(a) The State Board of Education may waive fiscal penalties calculated pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 47612.5 for a charter school that fails to offer the minimum number of instructional minutes required pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 47612.5 for the fiscal year.

(b) For fiscal penalties incurred as a result of providing insufficient instructional minutes in the 2002–03 fiscal year, or any fiscal year thereafter, the State Board of Education may grant a waiver only upon the condition that the charter school agrees to maintain minutes of instruction equal to those minutes of instruction it failed to offer and the minimum number of instructional minutes required pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 47612.5 for twice the number of years that it failed to maintain the required minimum number of instructional minutes for the fiscal year. Compliance with the condition shall commence no later than the school year following the fiscal year that the waiver was granted and shall continue for each subsequent school year until the condition is satisfied.

(c) Compliance with the condition set forth in subdivision (b) shall be verified in the report of the annual audit of the charter school for each fiscal year in which it is required to maintain additional time pursuant to subdivision (b). If the audit report for a year in which the additional time is required to be maintained does not verify that the additional time was provided, the waiver granted pursuant to subdivision (b) shall be revoked and the charter school shall repay the fiscal penalty calculated pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 47612.5, in accordance with subdivision (a) of Section 41344.

(d) It is the intent of the Legislature that charter schools make every effort to make up any instructional minutes lost during the fiscal year in which the loss occurred rather than seek a waiver pursuant to this section.

(Added by Stats. 2005, Ch. 543, Sec. 6. Effective January 1, 2006.)