Author: Grow Schools, formerly Charter School Capital
Up Your Charter School Digital Marketing Game!
Charter school growth requires solid student enrollment and retention programs that position their school for future replication or program growth. Having at least some digital marketing prowess can help you reach and exceed your school’s growth and/or expansion goals.
If you’ve been interested in upping your digital marketing game for your charter school, watch our Digital Marketing for Charter Schools webinar! You can begin to fill your toolbox with some actionable tips and basic strategies that can help you get noticed, attract more families and increase your school’s enrollment.
In this webinar, we cover:
Strategy: Developing a digital marketing plan;
Tactics: The best tools for charter schools; and
Resources: Where can you learn more?
You’ll learn: How digital marketing efforts can help your charter schools build a solid digital footprint, different approaches to help develop and maintain your charter school’s reputation, as well as how to leverage marketing to grow student enrollment.
We also provide an overview of the digital landscape, discuss what digital tools are relevant, how best to implement programs, and we cover the various platforms and how to effectively use them to maintain your charter’s reputation and increase awareness.
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.
Charter School Facilities: Overlooked and Underfunded
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published here on May 17, 2019 by the Washington Examiner and was written by Nina Rees, CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and Ramona Edelin, Executive Director of the DC Association of Chartered Public Schools.
Across the U.S., accessing charter school facilities is, by far, the greatest challenge faced by charter schools. With more than 1 million students across the country on charter school waitlists and the fact that many charters operate in suboptimal buildings, we know that the lack of facilities is a serious obstacle to charter growth.
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.
Charter school facilities are still overlooked and underfunded
It’s National Charter Schools Week, when advocates speak out for the 3.2 million students — 6% of all public school students — educated at charter schools, a thriving public education option that is increasingly popular with families.
Since the first public charter school opened one quarter of a century ago, the charter school reform has spread to 47 states and U.S. territories. In historically troubled school districts, student enrollment has grown dramatically. In New Orleans, Detroit and Washington, D.C., the share of students enrolled in public charter schools is 92%, 53%, and 47%, respectively.
Taxpayer-funded and tuition-free, charters develop their educational programs independently of school districts while being held accountable for improved student performance. This autonomy enables these unique public schools to adopt approaches that boost student outcomes. But it also creates a challenge: unlike traditional public schools, charters do not receive a schoolhouse upon opening. This makes acquiring adequate school space a constant challenge.
Nationwide, charter school leaders report that lack of access to suitable school facilities is one of their primary concerns—and one of the biggest barriers to expanding student enrollment. Nearly 1 in 5 charters had to delay opening by a year or more due to facilities-related issues.
While public school buildings paid for by taxpayers should be available to all public school students, the reality is that many school districts, including Detroit, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis, refuse to allow charter schools to lease or buy even vacant school buildings. Sadly, this results in many schools operating out of shopping malls, office buildings and repurposed industrial facilities.
Accordingly, around 40% of charters lack essential amenities such as gymnasiums, libraries, science labs, cafeterias and outdoor space, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools research finds.
This is a vital issue. Why? Because demand for charter schools from parents and guardians significantly exceeds supply. Indeed, if all families seeking a place for their child could secure one, the total number of charter students would be 8.5 million — almost three times today’s actual enrollment — according to research by Phi Delta Kappa International, a professional organization for educators. Of parents who would like to send their child to a public charter school, over half cited lack of access — the school is too distant or has a waitlist — as the reason why their children did not attend one, PDK found.
Importantly, over half of the nation’s charter students live in economically-disadvantaged homes eligible for federal lunch subsidies.
In Washington, D.C., the government spends three times the amount per student on school properties for traditional schools compared to the facility funding it makes available to their charter school counterparts, even though the charters serve a higher share of needy students. Local charters receive a per-student allowance for school facilities that varies each year through city budget wrangling and election cycles, and consequently lacks appeal to the private sector loan market to which charters must turn in a city with a red-hot real estate market.
Meanwhile, the District government has proved an appalling steward of its own property: for decades, scores of surplus school buildings have been sold to private developers, often for luxury uses, or simply left to rot. Only months ago, developers acquired five historic schoolhouses at a time when 11,000 students are on waitlists for city charters.
The District’s own laws actually require it to offer surplus school property to charters to lease or buy before developers can. This mandate is flouted more often than not, an injustice one finds repeated in the minority of other jurisdictions whose laws ostensibly protect charter students’ interests.
While four in five D.C. charter students are economically disadvantaged, those representing the city’s most vulnerable communities are twice as likely to meet college and career readiness benchmarks as their peers in the traditional school system.
At the federal level, the Charter Schools Program helps charters access space and overcome other start-up hurdles. But funding amounts to less than 1% of the U.S. Department of Education’s budget, which does not reflect the extent of charter school enrollment — or demand — today.
Because parent demand indicates millions more students would attend a charter school if one were available to them, local jurisdictions need to allow charters access to surplus public school buildings and space before developers can bid for them. Prioritizing equality in per-student facilities funding also is essential. Federal education grants could encourage this best practice.
America’s public charter schools have significantly enhanced public education quality, especially for the nation’s most disadvantaged students. Federal, state, and local government should step up to back them.
The Ultimate Guide to Charter School Facility Financing:
Thinking about a new facility for your charter school or enhancing your current one? This guide shares straightforward and actionable advice on facilities planning, financing options, getting approved, choosing a partner, and much more! Download it here.
The Ultimate Guide to Charter School Board Governance: How to Recruit, Build, and Manage Your Board
For your school to reach its goals, meet its mission, and be set up for success, you need to build a well-structured, well-staffed, and well-trained Board of Directors. In this brand new guide, our partners and industry experts on Board Governance, BoardOnTrack, share their expertise on the ins and outs of recruiting, building, and managing your governance team as you grow.
We’ve seen the difference in outcomes when schools have highly strategic boards that work in close collaboration with their management teams.
An effective board needs more than enthusiastic volunteers who believe in your mission.
They need to possess the skills, experience, temperament, and time to govern a multimillion-dollar enterprise.
Great boards govern in partnership with the CEO and the management team to develop a vision of excellence, work toward near-term goals, and create realistic plans for the future.
Effective boards include individuals from a range of professions, with diverse backgrounds and skills that align with the school’s immediate and future objectives. We’ve seen boards achieve ambitious goals thanks to trustees with expertise in finance, real estate, fundraising, marketing, human resources, and executive leadership.
In this guide, we’ll cover best practices for charter school governance, including the essential roles and responsibilities on your school’s governance board, how to recruit the right people, and governing for growth at every stage. This guide is intended for charter school leaders and board members who want to be strategic about governance.
Download this guide to learn:
Board Basics: Who should be on your governance team and what should they do?
How to build a strong board: Strategically recruiting for diversity and skills
Tips to govern for growth: How to face challenges and changes at any stage
Having One or More Teachers of Same Race Benefits Students
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published here on June 4, 2019 by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. It looks at the evidence that shows how having teachers of the same race impacts a student’s educational career and makes a positive impact. It shares the disparities in teacher/student race-matches in traditional public schools and public charter schools.
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.
Read on for more details.
Student-Teacher Race Match in Charter and Traditional Public Schools
There’s mounting evidence that, for children of color especially, having one or more teachers of the same race over the course of students’ educational careers seems to make a positive difference.
But to what extent, if any, do the benefits of having a same-race teacher vary by type of school?
Existing “race-match” studies fail to distinguish among the traditional district and charter school sectors. Knowing whether differences exist across school types could improve how we recruit and develop educators, as well as shed light on whether the success of urban charter schools is due in part to their greater success in recruiting a diverse teaching staff—an explanation that’s received short shrift in research and policy circles.
“Student-Teacher Race Match in Charter and Traditional Public Schools,” authored by Dr. Seth Gershenson of American University, uses student-level data for all public school students in North Carolina from grades three to five between 2006 and 2013. The analysis yielded five findings:
Traditional public schools and charter schools serve the same proportion of black students, but charter schools have about 35 percent more black teachers.
Black students in charter schools are about 50 percent more likely to have a black teacher than their traditional public school counterparts, but white students are equally likely to have a white teacher across the two sectors.
Race-match effects are nearly twice as large in the charter school sector as in traditional public schools, though these differences are statistically insignificant, likely due to small sample sizes.
In charter schools, race-match effects are twice as large for nonwhite as for white students, while no such difference exists in traditional public schools.
Race-match effects are relatively constant across school locales, enrollments, and compositions.
Since the effects of having a same-race teacher appear stronger in charter schools than in the district sector—and stronger still for nonwhite students—it’s encouraging that the charter sector has more of these matches between black students and teachers, due largely to having more black teachers in the first place. This is clearly an overlooked dimension of charter effectiveness.
Moreover, traditional public schools might seek to emulate their charter school counterparts when it comes to boosting the number of teachers of color they hire, though there remains room for improving teacher diversity, not to mention academic achievement, in both sectors.
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 $1.8 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!
BIG NEWS! Charter School Capital Has a New Look!
What do you think of our new look?
We are so excited that Charter School Capital has a shiny new website that we wanted to share it with everyone!
Our marketing team has been hard at work over the past several months with design, planning, copy, resources, and more, to ensure that our updated website is easy to navigate and the information you’re looking for is right at your fingertips. We hope you find our new look warm and welcoming and that it clearly conveys our mission—we are 100% dedicated to charter school success.
We also wanted it to be easy for you to navigate to our extensive toolbox of innovative solutions designed exclusively for charter schools:
In addition, don’t miss checking out our Resources, Blog, Partners, and Events pages which have all been updated with both improved functionality and design!
Want to learn more about us? Check out our About Us and Team pages too!
We hope you like what you see! If you do find anything amiss, or find yourself on any 404 error pages, that is often to be expected with a project of this magnitude. Please do let us know by emailing us at growcharters@charterschoolcapital.com so we can get it on our radar to fix. We appreciate your input!
Thank you for visiting and hopefully you like what you see! Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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 $1.8 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!
Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally published here by one of our partners, BoardOnTrack. It was written by Marci Cornell-Feist, a national expert on charter school governance whose work has helped more than 500 charter schools nationwide.
BoardOnTrack is the platform, partner, and community empowering charter boards and executive leaders to reach a higher bar, together. They enable executive leaders to leverage their boards as strategic governing partners without turning board management into {yet another} full-time job. In short, BoardOnTrack is board leadership, simplified.
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.
SHOULD I ASK MY CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD A FOR RAISE?
Each spring, charter school leaders across the country sprint to the end of the year. You’re looking forward to some well-earned time to plan the next school year…and a bit of a summer break.
Whether you’re graduating your first or your fifteenth class, the school year has likely been a long slog. You’re exhausted but energized. You know that your team, and your kids, have made real progress.
And, hopefully, you’re engaged with your board in an end-of-year school leader evaluation — one that proves out the part you played in all that progress and provides direction for your own growth. The results of your CEO support & evaluation process should energize you.
But. There’s an elephant in the living room. It’s your compensation.
IT’S TIME TO PULL BACK THE CURTAIN ON CHARTER SCHOOL LEADER COMPENSATION.
Charter school leaders need to better understand the landscape, benchmarks, and quite frankly how to talk to your boards about your compensation.
And, conversely, charter school boards — especially the board chairs who partner most closely with charter CEOs — need proven practices and expert guidance on the subject. You need to feel confident about how to respond to CEOs when they broach the topic, how to lead your boards through the conversations, and how to make responsible decisions.
We’re starting with a piece for the CEOs, tackling the vital and very common question: “Should I ask?”
In subsequent posts, we’ll dig into exactly how to approach your board, and, for the board, how to measure your CEO’s performance and responsibly lead your board’s approach to this vital topic.
SHOULD YOU ASK FOR A RAISE?
In most cases, the answer is…Absolutely! But…
Every situation is different. First and foremost, you have to have done your homework.
You have to fully understand your role, how your success is measured, and how your performance stacks up against those metrics.
You’ve got to be ready to make the case for a raise.
ON-DEMAND WEBINAR: CEO COMPENSATION
Learn how to talk about your charter CEO’s compensation, when a raise is right, and the tools your board needs to measure CEO performance.
Discussing your raise should be part of the natural cycle of the organization’s budget building, goal setting, and other planning. That means your board should be ready for it.
DON’T CATCH YOUR BOARD OFF GUARD.
This isn’t a topic to just blurt out to your board chair over coffee — or, worse, to the full board at a board meeting.
If they’re blindsided, your board will be put on the defensive. They could get the impression that you’re making an end-run or giving them an ultimatum. That could result in making any open and honest conversation nearly impossible. And you will not get your desired result.
GET YOUR POSITIONING IN PLACE.
You’re in a position to ask for a raise not because you need it. You’re ready to ask for a raise when you’ve earned it and you can prove it.
Let’s be clear. You don’t demand a raise because you just found out how much your close friend and colleague is earning. It’s not because you need to earn more to pay off your student loans, or because you haven’t been able to afford a vacation. Not even when you’re putting together a down payment for your first home {or your dream home}, or for any other myriad reasons you can think of.
You’re ready to ask for a raise when you can clearly, concisely, and accurately make the case. Because you are a skilled Chief Executive Officer, hired to do an incredibly important job, and you are knocking it out of the park — and you have the results to justify your request.
BE CLEAR ABOUT THE VALUE AND SCOPE OF YOUR ROLE AS A CHARTER SCHOOL CEO.
Charter schools come in all shapes and sizes. The same is true for the CEO role. Whether you’re an Executive Director, School Leader, Principal, or Head of School, you are at the top of the org chart.
You’re reporting to the board. You are the top executive of your organization. And that makes you the CEO, regardless of your title.
And at the core, there are similarities that define this role.
SAMPLE CHARTER SCHOOL LEADER JOB DESCRIPTION.
Set clear expectations for your charter school’s CEO. Use our template as your starting point. It’s built on the knowledge of the hundreds of charter schools we’ve worked with, nationwide.
A charter school leader is the CEO of a multimillion-dollar public enterprise.
As the leader of your organization, you are running a multimillion-dollar public enterprise.
This is true if you’re in the start-up phase, launching with 180 kids in a few grades, and a $2M operating budget. And it’s true if you’re in your 10th year of operations, running multiple campuses, and have grown to be a $15M organization.
AS CEO, YOU’RE ULTIMATELY ON THE HOOK FOR THE WELL-BEING AND SAFETY OF HUNDREDS OR THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE.
Size and scale varies across the charter movement. But, even the smallest charter schools are comprised of significant numbers of staff, kids, and families. And they all rely on you, as CEO, for their safety, well-being, and — for staff — their employment. This is a weighty task.
YOU ARE THE CEO OF A HIGH-RISK, ENTREPRENEURIAL START-UP.
You have chosen to be part of a relatively new movement; one that is constantly under siege. You’re an entrepreneur who chose this path over one of more stability in a traditional public education setting.
YOU ARE A HIGHLY SKILLED, INTENSIVELY TRAINED PROFESSIONAL
You’ve invested time and money in the training that prepared you to take on this challenge. You probably have an advanced degree, maybe participated in an incubator or fellowship, and have devoted significant time and money to get to the place where you are now.
YOU SHOULD ASK YOUR BOARD FOR A RAISE. WHEN YOU’RE READY.
As a highly-skilled professional running a multimillion-dollar high-stakes, high-risk entrepreneurial endeavor with hundreds, if not thousands of people relying on you for their safety and well-being, you deserve to be well-compensated. And you deserve to see an ongoing path for increased compensation, tied to the results you deliver.
But, you shouldn’t ask for a raise without doing all the right strategic work up front. If done well, asking for a raise will be uplifting for you, and will strengthen your partnership with your board.
Our next post will show you the right steps to take to get yourself in a position to ask for a raise.
Without preparing sufficiently, and timing the conversation appropriately, you won’t get your desired outcome. And you could actually set yourself back.
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 $1.8 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!
At Charter School Capital, we strive to continuously improve our services and support of charter schools. One reflection of that ethos, was the initial release of the Charter School Capital Client Portal to a select few funding project clients in the summer of 2018. We immediately heard feedback from our school administrators and leaders, that tracking funding projects in the Client Portal provided more transparency and made processing simpler.
First release of the Charter School Capital Client Portal, summer 2018
While we were happy to see a positive reception, we were also very keen to hear from Client Portal users what they felt was missing or was simply not working.
After reviewing survey responses and sitting down with some school officials for walk-throughs of their experiences, we had a clear path on how to move forward with upgrading the Client Portal to even better support our schools.
The following were the key areas for improvement we heard regarding their experience:
Fewer clicks to navigate through each Item
More obvious and easy to read instructions
The ability to work on multiple projects at once
Visibility around closing statements
The ability to preview uploaded files
After a few months of hard work across multiple teams, Charter School Capital is pleased to announce our second iteration of the Client Portal this summer. We took all the feedback and are proud to have now delivered a streamlined and modern user interface that allows for simple execution of mass actions across multiple opportunities, consolidated automated notifications for all users, access to closing statements, and best of all, fewer clicks!
First release of the Charter School Capital Client Portal, Summer 2018
By utilizing more of the page, introducing pop-ups, changing our color palette, and eliminating unused features, we have been able to help our schools and back-office providers (big and small) process funding projects quickly and with ease.
‘View by Item’ display of taking mass action across multiple funding projects (Summer 2019)
During a demo of the new release, when asked “What do you think of the changes?”, one of our original pilot users who’s been supportive of the Client Portal, yet vocal about what they’d love to see changed, commented, “I’ve got nothing…you’ve built everything I asked for and more.”
This isn’t the end of the line for our tech team though; the next phase of the Client Portal (currently scheduled for 2020) involves adding even more solution offerings (e.g., facilities or energy projects, etc.) and expanding the archive of closing documents to reduce emails to schools.
We are grateful to all the back-office providers and school administrators who took time out of their busy schedules to offer insight into their Client Portal experience, helping make it a better, more seamless experience for everyone.
A Barrier to Growth: The Charter School Facilities Gap
Editor’s Note: This content was originally published here in May by Academica Media. The charter school facilities gap is one of the biggest barriers to growth and a universal challenge for many charter schools. Listen as Ryan Kairalla from Doral College, speaks with Mark Medema, the Managing Director of the Charter School Facility Center for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Whether it’s finding a facility, affording one, maintaining one, relocating because you’ve outgrown your facility, these are all common issues charter leaders face. Learn about the current state of charter school facilities across the country and what’s on the horizon to address some of these issues on a legislative level.
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.
Listen to the complete podcast here or read the transcript below.
Bridging the charter school facilities gap with the National Alliance’s Mark Medema
Ryan Kairalla: Welcome to the show everybody. I’m Ryan Kairalla from Doral College. Our guest this week is the Managing Director of the Charter School Facility Center for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. In his role, he leads the National Alliance’s facility experts and addresses the facility policy and regulatory issues confronting charter schools nationwide. He has also worked with the Charter Impact Fund, Building Hope at the international education reform organization EdVillage and more. You can find out more about his work by visiting www.publiccharters.org.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are happy to have Mark Medema on Charter School Superstars. Hi, Mark.
Mark Medema: Hello.
Kairalla: It’s so good to be hearing from you. I’m excited to finally get to talk with a guest about facilities. That is a topic that we haven’t touched upon, and I know it’s definitely one that matters to the folks listening that are charter school advocates, charter school employees, charter school enthusiasts. So, let’s get it right into it. Can you tell the listeners a bit about the work you do with the National Alliance with the Charter School Facility Center?
Medema: Would be happy to. One of the biggest barriers to growth of charter schools these days is facilities, and as you mentioned, it’s often not talked about. Educators like to focus on education, and facilities is to say it, some people like thinking it’s like watching paint dry, and facilities, it actually is watching paint dry.
So, what we’re trying to do is bring to light some of the best practices happening for facilities, whether it’s about how school leaders and board members can develop and design and finance buildings much more affordably, or how policymakers can use public resources, whether it’s a building or state or federal funding to help lower the cost of facilities so that schools are paying more into the classroom rather than paying more money on the classroom.
Kairalla: Absolutely, and you’re so right when you say that facilities are the biggest challenges or represent one of the biggest challenges that charter schools face when building a sustainable program. I see it on the education services company side. I see it on the legal side as a lawyer. I’ve seen a lot of really otherwise successful charter schools with great models have trouble because they have issues with the actual building itself. As you noted, it can be either a problem with finding a good facility, affording that facility, maintaining that facility, getting a new facility once you’ve outgrown the old facility. Among those kind of different areas of facilities, where do you tend to see charters having the most trouble when it comes to getting a stable place to call home?
Medema: It really starts with going out and finding and developing a facility. School leaders are educational experts. They’re not commercial real estate experts, and so they’re venturing into a world that they don’t know. Commercial real estate, I think, probably doesn’t have a great brand to it to begin with, and now an educator has to figure out how to navigate an area that doesn’t really have a lot of straight ground rules and guidelines. So, they’re really in just unchartered territory for themselves.
Once they do get familiar with this, then it comes down to the cost of money. Charter schools have to borrow money at rates much higher than the government can, which is just another level of unfairness between charters and other traditional school systems, and so we need to find lots and lots of new, creative, innovative ways to bring down that cost of funds to a much more equitable level to what the traditional school systems are paying.
Kairalla: Yeah, there’s a lot about just the inherent nature of the charter model that makes facilities acquisition a challenge, or least from what I see on the legal side. You spoke about the difficulty dealing with lenders because … And I think it’s similar to the difficulty that charter schools have when dealing with landlords. These are two groups of people that look at the charter model and say, “You’re on a five-year charter maybe. This charter could succeed. It might not.” We don’t know what the political climate’s going to be, so it makes you a bigger risk either to underwrite a mortgage for or to ultimately for a landlord to want to take a chance on you, and so it does create this sort of gap. What kind of solutions have you explored with maybe your past work with Building Hope or what you do at the National Alliance that try to help bridge that gap?
Medema: There are some groups that really understand the inherent risks in charter schools much better than others. Charter schools typically will have much lower default rates, I think, than the private capital markets expect, but they just quite haven’t begun to pricing that. So, a lot of it educating the private marketplace or finding replacements for the private marketplace, and those can be through non-profit funds, which are seeded by social capital really looking for double bottom line type returns and those kind of financial returns that are much more affordable for charter schools than what the private commercial marketplace would provide.
Kairalla: And are you seeing an emergence of more of these kind of charter-friendly lenders or real estate owners or landlords as the charter model proliferates nationwide?
Medema: We’re seeing more of them. I’m not sure it’s there are tons of them still, so there’s still a huge demand. The foundations I think are stepping into this place now. They’re starting. Some of the family funds are creating their own, so not just investing in existing non-profits but creating new non-profits. So, it’s exciting to see that happen.
What we haven’t tapped into very well is the individual retail investor who would love to see their personal investments go to social good, but we haven’t really developed easy mechanisms or products for them to be able to support charter schools in their communities. I think that’s the next venture.
Kairalla: That’s a particularly interesting development because you certainly see those kind of investment vehicles in other areas of real estate space, and so perhaps if those things could emerge in the charter school field, that could be a pretty welcome development.
You spoke earlier, Mark, about policy reforms and some of the legal issues that exist maybe state by state that sort of create additional challenges for charter schools in the facility space. So, can you talk a bit about the work you do at the National Alliance to advocate at the policy level to try to make the facilities challenge easier for charter schools? Are there particular reforms that your shop is really trying to fight for?
Medema: So, we were really excited to see Idaho’s Legislature pass and the Governor pass a moral obligation bill. So, when a traditional school district borrows money, it has the backing of the state or the school district that’s in the state behind it because it has a taxing authority, so they usually are very little risk. The students who go to public charter schools are the same public-school students that should afford the same backing of the state, and a moral obligation really says the state is providing its obligation that it’ll backup a charter school’s debt. It’s not a legal, binding obligation, but it’s a moral obligation. Idaho’s now the third state to do that behind Colorado and Utah, which will see great success and great savings to schools. What-
Kairalla: Well, that’s interesting.
Medema: What the National Alliance would like to do is talk more about this and share this with more state legislators. Lots of them just never even heard of this. It’s kind of a not very well-known strategy that’s been used in affordable housing and higher ed and healthcare centers, and we want to try and spread this to more states. So, that’s one low-hanging fruit that we should be working on the next few years.
Kairalla: Well, that’s pretty interesting, and so what you’re finding is that … Are you finding that when states adopt these moral obligation bills, which as you said don’t actually require the state to step in if the charter school defaults, just having the moral obligation bill is enough to actually allow charter schools to get more attractive lending terms?
Medema: Yes. A state might have a AAA rating and so a school district can borrow at AAA rates. That’s an S&P rating methodology criteria.
Kairalla: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Medema: A moral obligation will get you close. It might get a AA rating, which is probably 100 basis points or one full percentage point less on the interest rate. That, over a 30-year mortgage, is millions of dollars of savings to a school. That’s money that can be spent on teachers. It can create jobs. It can go into special programming, and all with no cost to the state because again, it’s not a binding obligation. Now, the states will most likely adhere to it because they don’t want the markets to know that they’re backing out on their moral obligations, but it just doesn’t get called because charter schools are really such a good risk for investors. So, it’s never been called upon in its history.
Kairalla: Yeah, really, it’s just about the state kind of just stepping a little bit with this moral obligation, and all it’s really doing is just educating the marketplace because it sort of gives people an opportunity to take a chance on charter schools. Then, they realize, well, this is actually a pretty good investment. This is a stable, commercial real estate tenant. It’s going to be there a while. It’s performing a social good in the community, and by the way, a good school in an area tends to have an effect for surrounding real estate that’s pretty positive. And so, that can be a big win all around.
Medema: And it’s not new. It started in the ’70s in New York with housing. We just hadn’t figured out how to transfer it over to the charter school sector. Now, we’re seeing more progress on that front.
Kairalla: That’s very exciting to hear. You’re actually going to be participating in the National Charter Schools Conference. You’re going to be doing a session about, surprise, facilities, and for a lot of the listeners out there who I think are hungry for more information about this and want to hear more about the developments and how they can up their facilities game, I’m sure that they want to take part. Can you tell the listeners a bit about what you’re going to talk about at the conference?
Medema: We’ll direct the audience or for two audiences. If it’s a school leader, it’s a lot about best practices from what other schools have been doing to identify property, acquire it, work with developers, secure financing. And then as for the policymakers and some of the philanthropic foundations who are looking for more systemic changes, things like these bills or including charter schools in a district’s school bond offering, which we’ve started to see around the country, there’s a handful of policy initiatives that we think should resonate and should spread from one city to another.
Medema: Again, a lot of cities don’t know about what’s happening around the country. This isn’t a topic that’s talked about very much. Again, a little bit like watching paint dry, and so we just need to figure out how to share these best practices from one city and state to another.
Kairalla: Well, let’s start talking about this, people. Facilities are super, super important. We all have to have a place to call home for our charter schools, and I’m telling you folks. I can tell you from my own experience, a solid facility, good landlord, good property owner, everything can really make a big difference for charter schools. So, Mark, I’m so grateful for the work you do at the National Alliance to help the charter schools thrive in this area.
Let me ask you this last question before we let you go, and this has been truly a pleasure speaking with you. If with a snap of your fingers, you could make any change to the education system, what change would it be?
Medema: I think it starts with a belief that all children have the potential to meet and rise to their full expectations. I think if everybody, whether they work in schools or even just the general population, really believed that they and their neighbors and their friends and people who live down the street really believed in the full potential of all kids, making these policy changes would be easy. It’d be a snap of the fingers. Everybody would know exactly what we’re doing.
I think there’s probably still some hesitancy, and we think watching students excel is sometimes an exception. And rather than exception, I think all these students are just exceptional, and I think we can all come to that realization.
Kairalla: He is the Managing Director of the Charter School Facility Center for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Find out more about his work by visiting www.publiccharters.org and don’t forget to take part in the National Charter Schools Conference June 30th to July 3rd in Las Vegas. Visit ncsc.publiccharters.org.
Kairalla: Mark Medema, everybody. Mark, thank you so much for joining us this week.
Medema: Thank you very much.
Kairalla: And thank you all for listening to Charter School Superstars.
The Ultimate Guide to Charter School Facility Financing:
Thinking about a new facility for your charter school or enhancing your current one? This guide shares straightforward and actionable advice on facilities planning, financing options, getting approved, choosing a partner, and much more! Download it here.
Webinar: Charter School Capital Energy Services Overview
In this short webinar, we wanted to share information about the new solutions we have available to the charter school community. We were honored to have this webinar presented by Charlie Burrows, Head of New Products at Charter School Capital and David Smart, President and COO- Energy Reduction at BioStar Renewables.
Watch this Product & Resources Overview to learn about our new Energy solution and how efficient buildings make for better learning environments. Watch the video or read the complete transcript below.
Charlie Burrows: Let’s get started. Again, thank you for joining us. I am Charlie Burrows. I am part of the new products group here at Charter School Capital. I’ve been here for almost two years and our group has developed three products: enrollment marketing, Medicaid billing, and Charter School Energy, which is the one that we’re going to talk about today. The one that I think’s probably got the most reach and probably the broadest interest from our schools’ perspective. I’m happy to be joined by David Smart, who… I’ll let David introduce himself, but David is our partner. So we are Charter School Energy powered by BioStar Renewables. So with that David, you want to give a little background on you?
David Smart: Sure. Thank you, Charlie, and thanks everyone for joining. We are really excited to officially have Charter School Capital as our partner. At BioStar Renewables, we have had successful projects with 25 or maybe a few more charter schools, but one of the stumbling blocks we’ve run into is placing financing for those types of schools. And Charter School Capital really helps solve that problem. So, we have a passion for investing in K through 12 education and we’re really, really excited to tell everyone about our program.
Burrows: Terrific. Thank you. And by the way, just so people understand our relationship, when we started to design Charter School Energy, we felt it was really important that we find a construction partner, because that’s not our forte. We understand charter schools, we understand financing, as you mentioned. But we don’t really understand the construction component. And so we did a nationwide search looking for a partner that was flexible, had a terrific reputation, had a national footprint, had experience in the education space. We started this relationship a little over a year and a half ago, and it’s worked out exactly the way I had hoped so we’re thrilled to have BioStar as our partner.
A little bit about Charter School Capital. Our mission … we are completely dedicated to helping charter schools fulfill their mission. So we look for ways to either provide working capital, facilities financing, products that would generate revenue or save costs. That’s our mission. The number one metric for understanding how well we’ve done with that mission is the fact that we, over the last ten years, have served one million children or students in the charter school system. That’s a bigger metric to us than the fact that we’ve worked with 600 charter schools, that we’re pushing $2 billion in working capital financing, or that we’ve spent $400 million on supporting a portfolio of charter school real estate across the country. We’re headquartered in Portland with 60 employees and we think we’ve got a stellar track record with schools and investors.
With that, I’ll turn it over to David to talk a little bit about BioStar Renewables.
Smart: Thank you, Charlie. At BioStar Renewables, our roots are in the renewable energy business. We started as a private equity firm, investing in renewable energy projects, and since then have grown into an energy services company, which is more focused on working with end users to make their buildings and portfolios of properties more efficient.
So, any time that we’re looking at school for a renewable energy solution, we always want to make sure the building is as efficient as possible before we start to add renewable energy components. So as a company, we have about 15 megawatts of solar under management and that ranges all the way from Hawaii to New Jersey. And actually includes 32 school sites. We do the turnkey engineering procurement and construction of those projects as well as place financing and tax equity dollars.
And then from an energy efficiency and energy surfaces standpoint, we’ve worked in more than 300 buildings across the country and specific to charter schools, we have designed and procured lighting packages for a couple dozen of those schools across the country.
And then finally, our estimators are WELL certified, which we’re going to talk a little bit about today. And they are also AGI 32 certified lighting designers. So we’re really able to not only procure the product but design the product and place the product in a classroom or hallway environment to meet the light levels that are necessary. Solar and lighting and mechanical are typically the three components of our business, which we’ll talk a little bit more about here in a few minutes.
Burrows: Terrific. Thank you. So our agenda today, now that we’ve covered introductions and background, is to talk about program benefits, the nine foundations of a healthy school, healthy building solutions, services included in our program, and energy savings example.
So from our perspective, we think the benefits to Charter School Energy are that we can enhance the learning environment, reduce the environmental impact, create learning opportunities, and address deferred maintenance issues. So we think the equation looks like this: healthy buildings equals student health, which equals student thinking, followed by student attendance, which is super important. And even more important is student performance. Lest you think this is something that we sort of just put together in our heads, it turns out that our good, smart friends at Harvard came out with a study in 2019, so it’s very fresh.
Smart: Thank you, Charlie. I want to just look at this chart for a couple of minutes and sort of look at the ways that the different things that we do or solutions we provide impact the school and impact the learning environment. So some typical solutions for us would be to upgrade plumbing systems, make water fixtures more efficient, upgrades to HVAC and mechanical systems. We’re finding that a lot of schools have really outdated HVAC systems, and that is a large capital that they need to address in the near future if not immediately. And then placing controls on those HVAC and mechanical systems, so giving them a brain. Making them smarter so they can understand the patterns of the building and being sure that the building’s temperature is not only desirable but also that when it’s not occupied, the set points can be set back and you can save energy that way.
LED lighting is almost always a foundation of our projects. If our clients haven’t installed LED lighting yet, that’s a low-cost high-savings solution. Generally, we can take the savings from the LED lighting and actually use those savings to pay for other capital expenses. And I’ll circle back to that and address that a little bit in detail later. And then finally, we love solar. Solar is not feasible in every market yet, but there are several markets around the country where solar projects are really starting to make sense. And that one actually is really nice in these charter school projects from the standpoint of we’re seeing that a lot of traditional schools and charter schools are interested in developing a curriculum around renewable energy and we’d like to think we can help develop that curriculum by making it a reality at the school.
And then of course any structural enhancements: roofs, windows, foundation issues. We want to make sure we’re addressing those although we don’t typically have energy savings associated with them. They are just as important to making sure that you have a functioning school.
Burrows: And interestingly enough David, the first project that we did together was actually replacing the roof on a building that we own. So while everybody though immediately it was going to be lighting, the first one was actually a roof. So it gives, I think, some perspective on the broad array of challenges that charter schools can be faced with, either deferred maintenance and repair or doing things that have return on investment and improving the environment.
Smart:And capital improvements typically have a great ROI. However, in that case, as Charlie knows, there were several classrooms which were leaking during heavy rains and they were having to spend a lot of money on bringing in folks to patch the roof and fix the ceiling tiles. Although it wasn’t energy savings, there certainly was an ROI to getting that roof into good shape.
Burrows: Terrific. You know, I’d like to pause the presentation at this point and open up a poll. It would be really good for us to have a sense of our attendees today in terms of what they’re interested in or learning more about. That will give us some perspective and we can sort of guide the conversation. So we’re going to pause things for one or two minutes and if folks would like to respond to the poll, that would be super helpful to us.
(please see video above at the 12:00 minute mark for poll questions)
Great. Thanks for everyone’s input. David, you can’t see it. I can. But it looks like there’s sort of a tie between solar and LED, but HVAC was also touched on as well as roof replacement. So if that gives you any guidance about where you want to take the conversation going forward in the next slide, that’s terrific. Thanks everybody for your input.
Smart:Thank you for voting, everyone. That’s great. If we could go to the next slide?
Burrows: Yes.
Smart: So the tie between LED and solar is interesting, because one of the things that we are always evaluating is, you know, we don’t want to oversize a solar array. Typically, LED lighting projects have two to four year paybacks. Solar project maybe have ten year paybacks. But when we look at them together, sometimes we see as low as a five year payback on both as a combined efficiency measure. And they both play really nicely together because if we can reduce the building’s consumption through the LED lighting, then we can presumably build less solar and have a more affordable project. So glad to hear that’s on your minds. Those are two of our core competencies and we would love to talk to you about your specific situation after the call.
Some of the services we offer… Our program really generally starts with a professional investment-grade audit. So we want to come into your building, understand your challenges, what things are working, what things aren’t working, and then start to develop a plan and a list of action items and opportunities to upgrade your building. So our proposal and investment-grade audit will include energy and financial savings summaries. It will of course include cost and generally, it will include financing options if that’s needed. And the nice thing, the goal of our projects, is to create a cash flow positive project. The goal is to come back little to no upfront capital investment with a project that creates net savings on the term of the financing. So that is generally possible, although sometimes we are finding when there’s a large roof replacement or a total HVAC and mechanical overhaul, those larger cap-ex items do sometimes make that difficult. But we’re still able to place financing and allow you to with little upfront investment make these necessary upgrades to your building.
So we handle all utility rebates. We will go and look for state incentives and federal incentives, if applicable. And then as I mentioned, lease and financing options. If we can get… In order to get started, we almost always want to start with 12 months of utility bills. We want to look at what is your consumption pattern and then also really dive into what’s your utility rate. And just knowing your utility rate will allow us to determine what may or may not be feasible in your building.
And then of course any information you can provide around building drawings, floor plans, square footage, is always helpful. The more you can arm us with information about your building, then the better, the more detailed of a look we can get into as possible from a distance before we even do that site evaluation. Charlie, was there anything I missed there you wanted to touch on?
Burrows: No. I think that the rebate management thing is a really big deal. You touched on it, but your ability to deal with at the city level, at the county level, at the utility level, at the state level and the federal level, your ability to do that really makes a big deal in a lot of these projects, so–
Smart: Yeah. Every utility has incentives available for projects like these and our estimators are experts in navigating those utility programs. So those are really nice programs that help offset the cost of especially capital-intensive projects.
Burrows: Terrific. We’ll move on to the next slide.
Smart: Great. This is a pretty straightforward slide. The graph there sort of speaks for itself. This is looking at a lighting project in sort of a typical deal economic. So if your energy costs are $16000 and we put you on a five-year lighting lease agreement, that totals $11000… Your monthly payments equaling $12000, roughly, a year. But your energy and maintenance savings is $12.3 or almost $13000. So you’ve got about $1000 in cash flow positive saving right off the bat. And then of course once the lease falls off, you can see the economics really get good and you continue with saving for the remainder of the project.
What we’re doing with these project plans, in years six through ten, can we take that additional savings and use that to pay for other important upgrades in the project. So if we look at a 10 year project with your school and we find that the LED lighting has a three or a four year payback, what can we do with the remaining five or six years of savings to make important upgrades in your school? So that’s where we see… You know, we’re able to lump in roof replacements or large mechanical projects that are really, really capital intensive, but when we pair them with these energy savings measures, we’re able to wrap that all into one project and financing for your school. So we really, while lighting and mechanical is always kind of the first two things we look at, we really are interested in learning other things, other wants/needs for your school.
I’ll give you an example. We’re currently working with a school in Massachusetts who is really interested in utilizing an acre of their land that is unusable. It’s down by a river. They’re interested in creating an outdoor learning center and outdoor theater. So we’re looking to sort of take the savings generated from their project and reinvest it into their school in the form of an outdoor learning environment. We think it’s really cool.
Burrows: Absolutely. Thank you, David. I think that brings us to the end. We’re certainly very interested in taking any questions that you have, either now during the webinar or on the next slide you’ve got our contact information. We’d love to hear from you. Any questions you’ve got, we’d be very happy to be very responsive. So we have a couple of questions. Number one: How would I know what the total available incentives might be for an energy project? Do you check with the city, county, utility, state, and federal level? David do you want to take that?
Smart:Yeah, absolutely. So state to state, things are going to vary as far as state credits go. They’re not very many state credits out there for energy efficiency, although they do exist. There are some state credits out there for solar projects. Then there is a federal solar tax credit, which with the help of Charter School Capital, we’re able to actually monetize with a third party and then pass that savings back to the school to make the economics work. And then as far as rebates go, like I mentioned earlier, almost every utility in the country has some form of rebate program. Generally, utilities are fairly responsive if you’re interested in exploring those or need their website, it’s typically pretty easy to find. But as a part of our initial evaluation process, we will look through utility rebates at the local level, any state rebates or credits, and then of course any federal credits that might be associated with the project, which we can monetize and pass through to the school.
Burrows: Terrific. The second question I get frequently, and that is: How long does a lighting upgrade project implementation take? And is it possible to do that implementation in non-school hours?
Smart: Yeah. I’d be happy to take that one, Charlie. I think from the time that we go and visit a school, and then from there we generally need a week or two to create a proposal. And then from the acceptance of the proposal, we’ll usually say the installation should be complete in four to six weeks. Our lighting installation crews are perfectly used to working around business hours, whether that be in a commercial setting or of course a school. So whether that be night work or early evening into early night, we’re very used to working around school hours. And then of course, in the school break times, that’s a really nice opportunity or over spring break and breaks are a nice opportunity to get work like this done.
Burrows: Fantastic. Thank you. Any other questions? David, anything you want to add before we sign off?
Smart:I don’t think so. Just that if any of what we said is resonating with you, please don’t hesitate to reach out to either Charlie or myself. We’re eager to learn about your school and learn about what’s working and what’s not working and see if we can’t lend a helping hand. So thank you so much everyone for joining today and we look forward to subsequent conversations.
Burrows: Yeah. Thanks, David. And I want to echo what you just said. There’s no obligation for calling us or contacting us and saying, “Hey, I’m thinking about doing this or that. What should I know?” We’re here to help. If we do something together, that’s a bonus. So thank you all for joining us. Appreciate it. Would love to hear from you. Have a great day.
Smart:Thanks, everyone.
Burrows: Thanks, David.
Vital Resources for Creating Healthy Schools
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published here, by Child Trends on January 31, 2019 and was written by the following authors: Jamie Chriqui, Victoria Stuart-Cassel, Deborah Temkin, Elizabeth Piekarz-Porter, Kristy Lao, Heather Steed, Kristen Harper, Julien Leider, Alexander Gabriel.
Child Trends partnered with the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago and EMT Associates, Inc. to review relevant state statutes and regulations enacted as of September 2017 and analyze their alignment with the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model of healthy schools. This article compiles that research into a collection of great information and handy state-specific resources.
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.
Using Policy to Create Healthy Schools: Resources to Support Policymakers and Advocates
A healthy school is one that fully supports a student’s academic, physical, emotional, and social well-being. Increasingly, state education policies are moving beyond a focus on academic mastery to include aspects of healthy schools. Despite a growing knowledge base that stresses important linkages among aspects of well-being, policies tend to address students’ physical health separately from their mental and emotional health, which are, in turn, both addressed separately from a school’s social and emotional climate. To date, reflecting the siloed nature of policies, no comprehensive analysis of state policies has covered all domains of healthy schools.
RELATED: Download this Foundations of a Healthy Building datasheet to learn to the nine foundations of a healthy school and how your school building affects student health, attendance, and performance. Learn how to transform your school building into an ideal space for your students, teachers, and staff to thrive.
As part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Together for Healthy and Successful Schools Initiative, Child Trends partnered with the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago and EMT Associates, Inc. to review relevant state statutes and regulations enacted as of September 2017 and analyze their alignment with the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model of healthy schools. The WSCC covers 10 domains: health education; physical education and physical activity; nutrition environment and services; health services; counseling, psychological, and social services; social and emotional climate; physical environment; employee wellness; family engagement; and community involvement. Findings from this work are compiled in three products to help policymakers and advocates better understand the current landscape and consider the creation of policies that promote healthy schools:
A series of cross-domain briefs that explore common policy approaches that bridge the WSCC framework (i.e., partnerships, student supports, and professional development)
State-by-state profiles detailing each state’s overall comprehensiveness, as well as details on how each state approaches selected topic areas from each WSCC domain:
Detailed data, including the associated statutory and regulatory language, are also available through the National Association of State Boards of Education’s State Policy Database on School Health.
Key Findings
We assessed each state’s coverage of the WSCC domains based on a set of topics identified through existing federal and NGO policy guidance. States were assessed as having no coverage, low coverage, moderate coverage, or comprehensive coverage based on the percentage of topics addressed in a given domain. States were then rated on the breadth and depth of their coverage of all 10 domains: deep (6 or more comprehensive domains), broad (8 or more moderate or comprehensive domains), limited (3 to 5 low domains), or weak (more than 6 low domains).
Ten states (AR, CO, CT, FL, IL, MN, MS, TN, TX, and WV) have both broad and deep coverage of the WSCC.
Twenty states have limited or weak coverage of the WSCC, covering only selected domains and topic areas.
Employee wellness has the least coverage across states; only one state (MS) comprehensively covers this domain.
Even for states that have broad and deep coverage, there is little integration between domains and topic areas. For example, two states (AR and CT) require schools to implement 11 different types of staff professional development around healthy schools. Identifying ways to integrate and coordinate professional development across multiple domains is critical to ensuring that schools adhere to such laws with fidelity.
Related Research
These products are part of a broader package of materials designed to help policymakers and advocates consider a more integrated approach to healthy school policies. Related materials include:
Responding to Trauma through Policies that Create Supportive Learning Environments. Using examples from current state statutes and regulations, this resource provides a framework for policymakers on how to scaffold schools’ efforts to create learning environments that promote the well-being of children with a history of traumatic experiences and ensure that all children succeed in school.
Creating Policies to Support Healthy Schools: Policymaker, Educator, and Student Perspectives. This report provides insights into the issues related to healthy schools that stakeholders perceive as most in need of policy attention. The report finds broad consensus between stakeholder groups on the need to address school climate and student mental health to support students’ broader physical, social, and emotional health needs.
State Profiles
Please visit the original post for all of the individual state profiles.
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 $1.8 billion in support of 600 charter schools that have educated over 1,027,000 students across the country.
We believe school buildings are environments that – when designed properly – can help students thrive. That’s just one of the reasons we offer a broad suite of services to help you optimize your school’s learning environment. If you’re interested in learning how we can help you transform your school building into an ideal space that supports student (and staff) health, thinking, attendance, and performance, please contact us.
Digital Marketing for Charter Schools: An Actionable Workbook to Help You Achieve Your School’s Goals!
