California State Legislature: February 2020 Update

Friday, February 21st was the last day to introduce bills in the California State Legislature. The State Assembly saw over 1,500 measures introduced this year while the State Senate had over 700. These measures will now begin to have hearings scheduled in legislative policy committees. If they are passed out of the policy committee and have a fiscal impact then they will head to the Appropriations Committee.

Unlike last year, there has not been a lot of bills introduced that impact charter schools. Clearly, members of the Legislature and the administration believe that charter schools will have a tough enough time implementing SB 126, AB 1505 and AB 1507 from last year.

This year, only two bills have been introduced that are charter school-specific: SB 1423 which makes some changes to the Charter School Facility Grant Program and SB 1449 which is a charter school spot bill.

A spot bill is a measure that has not been fully amended yet but states that the intention of the bill is to change the charter school law in some manner. There are a plethora of bills that will be heard this year and I am attaching a matrix that will list a number of them, by bill number, and contains a short description of each bill’s contents.

As the year moves along and bills are amended and changed in the California State Legislature, we will keep you updated as to the measures that may impact charter schools.

Click to download the detailed list of bills here: 2020 California Legislature Bill List

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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What District and Charter School Teachers Think About the Biggest Issues in Education

Editor’s Note: This survey was published by Educators for Excellence, a teacher-led nonprofit that ensures teachers have a leading voice in the policies that impact their students and profession.

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.

Voices From the Classroom: A Survey of America’s Educators

We are excited to share the results from our second edition of Voices from the Classroom, a nationally representative survey by teachers that captures the views and opinions of our colleagues across the country on a wide variety of education issues. The purpose of this survey is to provide decision-makers with key insights from untapped classroom experts — teachers.

This survey comes at a time ripe for change. Too often during the last two years, in districts across the country, teachers have felt that they had to walk out of their classrooms in order for their concerns to be heard. As teachers, we see our students’ challenges up close each day, and we know the many ways our education system is currently failing them. We have the knowledge, skills, and passion to lead the changes we know our profession and schools need, but we are rarely given the opportunity nor are we appropriately compensated when we are.

This election year, however, offers a unique opportunity to address what is preventing our students from reaching their full potential and us, as teachers, from thriving in our careers. We don’t need tweaks; we need meaningful change. This report offers a guide for the changes we want to see.

Download the Survey

Charter schools pursuing bond financing for major facility projects face a critical challenge: funding the substantial pre-development expenses that occur months or years before bond proceeds become available. Bridge to bond financing provides a strategic solution for managing these upfront costs without depleting operational cash reserves.

Understanding Bridge to Bond Financing

Bridge to bond financing is a short to mid-term funding solution designed specifically to cover pre-development and development investments required before permanent facilities financing becomes available. This type of financing bridges the gap between initial project planning and final bond closing, allowing schools to maintain momentum on critical facility projects.

Unlike traditional bridge loans that typically last 6-12 months, bridge to bond financing often extends 12-36 months to accommodate the extended timelines required for bond qualification, rating processes, and market timing.

Common Uses for Bridge to Bond Financing

Schools can utilize bridge financing for a comprehensive range of pre-development expenses that are essential for successful facility projects but occur well before bond funding becomes available.

Land and Site Preparation:

Land acquisition and purchase deposits
Site survey work and environmental assessments
Zoning applications and variance requests
Utility connection studies and infrastructure planning

Design and Development:

Architectural design fees and schematic development
Engineering studies and structural assessments
Third-party reports including environmental and traffic studies
Permitting fees and entitlement processes

Pre-Construction Activities:

Construction document development
Contractor selection and pre-construction services
Material procurement and long-lead item orders
Site preparation and infrastructure work

Operational Bridge Needs:

Working capital during transition periods
Pre-opening marketing and enrollment expenses
Staff hiring and training costs
Technology and equipment procurement

Due Diligence and Documentation

Bridge to bond financing involves streamlined underwriting compared to bond financing, but still requires comprehensive project documentation.

Required Documentation:

Detailed project development plans and timelines
Financial projections including bridge and bond scenarios
Professional team credentials and experience
Site control documentation and development approvals

Making the Bridge to Bond Decision

Assessment Framework

Schools considering bridge to bond financing should evaluate their specific circumstances against several key criteria.

Project Readiness Factors:

Clear timeline for bond qualification and market access
Defined project scope and budget requirements
Professional team assembled for development process
Site control and preliminary approvals in place

Financial Capacity Analysis:

Ability to service bridge financing during development
Realistic debt capacity for combined bridge and bond financing
Adequate cash flow projections for construction period
Reserve requirements and working capital needs

Implementation Best Practices

Professional Team Coordination: Successful bridge to bond financing requires coordination among multiple professional advisors including bond counsel, financial advisors, architects, and construction managers.

Timeline Management: Realistic timeline development accounting for both bridge financing requirements and bond market access requirements is essential for project success.

Risk Management: Comprehensive contingency planning for potential delays in bond financing or changes in market conditions helps ensure project completion even if original assumptions change.

Conclusion

Bridge to bond financing provides charter schools with a valuable tool for managing the complex financial requirements of major facility development projects. By covering pre-development costs without depleting operational reserves, this financing approach allows schools to maintain project momentum while preserving financial flexibility.

Success with bridge to bond financing requires careful planning, realistic timeline development, and coordination with long-term bond financing strategies. Schools that approach this financing option strategically can accelerate their facility development while maintaining the financial stability necessary for successful bond financing.

The decision to pursue bridge-to-bond financing should be made as part of a comprehensive facility financing strategy that considers all available options and aligns with the school’s long-term educational and financial objectives.

School Choice Poll: 70% of Voters Support Charter Schools

Editor’s Note: This survey was published by the American Federation for Children on January 21, 2020. 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.

American Federation of Children’s Sixth Annual National School Choice Poll Results

The American Federation for Children released its annual education survey today. Support for charter schools is at 70 percent, with just 26 percent opposed. Perhaps even more encouragingly, “a majority of voters [58 percent] are less likely to support candidates who want to eliminate federal charter school funding.” Among subgroups, 65 percent of Latino voters, 62 percent of African Americans, and 56 percent of Democratic primary voters would be less likely to back a candidate who wants to de-fund the CSP. This despite Sen. Elizabeth Warren making Charter Schools Program elimination a central plank of her presidential education proposal and other candidates attacking charter schools in various ways. Perhaps hostility to charters isn’t quite as firmly set as we’ve feared. The Obama-Clinton position on charters may ultimately carry the day.

Download Survey Results

2020 Florida Legislative Season Mid-Session Update: Teacher Salaries and Retention

In this blog post, we’re examining the complex topic of teacher salaries and how they impact teacher retention, both in the state of Florida and across the nation.

In a series of reports issued in early 2019, the Economic Policy Institute examined the magnitude of the teacher shortage nationwide and the problems schools are having retaining credentialed teachers. The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought and U.S. schools struggle to both hire and retain teachers.

Who will be left to teach our kids? The teaching profession in K-12 education nationwide is shrinking and it is a matter of simple economics…supply and demand.

In Florida, close to forty percent of new teachers leave the classroom within the first five years in the profession, 15 to 20 percent above the national average. Working conditions play a big factor in their decision—conditions including how much we pay our teachers.

In our blog post last December, we reported on Florida’s Governor’s plan to allocate over $600 million in the upcoming year’s budget to increase the minimum salaries for Florida’s public-school teachers as a way to increase teacher retention. Since then, the Legislature has been working to find a way to achieve the Governor’s goal, or at least get as close as possible.

Explaining education funding in Florida would require a discussion far outside the confines of this blog post but suffice it to say that the state gives school districts specific money for specific purposes, and school districts are not allowed to use funds outside of those designations. Also, the state does not directly fund teacher salaries. They appropriate funds that school districts use at their discretion in collective bargaining negotiations with the teacher unions—which do set teacher pay.

Now that we are at the mid-point in the annual legislative session, both the House and Senate have published their initial budgets, and both have created a new funding silo specifically for teacher pay but each chamber has its own idea of how the money should be allocated.

In their respective budgets, both the House and Senate create a special allocation with the Senate allocating $500 million and the House allocating $650 million for school districts to use to increase the minimum salary for classroom teachers. However, they differ in the manner they are going to allow school districts to use this new funding silo.

The House’s Plan

The House special allocation sets aside $500 million and would allow districts to use their share of that allocation to increase the minimum base salary for beginning full-time teachers and ensure that no minimum base salary on the district’s salary schedule is less than the new minimum set for beginning teachers. If a school district’s salary schedule has no base salary below $50,000 for a full-time teacher, then they can use any remaining funds from their allocation for other instructional personnel and educational support employees.

The additional $150 million in the House special allocation would be available for districts to use for salary increases to teachers who did not receive a salary increase as a result of the district increasing the minimum base salary.

The Senate’s Plan

The Senate offers a different plan allowing districts to use 80% of their allocation to increase minimum salary for full-time teachers to a goal of $47,500. If the district achieves this goal or is already at or above that minimum salary but has not increased salaries by 10%, then they must use the remaining dollars from the 80% allocation to increase salaries by at least 10%. The other 20% of the allocation is to be used to provide salary increases for other instructional personnel including certified prekindergarten teachers.

The final details will be worked out between the two chambers when budget conference meetings begin in a few weeks, but however it turns out in the end, teachers—including teachers in public charter schools—could see more money in their pocket very soon.

The 2020 Ranking of Public Charter School Laws

Editor’s Note: 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.

The following report and content are from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

For more than a decade, this charter law rankings report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has analyzed how well each state aligns its charter school law to their “gold standard” model law.

Measuring Up to the Model: A Ranking of State Public Charter School Laws

This report draws on best practices in state policy that have led to the growth of high-quality charter schools, while also addressing weaknesses that, in some cases, have allowed underperforming charter schools and ineffective authorizers to avoid accountability. For example, the model law follows and builds on a report [from 2016] where the National Alliance called for reform of full-time virtual charter schools, too many of which significantly underperform.

The current model law encourages states to provide more equitable support to charter school students, allow for more flexibility to charter schools, and strengthen accountability for charter schools and their authorizers. Specific revisions to the model law include policy updates on full-time virtual schools, funding, authorizers, facilities, flexibility, and discipline.

These 2020 charter school law rankings are the first rankings to reflect the impact of the 2018 election cycle. States like California and Illinois, where previous governors supported charter-friendly policies, elected officials who allowed charter opponents to make headway on anti-charter-policies. Those states saw a drop in their rankings. At the same time, advocates made improvements in funding and facilities policies in many states, with Idaho and Tennessee making the biggest jumps.

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