How We Can Help with Your Charter School Enrollment Marketing

It’s never too late to start thinking about upping your charter school enrollment marketing game! Start prepping now for open houses in the spring, and get your summer enrollment marketing efforts planned for summer! Not sure where or how to get going?

Our best-in-class enrollment marketing team can help you:

Increase Traffic: Increase organic traffic by optimizing your website and social media channels
Raise Awareness: Targeted marketing efforts will help raise community awareness of your school, attracting new families and potential future students
Increase Enrollment: Attract more families, engage with them, nurture them, and convert them to boost student enrollment
Retain Students: Retaining your current students is vital to your school’s longevity and more cost effective than attracting and acquiring new ones

Charter School Capital’s Enrollment Marketing Program is designed to positively impact your charter school’s viability by boosting enrollment numbers through targeted marketing efforts. You can choose a program that focuses on generating awareness primarily through digital marketing, or one that also includes “ground game” marketing to convert applicants to enrollment. All efforts will be customized for each school’s unique needs, and may include the following:

DIGITAL MARKETING

Updated Website (if deemed needed) with Spanish language support where appropriate
Organic Search (optimizing website for search results)
Paid Search (Google, Niche)
Landing Pages to Capture Interest
Facebook and Twitter Social Media Engagement
Surveys / School Ratings
Postcards / Brochures
Email Campaigns to Your Parent / Former Parent Lists
Remarketing / Retargeting Online Advertising
Influencer Campaigns
Display and Print Advertising
Yard Signs and other Signage
Radio / Other Advertising – where applicable

THE GROUND GAME

Organizing Open Houses / School Tours

Ensure they’re regularly scheduled and staffed for parents and students to tour school and meet teachers (at least 2x/month)

Organizing Community Meet & Greets

Arrange community meetings in libraries, coffee shops, pizza parlors, etc. for parents to casually meet other families and parents and staff from school to drive interest

Putting up lawn signs, passing out brochures in the community

Going to doctor’s offices, supermarkets, etc. and ensuring community boards have brochures on them
Making sure parents can put up lawn signs for the school in the summer

Providing photos and updates to the Charter School Capital team for social media

Attend events or reaching out to other staff/parents/volunteers to gather photos and stories to share on Facebook and Twitter

Updating Charter School Capital team on school events, community reactions, etc.

Weekly meetings with the Charter School Capital team in first month, bi-weekly thereafter

HOW IT WORKS

PAY-FOR-PERFORMANCE OPTIONS

Download our one-page charter school Enrollment Marketing datasheet here

Would you like to see how two schools saw sharp increases in overall web traffic and social media traffic as a result of our enrollment marketing efforts? Download our Enrollment Marketing Results datasheet below.

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Digital Marketing for Charter Schools: An Actionable Workbook to Help You Achieve Your School’s Goals!

Scratching your head as to how to go about implementing digital marketing for your charter school? You’re not alone! This free manual will be your go-to guide for all of your school’s digital marketing needs! Download this actionable workbook to help get your marketing plans started, guide you as you define your audience and key differentiators, choose your tactics, and start to build your campaigns.

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Charter School Report: Leaders of Color

Editor’s Note: This report was published by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools on November 18, 2019.

We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational resources, and how to support school choice, charter school growth, and the advancement of the charter school movement as a whole. We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable.

Profiles of Leaders of Color: Engaging Families

This is the second in a series of reports to be published by the National Alliance in partnership with Public Impact highlighting the experiences of school leaders of color in charter schools across the country. While the impact school leaders have on student performance has been well documented, there has been little attention to how leaders’ experiences and racial identities inform and influence their practice. While many practices of good leadership are universal, an individual’s identity shapes how they approach situations and can inspire new and innovative practices.

The report includes the profiles of three leaders of color—Maquita Alexander of Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., Freddy Delgado is superintendent/principal at Amigos Por Vida Charter School in Houston, TX, and Kriste Dragon of Citizens of the World Charter Schools, a network of public charter schools with locations in Los Angeles, CA, and Kansas City, MO. Each of these leaders shared the belief that their school should engage families as genuine and active partners in their children’s education and the report identifies the concrete steps they took to put that belief into practice.

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Since the company’s inception in 2007, Charter School Capital has been committed to the success of charter schools. We help schools access, leverage, and sustain the resources charter schools need to thrive, allowing them to focus on what matters most – educating students. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $2 billion in support of 600 charter schools that have educated over 1,027,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can support your charter school, contact us. We’d love to work with you!

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2020 Florida Legislative Season Kickoff Update: Teacher Pay

2020 Florida legislative season update: Could mean big things for teacher pay.

Florida is ranked 26th in the nation. No, not in college football, but in teacher pay.

According to statistics from the National Education Association in Washington, DC, Florida’s average starting teacher pay at $37,636 ranks 26th in the nation. In early October, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rolled out a legislative proposal to change that statistic by giving a pay raise to over 100,000 teachers in public schools across the state.

The Governor is recommending the state invest over $600 million to increase the minimum salary to $47,500 that would raise Florida’s ranking to 2nd in the nation.

But much like football, governing is a team sport, and in this case, not all the players are working from the same playbook.

Shortly after the Governor’s announcement at a traditional public school in Clay County, the Speaker of the Florida House responded by issuing a press release that said the Governor’s request will be “properly considered” during the upcoming Regular Legislative Session—not exactly a ringing endorsement. Following the Speaker’s press release, the leadership at the Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union, issued their own press release calling the proposal a “step in the right direction” but that more attention (and money) should be directed to veteran teachers. Again, lukewarm support (at best) of DeSantis’s pay plan.

In addition to restructuring teacher pay, the Governor has also proposed eliminating the current state-funded teacher/principal bonus programs and reallocate those state dollars to a new bonus scheme that focuses more on learning gains and retaining highly effective teachers in Title I schools.

So, what does this all mean for charter schools?

First, the good news. Any legislative policy and/or appropriations addressing salary and performance bonus payments for public school teachers also applies to teachers in public charter schools. This means that under the Governor’s proposal, teachers in public charter schools (currently making less than $47,500 per year) would be eligible for a salary increase the same as their traditional district school counterparts and would also be eligible for bonus money if they meet the eligibility requirements.

But the flip side of the coin is not as rosy.

In order to fund teacher’s pay raises, the legislature would have to appropriate state dollars to school districts who negotiate teacher salaries with local teacher unions through a collective bargaining process. Current legislators are not able to bind future legislators, so any money in the next year’s budget for teacher salary is not necessarily guaranteed in future years.

This could mean charter schools that give pay increases to teachers using potential one-time money would then have to fund those increased salaries in future years without government funds if the state does not provide this appropriation in future years. This could potentially put a charter school in an awkward position of having to rescind salary increases or make cuts in other areas such as operations or capital improvements to continue to fund the personnel costs.

We all love payday, but in the case of the 2020 Florida legislative season, the devil is in the details and legislators have some tough decisions to make in the upcoming session when it comes to teacher pay.

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2020 California Legislative Prospectus

With the year ending, it is time to focus on where the 2020 California Legislature may go on charter schools next year. This year, we saw the passage of AB 1505 and AB 1507 which changed the way that charter schools will be approved and renewed. The bills also put major restrictions on non-classroom based charter schools including a two-year moratorium on their authorization. Finally, AB 1507 placed new limits on where these charters can locate and where they can have resource centers.

During the two year moratorium, we should expect to see a further examination and crackdown on non-classroom based charters. Some members of the State Assembly have made it clear that they view AB 1505 and AB 1507 as just the start of chaining the laws that govern charter schools. We also anticipate that there will be both Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Teeam (FCMAT) and Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC) audits on several of these type of charter schools, which will give the Legislature several different ways to put these charter schools under a microscope. The FCMAT audits would be requested by local education agencies (LEAs) while the JLAC audits would be requested by the Legislature.

Additionally, the administration has expressed a clear concern about two different aspects of non-classroom based charters:
1. How they generate Average Daily Attendance (ADA)
2. How many charter schools should small school districts be allowed to authorize?

The ADA questions is much broader than charter schools and would focus on how independent study programs generate ADA since charters generate ADA the same way. The focus on small school districts is much more concerning because a lot of small districts use non-classroom based charter schools to supplement programs that they cannot manage themselves, thus serving a student population that may be difficult to serve.

As the new year begins and new California legislative measures are introduced, we will keep you updated as to the impact they will have on charter schools.

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Public Charter Schools Give Children an Option to Succeed

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published here on November 18, 2019, by the NY Times, and was written by Cory A. Booker, Democratic senator from New Jersey and a presidential candidate.

We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational resources, and how to support school choice, charter school growth, and the advancement of the charter school movement as a whole. Especially now, when so much is on the line with the upcoming presidential election, we hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable

Cory Booker: Stop Being Dogmatic About Public Charter Schools

We can’t dismiss good ideas because they don’t fit into neat ideological boxes or don’t personally affect some of the louder, more privileged voices in the party.

About 15 years ago, when I was living in Brick Towers, a high-rise, low-income housing community in Newark’s Central Ward, a neighbor stopped me and told me about how her child’s public school was failing its students, like many others in our area at the time. Desperate, she asked if I knew a way to help get her child into a private school. She knew, as all parents do, that a great education was her child’s primary pathway to a better life.

My parents knew this all too well. When I was a baby, they fought to move our family into a community with well-funded public schools. These neighborhoods, especially in the 1960s and ’70s, were often in exclusively white neighborhoods. And because of the color of my parents’ skin, local real estate agents refused to sell my parents a home. My parents responded by enlisting the help of activists and volunteers who then set up a sting operation to demonstrate that our civil rights were being violated. Because of their activism we were eventually able to move into the town where I grew up.

Fifty years later, access to a high-quality public education still often hinges on the ZIP code a child lives in, skin color and the size of the family’s bank account.

Parents in struggling communities across the country are going to extraordinary lengths to try to get their children into great public schools. There is even a trend of children’s guardians using fake addresses to enroll them in better schools in nearby neighborhoods or towns — living in fear of hired investigators who follow children home to verify their addresses.

While millions of families are struggling with this system, we have Republicans in Congress, the White House and state legislatures across the country making problems worse, undermining public education and attacking public-school teachers.

So it is largely up to Democrats — especially those of us in this presidential primary race — to have a better discussion about practical K-12 solutions to ensure that every child in our country can go to a great public school. That discussion needs to include high-achieving public charter schools when local communities call for them.

Many public charter schools have proved to be an effective, targeted tool to give children with few other options a chance to succeed.

For-profit charter school schemes and the anti-public education agenda of President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos are hurting teachers, students and their families. Of course, we must fight back against these misguided and harmful forces. But we shouldn’t let the worst actors distort this crucial debate, as they have in recent years.

The treatment by many Democratic politicians of high-performing public charter schools as boogeymen has undermined the fact that many of these schools are serving low-income urban children across the country in ways that are inclusive, equitable, publicly accountable and locally driven.

When I was mayor of Newark, we invested in both traditional public schools and high-performing public charter schools. Following our efforts, the citywide graduation rate rose to 77 percent in 2018 from just above 50 percent a decade ago. Today, Newark is ranked the No. 1 city in America for “beat the odds” high-poverty, high-performance schools by the Center on Reinventing Public Education.

We refused to accept the false choice between supporting public-school teachers and giving parents options for their kids when they had none, and the city worked with our local teacher’s union to give our public school teachers a raise too. And we didn’t just blindly invest in good public charter schools, Newark closed bad ones too.

As Democrats, we can’t continue to fall into the trap of dismissing good ideas because they don’t fit into neat ideological boxes or don’t personally affect some of the louder, more privileged voices in the party. These are not abstract issues for many low-to-middle-income families, and we should have a stronger sense of urgency, and a more courageous empathy, about their plight.

Especially at this moment of crisis for our country, we must be the party of real solutions, not one that threatens schools that work for millions of families who previously lacked good educational options.

As a party, we need to take a holistic approach to improving outcomes for children who are underserved and historically disadvantaged. That must mean significantly increasing funding for public schools, raising teacher pay, fully funding the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, investing in universal preschool, eliminating child poverty — and yes, supporting high-performing public charter schools if and when they are the right fit for a community, are equitable and inclusive, and play by the same rules as other public schools.

As a coalition, we have to acknowledge that our goals for federal education funding will continue to face serious political opposition. Supporting well-regulated public charters, in the meantime, is a meaningful complementary solution. The promise of better schools some day down the road doesn’t do much for children who have to go to schools that fail them today.

The Democratic Party is at its best when we lead with the conviction, above all else, to help people. We fall short of that when we race to embrace poll-tested positions that may help us avoid being yelled at on the internet by an unrepresentative few but don’t reflect the impossible choices many low-income families face.

Our primary litmus test for supporting a policy should be whether it is a good idea that, responsibly implemented, can help those who need it. We must be the party that empowers people and stands with them, not against them for convenient political gain. That’s not just the way we will win. It’s the best way to govern.

Cory A. Booker is a Democratic senator from New Jersey and a presidential candidate.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Who Suffers by Limiting Charter Schools?

Editor’s Note: We wanted to share this story on charter schools by John Stossel and Maxim Lott that was posted here by Reason on September 10, 2019.

He shares the heartbreak of parents who wait year after year to see if their children have been selected for the charter school lotteries, and the disappointment that follows when they’re not.

They are frustrated with their local underperforming public schools but have little choice and few alternative educational opportunities for their children because the government is limiting charter schools, even though charters often do better than government-run schools with less funding.

When charter schools fail, they close. When traditional public schools fail, they stay open. There are an estimated five million students who would attend a charter school if they had the option.

Let Charter Schools Teach!

Many parents try to escape government-run schools for less-regulated “charter schools.”

Philadelphia mom Elaine Wells tells John Stossel that she wanted to get her boys into a charter because her local government-run school in inner-city Philadelphia was “horrible…there were fights after school every day.”

Her kids spent years losing lotteries that they hoped would get them into a charter.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Wells says.

In Philadelphia, thanks to government limits, only 7,000 kids get into charters. 29,000 apply.

But eventually, Wells got her kids into a new charter school: Boys’ Latin, founded by David Hardy.

Boys’ Latin does many unusual things. All kids learn Latin, wear uniforms, and stay longer hours—and it’s all-boys.

“The rules are there to set the stage for the students,” Hardy tells Stossel. “If the teacher can tell you to tuck in your shirt, they can tell you to be quiet in class…tell you to do your homework.”

Wells says that worked for her kids. “Before Boys Latin I would come home and say, ‘OK, I need you to read for an hour—read a book.’ And their response would be, ‘Why? What did we do?’ Like reading was a punishment! [After] Boys’ Latin…I would find books in the bathroom on the floor!”

Her son Ibrahim adds, “It came to the point where the teacher would tell our mom that I’d taken too many books.”

The school was better at hiring teachers who tried hard.

Wells recalls being shocked to find her sons talking to teachers at night: “He’s in his room and I hear him talking on the phone and it was 10 o’clock at night. I’m like, ‘Who are you on the phone with?’ and he was like, ‘Well, Mr. Bumbulsky told me to call him if I needed help with homework.'”

Stossel pushed back at some of David Hardy’s ideas, like making every student take four years of Latin. “It’s ridiculous. Nobody speaks Latin,” Stossel suggests to founder David Hardy.

“Well we picked Latin because it was hard,” Hardy replies.

“What’s the point of that?” Stossel asks.

“Because life is hard—to be prepared you have to work hard,” Hardy says. “We wanted to get that into the psyche of our students.”

Overall, Boys’ Latin gets somewhat better test scores than surrounding schools in most subjects.

“We deliver,” Hardy says. “Since the very first class we’ve sent more black boys to college than any high school in Pennsylvania.”

Despite that, government officials rejected his proposal to open a “Girls’ Latin” school. They’ve rejected a bunch of schools.
Opponents complain that charters “drain scarce resources” from government-run schools.

“You can’t tell me that,” Wells responds. “Every parent pays taxes…if I choose for my child to go to a charter school, then that’s where my taxes should go!”

In fact, Philadelphia and other cities don’t give charters the same amount of money they give to schools they control. Philadelphia gives them only 70 percent of that. So per student, Stossel notes, the government schools make money whenever a kid leaves for a charter. Over 13 years of schooling, Philadelphia saves $70,000 per kid.

Stossel asks Wells: What if those savings were passed onto the child?

“Absolutely! Give them the rest of the money!” Wells laughs.

But it won’t happen because, as Hardy notes, “It would also mean that there would be a whole lot less union jobs. The unions are not going to be for that.”

The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.

Sharing Charter School Capital’s Values

It’s the holiday season and so a very good time to reflect on the things that we value. So we thought this would be a perfect time to share with you, once again, the core values here at Charter School Capital.

At Charter School Capital, we hold each other accountable to core company values as the driving force and foundation of what we do. These values are our guiding principles as we work together to more effectively support the growth and development of our charter school partners. And, as a result, Charter School Capital is a proven catalyst for charter school growth. Since our founding, we are very proud to say that we’ve invested over $2 billion to help finance the education of more than 1,000,000 students in over 600 charter schools across the United States.

Our values are, indeed, a way of life here. They’re simply woven into the fabric of daily life at the office where there’s a shared passion and mission infusing every action.

We measure everything we do by these core values:

Best-in-Class
Empowerment
Innovation
Teamwork
Accountability

Our values are so deeply intertwined, that you actually can’t speak about one without simultaneously touching on the others. That being said, they’re beautifully interdependent values that are the foundation for everything we do here.

Best-in-Class

Striving to be best-in-class is indeed a way of life here. It can be seen in the way everyone interacts with each other on a daily basis, in the support and encouragement each person receives here — from everyone — regardless of their department, and how individuals and teams coach and enable each other to succeed by helping schools succeed in educating more and more students each day.

Everything we do at Charter School Capital is in service to the mission, in service to our clients, and service to the charter school movement. We put our schools’ success at the forefront, working with them beyond just helping them finance their growth or facility. Best in class means providing additional value-added guidance, mentoring services, and advice to help keep schools on the right track. Because we believe that their success is our success.

It’s this holistic way of striving for best-in-class, that we’ve actually helped a lot of schools become stronger over the long run. Because, as we’re providing finances, we’re able to see any early signals that there may be problems on the horizon. In this way, we can start proactively working with our school partners to help them better understand what they may need to do to trim expenses so that they’re not in the red. We may even introduce them to back-office providers who might be able to provide a service that would help them with their bookkeeping or with other administrative support.

Being best-in-class means continually asking, are you best at serving the needs of your client? Does this help our client? Are we beneficially serving the charter school movement and the charter schools that we work with?

Empowerment

The leadership team at Charter School Capital understands that by empowering each team member, we’re ultimately empowering the success, growth, and longevity of the charter schools we serve.

What else do we mean when we talk about empowerment? It’s about how our company not only empowers its employees to be their best, but how we empower the schools we work with to achieve and even exceed their goals.

Empowerment here also means we empower our teams to speak up and think outside the box. There really is a no-fail attitude here. Of course, there are times when things go off course, but we don’t consider that failure, but simply an opportunity for growth. It’s in this way that we’re encouraged to be creative and innovative without fear.

Like each individual at Charter School Capital, our schools are not static, cookie-cutter organizations. They have a plan or a mission, and sometimes they need a little assistance reaching their goals. We’re empowered to help them to do that. We as a company, and we as employees are empowered to be as creative and flexible as possible to meet their specific needs at specific times, help them improve their financial health, or just help them grow… and we also empower our schools by giving them the stability that they may need.

Innovation

We see solutions where other financial institutions may see red flags. We pride ourselves on supporting team members to find those innovative, creative solutions our schools need to be successful and sustainable.

We understand that there is actually danger in not innovating… of being complacent. Without innovation, you will never grow — either personally or as a company. Our core value of innovation inspires us to always strive for what will make things better for our employees and even more important, better for the clients. Innovation can propel things forward in a way that ideally makes things better for everyone.

But, in order to be innovative, you have to take risks, involve a team of experienced collaborators, do your homework, and have the right goals in mind. Our spirit of innovation at Charter School Capital is always guided by one question — will it help us serve our customers better?

Embracing innovation means:

supporting our employees and school partners with technological innovations and platfoms that make things easier
thinking outside the box with our charter school solutions
combining it all together and understanding how that translates to putting our customers first

Teamwork

One of the things that perhaps makes us a bit different than others in our industry — is the comprehensive team of finance professionals we put in place to work with every single one of our school partners. This knowledgeable, dedicated team works together with our schools to find sustainable solutions to ensure that they succeed in the near term and as they grow.

Having a shared vision, a dedicated team of professionals, and student focus are all vital to our embodiment of the teamwork value. But all that would mean nothing if we didn’t truly love partnering with our schools and the students they’re educating.

When we commit and say, ‘yes, we’ll provide that funding,’ what we’re really saying is, ‘yes, we will get you where you want to go.’ And every member of our team — whether it’s marketing, underwriting, finance, the executives, or the account managers — knows what the end goal is and where we’re going. A common goal makes it much easier to work together as a team.

When you’re working toward this shared goal, everyone is willing to help and have open lines of communication to deliver the best product in partnership with the school. A shared vision, a dedicated team of professionals, and student focus are all vital to our embodiment of the teamwork value.

Teamwork really does make the dream work here. Because of our internal investment in teamwork and a shared vision — where we always have the students at the forefront — we’re able to support schools when and how they need it, and work as a team with charter school leaders to make their dreams for their schools happen.

Accountability

If it seems like a broken record, apologies, but the fact remains — we care about the success of our school partners. In other words, we take accountability for their sustainability, growth, and longevity. Our clients trust us to go the extra mile.

At Charter School Capital, all arrows point to the fact that we take the time and care to build relationships with our school partners. Every team member on each account feels responsible for the school’s success and ownership for their part of the equation. By having this team of dedicated professionals who connect with school leaders in this way, trust is a natural — and happy — consequence.

Being accountable, or having accountability means;

we’re responsible for our client’s success,
we own our work,
accept and learn from our mistakes, and
earn the trust of our co-workers as well as our school partners.

And, it means that when we see a need — beyond what’s right in front of us — we go the extra mile to help us achieve our mission and even more important, help our school partners achieve theirs.

In Conclusion

So, it’s clear that we have a mission-driven dedicated team, who cooperate, collaborate, and communicate, but I will conclude this post with the one single thing that is the heart and soul of everything we do — the students. We measure our success by the number of students served. And to date, we’re at over 1 million. We’re pretty proud of that.

But these words, these values, are not just lip service here… they are in our daily, our hourly lexicon. They are simply just part of our culture.