JACKSON — Becoming a charter school is not a quick or easy process, according to officials with the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, the state charter school association.

“Typically one in 50 applicants get approval,” said Buddy Morehouse, MAPSA’s director of communications. “It’s not like opening a restaurant franchise.”

It typically takes someone, like the two groups hoping to open new charter schools in Jackson next year, 18 months to two years to work toward charter approval, Moorehouse said.

People typically start a charter school if they believe children’s academic needs are not being met in the community, or they want to create a niche school for students who need a flexible schedule or are focused on one specific career, such as art or technology, he said.

They must first draft a plan for the school and then present it to an authorizer, such as a public university, for approval.

Facilities are one of the biggest hurdles charter school planners have to overcome because they have to pay to buy or lease buildings out of their budget, Moorehouse said. By law, they can’t go to voters with a bond issue like traditional public schools can.

Those wanting to start a charter school can, however, apply for start-up grants funded by federal money and administered by the Michigan Department of Education. Thirty $110,000 grants are available each year.

“Because there are only 30 schools that can receive start-up planning grants, we don`t expect too many more schools than that to open next year,” Moorehouse said. “But we won`t know the exact number until this summer.”

Last year, 19 charter schools opened in Michigan. Five of them were in Detroit.

Before it was limited to numbers, but now it’s based on quality.

Critics of the state legislation that lifted the cap on the number of charter schools that can be authorized by public universities, have said they feared it would allow the opening of charter schools to become simple and random.

That is not the case, said Dan Quisenberry, MAPSA president.

“Opening a charter school will continue to be a very long, arduous process, as it should be,” he said. “The focus will be entirely on capacity for quality and making sure the school fills a specific need and that it has all the tools to succeed.”