As schools reopen and students once again fill the nation’s classrooms (physically and remotely), charter schools in all states are facing the challenging task of keeping kids safe.

We’ve assembled a list of resources – from the NEA, the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools and from other authoritative sources – all designed to empower charter school leaders to make sound decisions and put effective measures in place to create safe environments.

As we pore through these materials, several key pieces of guidance emerge:

Prepare the school campus for physically-distanced learning
- Smaller groups per classroom,
- Barriers and distance markers in place,
- Plenty of sanitizer and cleaning tools available,
- Improvements to air circulation and indoor air quality
Set up protocols for contingencies
- What to do if a teacher or staff shows symptoms,
- What to do if a student shows symptoms or tests positive,
- What to do if the school needs to close again.
Empower teachers and students with the right tools
- Ensure there’s PPE, sanitizer, cleaning stations
Set up protocols and educate students to follow these
- Teach students to avoid physical contact,
- Teach students not to share phones, toys, books, etc.,
- Teach students to properly keep physical distance

Additionally, guidance includes aspects of social equity and inclusiveness.

Ensure all remote students have access to the proper equipment and connectivity,
Ensure special-needs students have needed accommodations,
Ensure masks don’t impede hearing-impaired students from understanding teachers

This is not an inclusive list. Please refer to this previous post for links to comprehensive sources. What we aimed to accomplish in this post is to give you a contextual view of the areas to address, and key things to keep in mind.
Also, depending on how badly-affected the area and city around the school might be, measures would of course become more stringent. The goal is to facilitate learning while doing our utmost to protect the health of our students.

We hope this has been helpful. Make sure to click here for more.

Schools all over the United States are abuzz with discussions about reopening. How to reopen safely, how to implement physical barriers, how to allocate space for proper social distancing, how to stagger classes, how to accommodate for virtual learning.

In this commotion a key component for student health and safety is the issue of air ventilation.

America’s school buildings are old (on average 42 years old). And while an aging school building can cause hazards in several areas, nothing compares to the threat posed by Coronavirus in buildings with poor air ventilation.

A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office states that a full 41 percent of school districts need to update or replace their heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems (HVAC) in at least half of their schools.

We urge school leaders to be proactive in addressing the quality of air ventilation in their school building/s.

A great place to start is a consultation with an HVAC expect.

Charter School Capital has teamed up with BioStar Renewables to help school leaders improve the air quality in their schools.

Learn more at our upcoming Webinar on August 26!

As described in a recent article from the Charter School Development Center (CSDC), the proposed California budget bill AB-77 (supported by both Governor Newsom and the Legislature) would base 2020-21 school-year funding based on 2019-20 attendance.

Because the State of California funds charter schools and school districts based on their average daily attendance (ADA) , this would significantly affect growing schools – many of which have already hired additional staff, and purchased books, material and equipment, and in some cases expanded their facilities to accommodate for a larger student body.

According to CSDC, “Given the general lack of support for non-classroom-based charter schools in the Legislature, prospects for a broader fix are troubling. Even the proposed Newsom Administration “fix” is far from a done deal. We anticipate the Legislature is likely to support it, but it will likely take up the issue next week and would need to enact any legislation on point before the August 31 constitutional deadline to pass bills for this year. The last-minute nature of the growth cap, tight deadlines, and the Legislature’s lack of public engagement during the pandemic all make advocacy especially challenging.

Notwithstanding these challenges, CSDC suggests that all charter school leaders, parents, and stakeholders, including those from classroom-based ones that may support the proposed “fix,” contact their legislators to advocate for expanding the proposed growth funding cap to address all charter school students/families, including those served by non-classroom-based schools and do the same with Governor Newsom.”

Today we celebrate Mr. Dewey’s Birthday.
Richard Dewey was the third-grade teacher of our Founder and President Stuart Ellis.

In his 37 years of teaching, Mr. Dewey was a mentor to many teachers and countless students, and a special mentor to Stuart. It was this outstanding educator’s legacy and commitment to teaching excellence that inspired our Dewey Awards – an annual Grant that honors accomplished teachers, and rewards charter schools with three $1,000 gifts per year.“

Mr. Dewey fundamentally changed the way I thought about myself – and really made me believe I could accomplish anything in life” – said Stuart as he described the origins of the Dewey Awards at Charter School Capital.

Mr. Dewey’s extensive career included classroom experience with gifted students, contributions as a K-12 administrator, work in teacher mentorship and certification and in curriculum development, teaching at University level and working with teacher task groups. He was also a gifted musician who composed, arranged music and conducted choirs.

We join Richard’s loving wife of 53 years, his three sons and 11 grandchildren in remembering him with great fondness.“Every adult I talked to, they could think back and they could see that one inspirational teacher who really changed everything for them,” says Stuart. “He still inspires me.”

Did you have a teacher like that? Comment below with your favorite teacher and a note about how they impacted your life.

As the Fall approaches, charter schools around the nation are scrambling to meet the recommendations set forth by the CDC and other bodies for a safe reopening. As we heard at NCSCv on July 23rd, some schools are deep in the middle of this effort, some schools are finding the process overwhelming.

While many entities have assembled resources to provide guidance to public schools in general and public charter schools specifically, we found the documentation provided by the National Alliance of Charter Schools and the California Department of Education to be most immediately helpful in navigating the many aspects of a safe reopening of our schools.

Over the course of the next few weeks, you will notice in our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter channels a series of infographics providing helpful tips. While these are not meant to be comprehensive, we hope you’ll find them useful in dispelling some of the confusion and overwhelm that such a massive undertaking can generate. These helpful tips for school reopening all stem from the following documents:

We strongly encourage charter school leaders to review the above two documents in detail

Below we list additional resources we’ve found helpful in defining steps to take in ensuring readiness for students to returns to class – either as in-class learners or remote learners – are listed below. (We expect this to be an expanding list. Bookmark this page and come back to it regularly – we’ll be adding resources as we review them.)

Stakeholder Concerns

Gathering input from stakeholders accomplishes two important goals: It gives school leaders valuable data which will empower them to do better, AND it communicates to stakeholders that their concerns are being considered. While the first goal is widely understood, the importance of this second one cannot be overstated.

The compendium of resources gathered by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools – skillfully assembled by Lisa S. Grover, PhD and Peri Lynn Turnbull, APR – lists surveys that have been conducted by national organizations. TNTP has a bank of survey questions, as well as a COVID-19 School Response Toolkit that may help charter school leaders collect ongoing feedback. Learning Heroes assembled a poll. EdChoice and the American Federation for Children have published survey results as well. Charter school leaders can dive into all of these resources to get steering data as they engage in the daunting task of reopening their schools.

Survey Template

Following the Charter Alliance’s lead, we’re making a set of survey questions available here for download. These stem from the National Parent Poll which Echelon Insights carried out for the National Parents Union (NPU). (You can see their survey results here)

We’re providing this survey template in MS Word. This enables charter school leadership to add their logos and contact info prior to sending these out. Simply download the MS Word template, replace with your own logo, branding and contact info and distribute to your stakeholders.

Financial Readiness

While the process of making schools safe for our students is of paramount importance, the survival and growth of your school in these uncertain times is just as vital for the uninterrupted educational experience of young minds.

With that in mind, we urge you to develop a strong strategic plan to weather state deferrals, as well as the added financial burden of providing a COVID-safe campus for your student body, teachers and support staff. Reach out to our financial experts if you need assistance with this. We’ve been through the Great Recession and have helped many charter schools survive and thrive in difficult financial climates. We’re here for you now. Call us at 503-227-2910.

Financial Opportunities for Minority Students: Closing the Gap

Financial opportunities for minority students (to support the attendance of higher education institutions) are often limited. According to a 2017 study, Hispanic and Black students graduate from college at a rate of up to 25% lower than their white and Asian counterparts. The persistent racial disparity in higher education is caused by a wide array of barriers, one of the prevailing ones being economic hardship among minority populations. We also know that traditionally underserved students, including minorities and low-income students, attend and complete college at far lower rates than their peers. These students are suspended, expelled, and drop out at higher rates, and are less likely to have access to strong teachers and challenging curricula.

We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools and educational opportunities, including informational resources, and how to support charter school growth and the advancement of the charter school movement as a whole. We hope you find this—and any other article we share—both interesting and valuable.
We believe that all children in our country deserve access to a world-class education. That anyone with dreams and determination should have the opportunity to reach their potential and succeed.

But we are not yet where we need to be. While we often might expect that schools in low-income communities receive extra resources, the opposite is often true; a Department of Education study found that 45 percent of high-poverty schools received less state and local funding than was typical for other schools in their district. In order to help alleviate the financial burden on these underserved communities, you’ll find two resources of information for minority/BIPOC students.

EduBirdie.com

EduBirdie.com, a platform for writers and students, put together a solid list of scholarships available to black students. In its post entitled List of African American Scholarships And Grants for 2020, you’ll find an exhaustive list of scholarship opportunities to explore.

Best Colleges.com

The team at BestColleges.com researched and compiled information on financial aid opportunities for minority students. You can check out some of their findings below:

Their comprehensive guides can help aspiring college students attain their dreams, without their socio-economic class acting as an obstacle. You can also use this College Scholarship Database to search for the perfect opportunity.

BestColleges.com partners with HigherEducation.com to provide students with direct connections to schools and programs suiting their educational goals. They also host a wide array of free college planning, financial aid, and career resources to help all students get the most from their education and prepare for the world after college.

Here are a few additional resources you might find helpful:

Since the company’s inception in 2007, Charter School Capital has been committed to the success of charter schools. We provide growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. 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!

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This post was originally published on October 18, 2018, and was updated with new resources on June 12, 2020.

For charter school leaders, the news isn’t heartwarming: States are now collectively projecting spending cuts over the next few years in the neighborhood of $500 billion.

As Daerel Bernette II from EdWeek put it, “Almost half of the nation’s 13,000 school districts may be forced to make the deepest cuts to education spending in a generation—slashing programs and laying off hundreds of thousands of administrators, teachers and other staff—to fend off financial collapse brought on by the coronavirus.”

Reduced tax revenues across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic will potentially result in deferrals, delays, and reductions in state payments for charter schools. And states more reliant on tax revenues not connected to property taxes may face even starker choices as taxes from other sources—sales tax as people spend less, tourism taxes as people travel less—dry up.

As charter leaders navigate the next few months, one recent guide post came from Nathan Barrett, the Senior Director of Research and Evaluation at National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. In his brief entitled COVID And Education Finance: Acting During the Impending Fiscal Downturn, he noted…

“The uncertainty and impending fiscal challenges will require careful planning and execution. They will also require the ability to make thoughtful but quick course corrections should fiscal realities fail to meet projections. While all schools will be affected, charter schools are of interest because of their unique position in public education, the policies under which they operate, and the fact that they disproportionally serve students who are potentially at greater risk of disruptions because of the pandemic.”

As we’ve done throughout this crisis, Charter School Capital wants to ensure charter school leaders have the best advice possible. And tomorrow, we will continue that work by welcoming Mr. Barrett from National Alliance for an hour-long webinar to help leaders prepare a charter school safety net.

Joining him will be Ricardo Mireles, Executive Director of the Los Angeles-based charter school Academia Avance, who navigated his charter school through the Great Recession. Our VP of Business Services, Tricia Blum, will host Mr. Mireles and Mr. Barrett.

Watch this recorded webinar now!

WATCH NOW

As charter school leaders look towards the future and this coming fall, there has never been more important to time to begin thinking about their enrollment. Reduced tax revenues across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic will potentially result in deferrals, delays, and reductions in state payments for charter schools.

Amongst that uncertainty, school leaders must start crafting their plans for and securing tools to enable next year’s enrollment right now. To help leaders do just that, here are 5 tips for securing your school’s enrollment for next year.

Your Best Students Are Your Current Students

As the saying goes, “your best customers are your current customers.” Before you even start any promotional efforts for new students, focus on your current students. By delivering the best possible educational experience to your students and parents, they need not look at other education options.

Additionally, enable parents and students to provide feedback for next year, so that you can address their concerns. We have no doubt that both students and parents are feeling just as uncertain about what next year’s school life might look like and how they can be prepared for those changes. Seek those questions and provide easy ways for parents/students to access those answers via your website, social media profiles, email, or text/SMS campaigns.

Begin Outreach to New and Prospective Students Next

Once your school leaders have a good understanding of potential enrollment gaps for next year, start crafting your marketing plan to drive awareness and interest in your school.

You can increase traffic to your website and social media channels by optimizing them for search engines and local hashtags/keywords. Raise awareness of your school through targeted ads on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Nurture prospective parents and students leveraging email and text-message campaigns, along with direct mail.

If you’re looking for help with your enrollment marketing plans, our team at Charter School Capital has done that for schools all over the country. You can find out more here.

Create Easy-to-Understand Enrollment and Lottery Guidelines

Parents and students need clear, easy-to-understand enrollment and lottery guidelines. Ensure your website provides all the information and deadlines required to enter your lottery, as well enrollment preferences for your school (i.e., preferences are given to returning students, siblings of current students, and students living the same community school district).

Using simple tools like AddEvent.com, your team can quickly help parents add dates and deadlines to their calendars.

Ensure Your Lottery System Is Best-in-Class

Take the hassle out of your lottery system by leveraging a best-in-class lottery platform like Lotterease. It’s easy to use, manages weighted lotteries, including siblings and twins, allows parents to add all the data required, generates both selected and waiting lists based on the cutoff criteria, and waiting lists for each grade. It has built-in security and is fully auditable. Even better, it provides granular level notification controls so that parents and your staff are up-to-date and informed.

Enable Parents and Teachers with Tools and Content

Parents, teachers, and staff will often be your best advocates. Arm them with content and visuals they can use on their social media profiles, and develop one-pagers they can provide to friends, family, and their neighborhoods. Canva is our favorite free tool for helping schools make this happen.

How Schools Can Improve Retention Among Teachers of Color

Editor’s Note: This report on turnover and retention among teachers of color was published by Teach Plus on September 25, 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.

If You Listen, We Will Stay: Why Teachers of Color Leave and How to Disrupt Teacher Turnover

Studies consistently show that teachers of color matter for all students, and especially for students of color. Yet, the proportion of teachers of color in the workforce continues to lag far behind the share of students of color in our schools. Recruiting teachers of color only gets them into the building. We must pay equal, if not more, attention to their retention to make long-lasting change in the diversity of the workforce.

This is why Teach Plus and The Education Trust set out to learn why teachers of color are leaving schools, what teachers of color believe would help solve the turnover problem, and what strategies exist in schools and school systems that are intentionally working to bring about change.

“If You Listen, We Will Stay: Why Teachers of Color Leave and How to Disrupt Teacher Turnover,” examines the challenges teachers of color face as they navigate the profession and zeroes in on the solutions adopted by schools working to retain faculty of color.

Read the Report

Charter School Policy: A 50-State Comparison

Editor’s Note: This is a great resource on charter school policy that was published on January 20, 2020. It is from the Education Commission of the States and compares charter school policies and how they align or differ across the 50 states. Education Commission of the States is the trusted source for comprehensive knowledge and unbiased resources on education policy issues ranging from early learning through postsecondary education.

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.

50-State Comparison: Charter School Policies

Charter schools are semi-autonomous public schools that receive public funds. They operate under a written contract with a state, district or other entity (referred to as an authorizer or sponsor). This contract — or charter — details how the school will be organized and managed, what students will be expected to achieve, and how success will be measured. Many charter schools are exempt from a variety of laws and regulations affecting other public schools if they continue to meet the terms of their charters.

Charter school laws vary from state to state and often differ on several important factors, such as who may authorize charter schools, how authorizers and charter schools are held accountable for student outcomes, and whether charter school teachers must be certified.

Currently, 45 states and the District of Columbia have charter school laws. West Virginia’s charter school laws, created in 2019, are the newest.

Education Commission of the States has researched charter school policies in all 50 states to provide this comprehensive resource, updated January 2020. Click on the questions below for 50-State Comparisons, showing how all states approach specific charter school policies. Or view a specific state’s approach by going to the individual state profiles page.

50-State Comparisons

Charter School Basics

Charter School Applications

Charter School Authorizing

Charter School Autonomy and Accountability

Charter School Funding

Charter School Teachers

Virtual Charter Schools

Related Resources

Recent state legislation – Charter Schools. Education Commission of the States staff review state legislation and regulations weekly to keep this resource updated.
Key Issue: School Choice
Charter Authorizers: What they are & why they matter
School Choice Glossary

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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