The Governor vetoed the act on July 2, 2025. The Governor's objections and veto message are available here: https://webservices.ncleg.gov/ViewBillDocument/2025/7262/0/S254-Bill-NBC-16788.

House committee substitute to the 2nd edition removes the content of the previous edition and replaces it with the following. Makes conforming changes to the act’s titles.

Grants the NC Charter Schools Review Board (Review Board) the power to propose, recommend, and approve rules and policies regarding all aspects of charter school operation, including processes in GS 115C-218. Directs the State Board of Education (Board) to assign the Review Board to conduct any hearings pertaining to review of financial assistance. Allows the Review Board to contract for and employ private counsel to advise, represent, and to provide litigation services to the Review Board. Makes conforming changes. Makes the Executive Director reportable to the Review Board instead of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in GS 115C-218. 

Amends GS 115C-218.8 to provide it is not a material revision of a charter and does not require prior approval from the Review Board for a charter school to change the location or boundaries of the charter school within a 10-mile radius of the location specified and approved in the charter by relocating the school, expanding the school’s campus, or establishing a noncontiguous satellite campus of school. Specifies that the relocation of the charter school, campus expansion, or establishment of a noncontiguous satellite campus does not need to be located within the same local school administrative unit as the location specified and approved in the charter.

Amends GS 115C-218.105 (state and local funds for a charter school) to specify that the amount to be allocated to each charter school that is equal to the average per pupil allocation for average daily membership from the local school administrative unit allotment in which the charter school is located, is to be based on the location pursuant to the school’s charter. Also makes the Review Board, instead of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, responsible for duties related to fiscal violations and transfer of the per pupil share of funds.

Requires for each charter school’s written charter to be approved by the Review Board in GS 115C-218.15. Allows charter schools to refrain from listing a student’s class rank on the student’s official transcript or record in GS 115C-218.9. Instructs charter schools to include standards and criteria similar to those used in the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards and North Carolina Teacher Evaluation Process, or such other evaluation standard and process required to be used by local school administrative units, in its evaluations for conducting teacher evaluations in GS 115C-218.90. Directs the Review Board in GS 115C-218.94 to require low-performing charter schools to prepare and report on plans to improve the performance of the schools. Exempts charter schools from the requirements of GS 115C-105.27 (development and approval of school plans).

Enacts new GS 115C-218.106 to require the Department of Public Instruction, from available funds, to give a charter school free access to any required financial data reporting platforms during the charter school's first year of operation.

Authorizes, in GS 115C-218.123, charter schools operating a remote academy with an actual or intended enrollment with 250 or more students to request that the Review Board grant the remote academy portion of the school a separate charter. Requires an expedited review process. Provides, in GS 115C-218.125 (evaluations), for a separate school performance grade and review process for the remote academy component of any charter school operating a remote academy.

Applies beginning with the 2025-26 school year.