegated authority, within 30 days of approval or the next regular meeting, whichever comes first. They stay up for a year. Ten meetings a year is ten clocks.
• The authorizer’s evaluation, 15 business days. When the authorizer’s written performance evaluation arrives, it goes up within 15 business days and stays for 365 days, and families get it in their languages.
• Management contracts, 20 and 30 business days. If a charter management or education management organization runs the school, the proposed contract and any amendments are posted at least 20 business days before the board adopts them, and the independent evaluation at least 30 business days before the current contract ends. Section 124E.27 also puts the organization’s financial report in front of the board by July 31.
• Elections, 30 and 10 days. Election dates and procedures go up at least 30 calendar days before the vote, candidate names and statements at least 10 calendar days before.

The hard dates

Only two postings carry a calendar date in statute. The testing calendar is due on the website by October 1, and at least a week before any assessment that falls earlier. The literacy plan is due by June 15 every year. Two other dates are often confused with posting duties: the audit goes to the Department and the authorizer by December 31 under 124E.16 subd. 1, which is a filing, and data access policies must be updated by August 1 under 13.025, which makes the website optional. The Department posts report cards no later than September 1 under 120B.36, and the federal report-card rule makes a working link to the school’s page the practical fix in September.

What changed in 2024, 2025, and 2026

The 2024 session added the student journalist policy in 121A.80 and the cell-phone policy in 121A.73. The 2025 first special session, chapter 10, article 5, added the authorizer-page link in 124E.17, the management-company postings in 124E.27, a finance committee requirement, a gift ban, and the election rules on candidate information. The 2026 session did not amend chapter 124E at all. It did amend the literacy plan statute to cover library media centers from 2026-27, and, according to the Minnesota School Boards Association’s recap of chapter 117, it requires every district and charter school to adopt an anonymous threat-reporting policy by June 30, 2027 and have a reporting system in place by July 1, 2028, reachable by app, website, and phone. Read the statute text before you cite it; I am working from the association’s summary.

What is not required on the website

The list of things people think are required, and are not, matters because it is where offices spend effort that belongs elsewhere.

• The charter contract itself. The authorizer publishes it. The school’s duty under 124E.17 is the conspicuous link.
• Meeting notices. Chapter 13D keeps the regular schedule on file at the primary office and puts special-meeting notices on the principal bulletin board at least three days ahead; its website clause covers state agencies. Advisory Opinion 22-009 from the Department of Administration found a charter board violated 13D.04 by posting a special-meeting notice only on its website. Post the bulletin board notice first, and the website copy as well, because families look there.
• The cell-phone policy. Section 121A.73 required adoption by March 15, 2025, and says nothing about posting.
• The e-learning plan. Section 120A.414 requires notice to families at the start of the year and leaves the method open.
• The technology-provider notice under 13.32, which goes out by mail or email.
• A “Minnesota Report Card” link is not in state statute. The federal report-card duty is what makes the link practical.

The accessibility rule on top of all of it

Public entities are covered by the Justice Department’s 2024 rule on web accessibility under Title II of the ADA, which sets WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA as the standard. On April 20, 2026 the Department published an interim final rule moving the compliance dates: April 26, 2027 for state and local government entities with a total population of 50,000 or more, and April 26, 2028 for entities under 50,000 and for special district governments. The text is on the Federal Register, and the dates now appear in 28 CFR 35.200.

The rule never uses the word charter. A Minnesota charter school is a public school bound by the data practices and open meeting laws, so coverage is close to certain, but which date applies is not: a “special district government” is a public entity whose population the Census Bureau does not calculate, which describes a charter school, while an instrumentality of the state would use the state’s population. Nobody has settled it. Build to April 26, 2027 and you cannot be wrong.

The rule has exceptions worth knowing: archived content, pre-existing conventional documents unless they are still used to apply for or access services, third-party content the school did not post under contract, individualized password-protected documents, and pre-existing social media posts. The practical effect for a charter school is that every PDF you upload from now on needs tags and headings, every image needs alt text, and the forms have to work by keyboard. Our website accessibility guide covers what to fix first.

Who should own each posting?

The failure mode at a small school is that one person owns all twenty items and none of them has a date on a calendar. Split them by who holds the document.

Owner	Postings
Board clerk	Minutes within 30 days; board directory; election notices and candidate information; the authorizer link; the authorizer’s evaluation
Director	Annual report; CMO or EMO contract, assurance, and evaluation; literacy plan; testing calendar; comprehensive achievement report and public meeting
Office manager	Calendar; closures; staff directory; handbook; meals policy; bullying policy; mental-health information; health-care link; lead-testing notice
Web vendor on a care plan	The posting itself, in the same place every time; weekly software updates; monthly form tests; quarterly accessibility pass on new PDFs and images; the written record of what went up and when

The year, month by month

• August. Meals policy, e-learning notice, Title I notices, health-care link, lead-testing notice, data access policies, the new calendar, bell schedule, handbook, and staff directory.
• September. Board meeting schedule for the year on file and on the site; refresh the report-card link after the Department posts by September 1; begin the annual report.
• October. Testing calendar by October 1. Open enrollment and tour dates.
• November and December. Annual report posted when the board approves it; audit filed by December 31; next year’s lottery rules published.
• January to March. Applications open, the lottery policy and date stay posted, seats and waitlists change weekly; election notices 30 days ahead; closure banners on whatever morning the weather decides.
• April and May. Lottery results and waitlists; the Title II date of April 26, 2027; re-enrollment; graduation.
• June and July. Literacy plan by June 15; the threat-reporting policy by June 30, 2027; CMO or EMO financial report to the board by July 31; old minutes past 365 days archived; a full accessibility and speed pass before August.

The fuller version of that calendar, with the private-school and New York items alongside, is in the school website year.

How a care plan keeps this current

None of the duties above is satisfied by a launch-day audit, because every one of them restarts: the next set of minutes, the next evaluation, the next June 15. What satisfies them is a person who holds the calendar, posts what the clerk and the director send within the statutory window, keeps each item in the same place so a reviewer can find it, and checks every quarter that the new documents are accessible. At most charter schools that person does not exist on staff, which is why we offer it as a plan. The year on a charter school website, and the plan that fits it, are laid out on our charter school website maintenance page. We built the sites for Gateway STEM Academy and Midway Star Academy, and we would rather name two than imply twenty.

What to do next

Print the table above and put a name next to every row. If any row has no name, that is the posting that will be late. Then check three things on your current site today: the newest set of minutes and its date, the lottery policy, and whether the authorizer link exists at all.

If you would like us to do that check, send us the URL. We will tell you which postings are missing or stale, what the accessibility pass turns up, and what a care plan for your school would cover, before anybody talks about money. Everything in this article is general information, not legal advice; your authorizer and your attorney decide what applies to you.