Author: Grow Schools, formerly Charter School Capital
Who Suffers by Limiting Charter Schools?
Editor’s Note: We wanted to share this story on charter schools by John Stossel and Maxim Lott that was posted here by Reason on September 10, 2019.
He shares the heartbreak of parents who wait year after year to see if their children have been selected for the charter school lotteries, and the disappointment that follows when they’re not.
They are frustrated with their local underperforming public schools but have little choice and few alternative educational opportunities for their children because the government is limiting charter schools, even though charters often do better than government-run schools with less funding.
When charter schools fail, they close. When traditional public schools fail, they stay open. There are an estimated five million students who would attend a charter school if they had the option.
Let Charter Schools Teach!
Many parents try to escape government-run schools for less-regulated “charter schools.”
Philadelphia mom Elaine Wells tells John Stossel that she wanted to get her boys into a charter because her local government-run school in inner-city Philadelphia was “horrible…there were fights after school every day.”
Her kids spent years losing lotteries that they hoped would get them into a charter.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Wells says.
In Philadelphia, thanks to government limits, only 7,000 kids get into charters. 29,000 apply.
But eventually, Wells got her kids into a new charter school: Boys’ Latin, founded by David Hardy.
Boys’ Latin does many unusual things. All kids learn Latin, wear uniforms, and stay longer hours—and it’s all-boys.
“The rules are there to set the stage for the students,” Hardy tells Stossel. “If the teacher can tell you to tuck in your shirt, they can tell you to be quiet in class…tell you to do your homework.”
Wells says that worked for her kids. “Before Boys Latin I would come home and say, ‘OK, I need you to read for an hour—read a book.’ And their response would be, ‘Why? What did we do?’ Like reading was a punishment! [After] Boys’ Latin…I would find books in the bathroom on the floor!”
Her son Ibrahim adds, “It came to the point where the teacher would tell our mom that I’d taken too many books.”
The school was better at hiring teachers who tried hard.
Wells recalls being shocked to find her sons talking to teachers at night: “He’s in his room and I hear him talking on the phone and it was 10 o’clock at night. I’m like, ‘Who are you on the phone with?’ and he was like, ‘Well, Mr. Bumbulsky told me to call him if I needed help with homework.'”
Stossel pushed back at some of David Hardy’s ideas, like making every student take four years of Latin. “It’s ridiculous. Nobody speaks Latin,” Stossel suggests to founder David Hardy.
“Well we picked Latin because it was hard,” Hardy replies.
“What’s the point of that?” Stossel asks.
“Because life is hard—to be prepared you have to work hard,” Hardy says. “We wanted to get that into the psyche of our students.”
Overall, Boys’ Latin gets somewhat better test scores than surrounding schools in most subjects.
“We deliver,” Hardy says. “Since the very first class we’ve sent more black boys to college than any high school in Pennsylvania.”
Despite that, government officials rejected his proposal to open a “Girls’ Latin” school. They’ve rejected a bunch of schools.
Opponents complain that charters “drain scarce resources” from government-run schools.
“You can’t tell me that,” Wells responds. “Every parent pays taxes…if I choose for my child to go to a charter school, then that’s where my taxes should go!”
In fact, Philadelphia and other cities don’t give charters the same amount of money they give to schools they control. Philadelphia gives them only 70 percent of that. So per student, Stossel notes, the government schools make money whenever a kid leaves for a charter. Over 13 years of schooling, Philadelphia saves $70,000 per kid.
Stossel asks Wells: What if those savings were passed onto the child?
“Absolutely! Give them the rest of the money!” Wells laughs.
But it won’t happen because, as Hardy notes, “It would also mean that there would be a whole lot less union jobs. The unions are not going to be for that.”
The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.
Sharing Charter School Capital’s Values
It’s the holiday season and so a very good time to reflect on the things that we value. So we thought this would be a perfect time to share with you, once again, the core values here at Charter School Capital.
At Charter School Capital, we hold each other accountable to core company values as the driving force and foundation of what we do. These values are our guiding principles as we work together to more effectively support the growth and development of our charter school partners. And, as a result, Charter School Capital is a proven catalyst for charter school growth. Since our founding, we are very proud to say that we’ve invested over $2 billion to help finance the education of more than 1,000,000 students in over 600 charter schools across the United States.
Our values are, indeed, a way of life here. They’re simply woven into the fabric of daily life at the office where there’s a shared passion and mission infusing every action.
We measure everything we do by these core values:
Best-in-Class
Empowerment
Innovation
Teamwork
Accountability
Our values are so deeply intertwined, that you actually can’t speak about one without simultaneously touching on the others. That being said, they’re beautifully interdependent values that are the foundation for everything we do here.
Best-in-Class
Striving to be best-in-class is indeed a way of life here. It can be seen in the way everyone interacts with each other on a daily basis, in the support and encouragement each person receives here — from everyone — regardless of their department, and how individuals and teams coach and enable each other to succeed by helping schools succeed in educating more and more students each day.
Everything we do at Charter School Capital is in service to the mission, in service to our clients, and service to the charter school movement. We put our schools’ success at the forefront, working with them beyond just helping them finance their growth or facility. Best in class means providing additional value-added guidance, mentoring services, and advice to help keep schools on the right track. Because we believe that their success is our success.
It’s this holistic way of striving for best-in-class, that we’ve actually helped a lot of schools become stronger over the long run. Because, as we’re providing finances, we’re able to see any early signals that there may be problems on the horizon. In this way, we can start proactively working with our school partners to help them better understand what they may need to do to trim expenses so that they’re not in the red. We may even introduce them to back-office providers who might be able to provide a service that would help them with their bookkeeping or with other administrative support.
Being best-in-class means continually asking, are you best at serving the needs of your client? Does this help our client? Are we beneficially serving the charter school movement and the charter schools that we work with?
Empowerment
The leadership team at Charter School Capital understands that by empowering each team member, we’re ultimately empowering the success, growth, and longevity of the charter schools we serve.
What else do we mean when we talk about empowerment? It’s about how our company not only empowers its employees to be their best, but how we empower the schools we work with to achieve and even exceed their goals.
Empowerment here also means we empower our teams to speak up and think outside the box. There really is a no-fail attitude here. Of course, there are times when things go off course, but we don’t consider that failure, but simply an opportunity for growth. It’s in this way that we’re encouraged to be creative and innovative without fear.
Like each individual at Charter School Capital, our schools are not static, cookie-cutter organizations. They have a plan or a mission, and sometimes they need a little assistance reaching their goals. We’re empowered to help them to do that. We as a company, and we as employees are empowered to be as creative and flexible as possible to meet their specific needs at specific times, help them improve their financial health, or just help them grow… and we also empower our schools by giving them the stability that they may need.
Innovation
We see solutions where other financial institutions may see red flags. We pride ourselves on supporting team members to find those innovative, creative solutions our schools need to be successful and sustainable.
We understand that there is actually danger in not innovating… of being complacent. Without innovation, you will never grow — either personally or as a company. Our core value of innovation inspires us to always strive for what will make things better for our employees and even more important, better for the clients. Innovation can propel things forward in a way that ideally makes things better for everyone.
But, in order to be innovative, you have to take risks, involve a team of experienced collaborators, do your homework, and have the right goals in mind. Our spirit of innovation at Charter School Capital is always guided by one question — will it help us serve our customers better?
Embracing innovation means:
supporting our employees and school partners with technological innovations and platfoms that make things easier
thinking outside the box with our charter school solutions
combining it all together and understanding how that translates to putting our customers first
Teamwork
One of the things that perhaps makes us a bit different than others in our industry — is the comprehensive team of finance professionals we put in place to work with every single one of our school partners. This knowledgeable, dedicated team works together with our schools to find sustainable solutions to ensure that they succeed in the near term and as they grow.
Having a shared vision, a dedicated team of professionals, and student focus are all vital to our embodiment of the teamwork value. But all that would mean nothing if we didn’t truly love partnering with our schools and the students they’re educating.
When we commit and say, ‘yes, we’ll provide that funding,’ what we’re really saying is, ‘yes, we will get you where you want to go.’ And every member of our team — whether it’s marketing, underwriting, finance, the executives, or the account managers — knows what the end goal is and where we’re going. A common goal makes it much easier to work together as a team.
When you’re working toward this shared goal, everyone is willing to help and have open lines of communication to deliver the best product in partnership with the school. A shared vision, a dedicated team of professionals, and student focus are all vital to our embodiment of the teamwork value.
Teamwork really does make the dream work here. Because of our internal investment in teamwork and a shared vision — where we always have the students at the forefront — we’re able to support schools when and how they need it, and work as a team with charter school leaders to make their dreams for their schools happen.
Accountability
If it seems like a broken record, apologies, but the fact remains — we care about the success of our school partners. In other words, we take accountability for their sustainability, growth, and longevity. Our clients trust us to go the extra mile.
At Charter School Capital, all arrows point to the fact that we take the time and care to build relationships with our school partners. Every team member on each account feels responsible for the school’s success and ownership for their part of the equation. By having this team of dedicated professionals who connect with school leaders in this way, trust is a natural — and happy — consequence.
Being accountable, or having accountability means;
we’re responsible for our client’s success,
we own our work,
accept and learn from our mistakes, and
earn the trust of our co-workers as well as our school partners.
And, it means that when we see a need — beyond what’s right in front of us — we go the extra mile to help us achieve our mission and even more important, help our school partners achieve theirs.
In Conclusion
So, it’s clear that we have a mission-driven dedicated team, who cooperate, collaborate, and communicate, but I will conclude this post with the one single thing that is the heart and soul of everything we do — the students. We measure our success by the number of students served. And to date, we’re at over 1 million. We’re pretty proud of that.
But these words, these values, are not just lip service here… they are in our daily, our hourly lexicon. They are simply just part of our culture.
Diversity in America’s Traditional Public and Public Charter School Leaders
Editor’s Note: This article about diversity among public school leaders including public charter school leaders, was originally published here on September 9, 2019 by The 74 and written by Laura Fay.
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.
As Schools Diversify, Principals Remain Mostly White — and 5 Other Things We Learned This Summer About America’s School Leaders
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
This is the latest article in The 74’s ongoing ‘Big Picture’ series, bringing American education into sharper focus through new research and data. Go Deeper: See our full series.
Reports released this summer offer new insight into America’s school principals, from their racial diversity to how turnover affects student achievement.
The new papers add to a growing body of research about principals but also raise new questions, said Brendan Bartanen, an assistant professor at Texas A&M University and co-author of recent reports on principal diversity and principal turnover.
“We know that principals matter,” Bartanen told The 74. “We still don’t have a great understanding of the specifics of that — how do they matter, what are the specific things that they do, what are the ways that we could train them better and provide them better development?”
Amid growing concern about teacher diversity — America’s teachers are about 80 percent white — Bartanen’s research shows that black principals are more likely to hire black teachers to work in their schools. Having just one black teacher in elementary school can improve a number of outcomes for black students. But federal data show that principals are overwhelmingly white.
Here are six things we learned about America’s principals this summer.
1. Principals are overwhelmingly white, despite increasingly diverse students.
Although more than half of U.S. students are racial minorities, about 78 percent of public school principals are white, according to 2017-18 survey data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics and released in August. That mirrors the makeup of the American teaching corps, which is about 80 percent white.
The remaining principals were about 8.9 percent Hispanic, 10.5 percent black and 2.9 percent other races. Urban districts were more likely to have principals of color than their rural, town and suburban counterparts.
Most nonwhite principals were in high-poverty schools. At schools where 75 percent or more of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, almost 60 percent of teachers were white while 16.5 percent were Hispanic and 21 percent were black, the NCES data show. (NCES did not break down responses in the “other” category, which includes American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and two or more races.)
2. Charter school leadership was slightly more diverse than principals in traditional public schools.
In charter schools, 66.5 percent of principals were white, while 12.3 percent were Hispanic and 16.3 percent were black, according to the NCES numbers.
A recent study by the Fordham Institute found that charters also tend to employ more black teachers than district schools do.
3. Black principals are more likely to hire and retain black teachers.
When a school gains a black principal, black teachers are more likely to be hired and retained, according to a working paper written by Bartanen and Jason A. Grissom of Vanderbilt University and released in May by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University.
Schools that changed from a white to a black principal saw an average increase in black teachers of about 3 percentage points because black teachers were more likely to be hired and to stay in their positions.
Bartanen and Grissom used teacher data from Missouri and Tennessee, where there was not enough information to gauge the effects of switching from white to Latino principals. The working paper has not been peer-reviewed and is subject to change.
4. Most principals say their training left them well prepared.
A report released by RAND used survey data to look at teachers’ attitudes about their preparation programs.
Overall, principals reported that their training prepared them well to lead a school, with more than 80 percent responding that they could see a connection between their coursework and practice as school leaders.
Additionally, the RAND researchers found a positive relationship between the amount of field experience educators had and how they rated their training programs. Both teachers and principals who had more field experience reported feeling more prepared for their work in schools.
5. But 39 percent of white principals say they were not well prepared to support black, Latino and low-income students.
When asked whether their preservice training prepared them to support black, Latino and low-income students, 62 percent of white principals agreed, compared with 76 percent of nonwhite principals, according to the RAND report. The leaves about 2 in 5 white principals who said they were “mostly” or “completely” unprepared to work with poor and minority students.
There was a similar gap among teachers.
6. Principal turnover tends to hurt student achievement — but not always.
The average rate of principal turnover is around 18 percent, according to NCES data. The schools principals left typically saw declines in math and reading scores, but the reason for the leadership change affected the outcomes, according to a new report published in June in Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis. For example, in cases in which the principal was demoted, student achievement stayed the same or improved. Meanwhile, students whose principals moved to other schools or to district-level positions saw a decrease in their math and reading scores.
The takeaway is that districts should be strategic about retaining strong principals but not afraid to remove low-performing ones, said Bartanen, who wrote the paper with Grissom and Laura K. Rogers.
Disclosure: The Carnegie Corporation of New York, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Walton Family Foundation and Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation support both RAND and The 74.
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!
Charter School Fundraising: Boost End-of-Year Giving
Charter school fundraising is a necessary part of being able to provide the programs and services your students deserve. We know that it’s no easy task, asking for money. But this is the season to do so, if you haven’t already set up an annual giving program. And, no, it’s not too late to get the ball rolling! If you do already have a program in place, this post may give you a few new ideas to help push your school’s giving program to the next level.
Giving Tuesday is right around the corner (December 3rd) so now’s the perfect time to maximize your opportunities for charitable donations to your charter school. Giving Tuesday truly kicks off the “Season of Giving” when folks are trying to make those last-minute decisions about which deserving non-profits they should receive their hard-earned dollars. We wanted to put this blog post together to help you optimize your fundraising opportunities before the year’s end.
Remember, in your communications and outreach, make sure to let your community know that your charter school is a 501(c)3 organization and that all donations are tax-deductible. Also, don’t forget to include your Tax ID number. And, at the end of this post, we’ve included some tips on setting up your organization on Amazon Smile, how to then select your organization to receive your Amazon Smile dollars, as well as some additional resources to get your giving programs either set up or just tuned up!
We found this fantastic post with several great fundraising tips from EdTec originally published here on October 24, 2017 and written by Melanie Horton. It may be a few years old, but still has some great tips!
Five Minutes of Practical Fundraising Advice for Charter Schools
All charter schools can use a few extra dollars to fund projects and programs that support the success of their students. Wherever your school is with its fundraising strategy, there’s always room for evaluation and improvement. We’ve put together a list of five simple actions schools can take to increase donations, as well as a few quick tips to help strengthen the connection to potential and existing donors.
Five Fundraising Actions Your School Can Take Today
1. Participate in #GivingTuesday: Celebrated the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, #GivingTuesday was started in 2012 as a way to harness “the potential of social media and the generosity of people around the world to bring about real change in their communities” (www.givingtuesday.org). The movement provides an opportunity for charitable organizations to rally their communities and encourage donations to their causes, and has grown rapidly over the last few years. For #GivingTuesday 2015, 700,000 donors contributed nearly $117 million, and the hashtag earned 1.3 million mentions on social media and 114 billion Twitter impressions! You can find several resources to help plan for #GivingTuesday 2017 at givingtuesday.org, including a social media toolkit and ideas and case studies specific to schools. Don’t worry about implementing all the recommendations the first time you participate; you can start by incorporating #GivingTuesday into your existing social media plan, and set aside time well in advance next year to develop a more comprehensive strategy.
2. Register on Amazon Smile. Amazon Smile donates 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases to the charitable organization of your choice. There is a simple registration process, so you will need access to the school’s EIN and bank account information. Once you are registered, remind parents, teachers, staff, and other stakeholders to bookmark amazon.com, where they can select your school as their charitable organization of choice; they only need to do this once, and all future eligible purchases made at smile.amazon.com will result in a 0.5% donation to your school. Once an individual makes a purchase that results in a donation, they’ll be able to view and keep track of the total amount donated to the school across time; this is a fun, useful feature that allows donors to see the collective impact of several small donations made by members of the school community across time.
3. Remember to ask donors if their employer participates in a matching gift program. Most people are not aware their employer offers a matching gift program, leaving potential fundraising dollars on the table! Make sure to include this reminder on your website’s donation page, as well as in any direct mail fundraising campaigns. While there is technology available for purchase that can be linked to your school’s website, which allows donors to check their employer’s matching gift policy and guidelines on the spot, this is easy to do without the help of extra tools. Just include a simple, noticeable message that prompts donors to ask if their employer, or their spouse’s employer, participates in a matching gift program. You can also prompt donors to check a box if they already know they have access to a matching gift program, and remind them to proceed with the necessary paperwork. Asking donors to check a box makes it easy for you to follow-up about matching gifts.
What happens next? The donor will then need to request the proper paperwork from their employer (as well as verify that the school is eligible for a matching donation) and submit a matching gift form to your school. Upon receipt of the form, a school employee will need to confirm donation from the individual, and submit the form to the employer.
4. Register with local supermarkets and other retail stores. Several retailers offer programs that allow customers to donate a percentage of their purchase to the charitable organization of their choice. For example, Ralphs’ has a Community Contribution Program that allows rewards card users to select a community organization to donate to. The process varies with each retailer, so it’s best to pay a visit to your local retailers and ask if they have similar programs.
5. Don’t leave grant money on the table! There are hundreds of grant opportunities available to charter schools, some of which require no more than a simple application form. It can be difficult to make time to focus on grant writing when there are so many other things to get done, which is why EdTec offers flexible grant research and writing services for busy school leaders. Set up a call with us for more information and sign up to receive our monthly grants email.
Two Ways to Strengthen Your School’s Fundraising Program
1. Make your case. The stronger your story, the more compelled your stakeholders will feel to give. Is your per-student funding rate less than the state average? Less than the neighborhood school district? Share these facts with your audience, and include numbers when you have them. You’ll also want to include a list of things you aim to accomplish through fundraising, be it reducing class size, purchasing new musical instruments, enhancing facilities, or starting an after-school STEM program, as well as a tally of funds raised to date (if any) and what you’ve been able to accomplish as a result. Give your potential donors proof that their money will be put to good use!
2. Be thankful! Always send timely thank you notes, preferably within two weeks of receiving a donation (and sooner if you can). While it is a nice gesture to send hand-written notes, this is not always feasible, especially for larger schools. Have a template thank you note ready to go, personalize the letter with the donor’s name and donation details, and ask the school’s principal or executive director to sign it. You might also consider putting together an annual publication that recognizes donors for their contributions, and includes information about the projects and improvements that were made possible by their generosity. Donors will enjoy being recognized, and be more compelled to give in the future.
Here are some additional resources we thought might be helpful to boost your end-of-year giving programs:
Sign in to smile.amazon.com on your desktop or mobile phone browser.
From your desktop, go to Your Account from the navigation at the top of any page, and then select the option to Change your Charity. Or, from your mobile browser, select Change your Charity from the options at the bottom of the page.
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!
Charter School Parents Are More Satisfied With Schools
Editor’s Note: This date for this article on charter school parent satisfaction was taken from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Parent and Family Involvement surveys. It was originally published here on August 20, 2019 by Education Dive and was written by Linda Jacobson.
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 parents express greater satisfaction with schools
Dive Brief:
Charter school parents are more likely than parents in traditional district schools to report volunteering and attending parent-teacher conferences or parent group meetings. But overall, there are no significant differences between charter and district parents in participating in general meetings, committees, fundraising and guidance counselor activities, according to an article in the American Educational Research Journal.
The study, which uses data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Parent and Family Involvement surveys, also shows charter parents report significantly higher levels of satisfaction. But as the charter sector grew between 2007 and 2016, there was also an “uptick” in satisfaction among district parents and a downward trend among charter parents.
The study’s author, Zachary Oberfield of Haverford College in Pennsylvania, suggests parent volunteering contracts, sometimes in place at charter schools, could be one reason these parents report more volunteering. In addition, the differences in satisfaction levels, he said, could “result from steps that charter schools are taking to ensure that parents and children are having positive schooling experiences.”
Dive Insight:
While the study adds another layer to the many ways researchers are comparing traditional and charter schools, Oberfield also addresses what he calls a charter school debate that “often devolves into caricature and hardline position taking,” noting the research overall on whether charter schools are different or better than traditional schools is mixed.
“As these results accumulate, perhaps they can encourage policymakers and stakeholders to ratchet down the rhetoric and engage in more generative conversations,” he wrote. “In doing so, we can deepen our understanding of how charter and district schools compare and what they can learn from one another.”
Digging into the satisfaction data, for example, he found parents whose children attended district schools outside of their geographically assigned school had higher levels of satisfaction than those who attended assigned schools. Perhaps, he wrote, exercising some choice — whether it’s a charter or district school — “conditions a positive feeling.”
In a Q&A about a book on charters he published last year, he also noted “a fire has been lit under public school administrators” in traditional schools, and many are working harder to attract families and provide unique opportunities for students.
Oberfield adds that a future area of research — and comparison — should explore parents’ experiences with school leaders and teachers. “Future work could contribute by comparing how district and charter parents experience the teachers and leaders who run their child’s school and how this is connected to their engagement and satisfaction,” he wrote.
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!
Should States Support Public Charter School Facilities Funding?
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published here on July 31, 2019 by EdWeek and written by Andrew Ujufusa. 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 Charter Schools Build It, Will States Help Pay For It?
By Andrew Ujifusa on July 31, 2019 4:34 PM
Most states have policies on the books to provide some kind of funding support for the facilities that charter schools use. But dive deeper into what’s on the books, and the number and types of policies can vary significantly from state to state.
That’s one relatively straightforward conclusion to draw from a new report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools published earlier this month. ”State Policy Snapshot: Facilities Funding for Public Charter Schools“ says that 30 states and the District of Columbia have a policy covering at least one of the following funding issues charters deal with:
Providing a per-pupil facilities allowance to charter schools;
Creating a charter school facility grant program;
Ensuring that charter schools have equal access to all existing state facilities programs and revenues for district-run public schools in a state;
Providing a charter school facility loan program;
Providing charter schools with access to local property tax dollars generated for facilities.
In addition, 20 states and the District of Columbia have more than one such policy on the books. However, no jurisdiction has all five policies listed above, according to the alliance. And not every state’s policy, such a grant or loan program, actually gets funded.
Need some of that report’s data in visual form? Check out the interactive map here.
Questions about charter school facilities raise several issues and can prove particularly divisive.
Supporters believe that as public schools, charters shouldn’t face particular hardships when it comes to issues like paying for space. And some charters, particularly those that aren’t part of big established networks or are just getting off the ground, do face major hurdles when it comes to finding and paying for their locations. As one Portland, Ore., charter founder told Education Week back in 2013, ”We have to meet all of these code requirements that older schools [and private schools] may not have to comply with because we’re a new school, which makes even the consideration of most spaces impossible and difficult.”
However, others argue that comparing charter schools’ facilities access to the bonds and other financial tools used by traditional district-run schools oversimplifies how the traditional public schools actually get their facilities. Skeptics have also cited the instance of a charter school suing its management company, Imagine Schools, which also rented a facility to the school, over allegations that Imagine charged the school excessive rent. A similar case played out in Los Angeles in 2013 that ended with two founders of a charter school getting sentenced to prison and community service.
One additional policy areas charters are exploring? Opportunity Zones. As we wrote earlier this week, these zones were established by the 2017 tax law and are designed to provide tax benefits to investors who put money into designated distressed communities. Supporters of Opportunity Zones believe charters could be big beneficiaries by linking up with these investors, possibly in conjunction with other groups and institutions seeking space, to help with facilities and other costs.
A February presentation on Opportunity Zones hosted by the alliance notes that the structure of the zones “rewards patient capital” (since the tax incentives hinge on long-term investments) and “takes equity capital off the sidelines and puts it to work in low-income communities.”
The alliance’s July report on state policies says this about the general landscape and trends for this issue:
One of the biggest challenges to the continued expansion of charter schools is the fact that many charter school laws place the ultimate burden of obtaining and paying for facilities on charter schools themselves. As a result, charter school leaders struggle to find suitable and affordable facilities to house their growing numbers of students.
States play an important role in determining the options available to help fund charter school facilities. Increasingly, states are enacting and updating state policies to help offset the cost of leasing, purchasing, and maintaining charter school facilities.
Read the full alliance report on those policies below:
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.
What Were Your Biggest Charter School Challenges in 2019?
This year, at the National Charter Schools Conference, we asked the visitors to our Charter School Capital booth one simple question…”What is the biggest challenge that charter schools face?”. We had 248 respondents from states all across the nation, and while not an enormous number to provide clear statistical significance, we did find the results interesting and thought you might too. In this post, we’re sharing the results of our survey with you.
Overall Highlights:
24% of respondents said that increasing or sustaining enrollment was a top challenge
19% said that retaining teachers was their biggest challenge
16% of respondents said that accessing/improving facilities was their top challenge
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Notable Highlights, State Specific:
More than 1/3 of our California respondents said increasing or sustaining enrollment was their greatest challenge
In Michigan, retaining teachers was the leading challenge by a wide margin (20 of 31 respondents)
The leading challenge in Florida, according to our respondents was accessing/improving facilities
More than half of the Texas respondents shared that increasing or sustaining enrollment was their greatest challenge. (11 of 18)
Note: Other state responses were spread across the categories with no notable leader and were therefore not called out here.
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Since the company’s inception in 2007, Charter School Capital has been committed to the success of charter schools. We help schools access, leverage, and sustain the resources charter schools need to thrive, allowing them to focus on what matters most – educating students. Our extensive toolbox of innovative and customizable solutions are designed exclusively for charter schools. This wide range of products and services has been developed to address the diverse set of challenges charter leaders face 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!
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published here on July 23, 2019 by The 74 and written by Sonia Park, the executive director of the Diverse Charter Schools Coalition. 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 Schools Can Be an Important New Tool for Fostering Integration. Our New Coalition Is Working to Make That Happen
It’s been almost 50 years since Kamala Harris stepped onto a school bus and out of her racially redlined neighborhood amid the desegregation of the Berkeley, California, schools. Five decades later, the question of who goes to school where remains pivotal to kids’ and families’ lives and to the communities we build in this country.
In those years, much has changed. School segregation has gotten worse. Yet our understanding of the issue has changed for the better, and the evolving picture of public schooling offers new solutions. One important, and overlooked, element is charter schools, which are numerous in many places where segregation is common. Charter schools, independently managed public schools, are offering new approaches to this decades-old issue.
America’s painful history with segregation was injected anew into America’s dinner-table conversations after Harris’s exchange with Joe Biden at the second Democratic presidential debate. Finding solutions to this persistent problem remains fundamental to justice and opportunity in this country — and in an increasingly diverse nation, it’s more pressing than ever. Desegregation in America’s schools peaked in 1988; since then, the proportion of schools that are intensely segregated — more than 90 percent nonwhite — has tripled. This, in a country where most public school students are children of color.
But evidence shows that racial and socioeconomic integration offer benefits not just to children of color and low-income students but to all, ranging from test scores to college attendance to critical thinking skills. Scholar Richard Kahlenberg wrote after the debate, “If we want to break the cycle of poverty, few interventions are as important as efforts to give children a chance to attend high-quality integrated schools.”
High-quality public charter schools are among the new tools we have to advance desegregation and deepen our understanding of successful diversity.
Public schooling in 2019 looks far different than it did in Harris’s day – in part because charter schools have opened in places where there are large numbers of low-income students and students of color. Our student bodies are more diverse; so are the choices their families can make.
Charter schools are open to whoever chooses them, and some reflect the highly segregated neighborhoods in which they exist. As a consequence, some have criticized charters for supposedly worsening segregation, though that confuses correlation with causation. (There is also a vast difference between being placed in a school based on your zip code and choosing a school because it’s culturally affirming.) Charters offer choice to families that haven’t had that in the past.
The Diverse Charter Schools Coalition is proud to have assembled charter leaders determined to work with school boards and to recruit intensively to make their schools a force for diversity of all kinds and at all levels. We’re a small but rapidly growing alliance representing more than 175 schools nationwide that have a vision of what education should look like in today’s society — encompassing families, students, staff and leadership. We are determined to take on not just learning gaps but also an empathy gap that is far too clear.
It takes expertise and planning to create such schools successfully. Intentional diversity goes far beyond simply enrolling students of different races, wealth levels and other socioeconomic markers; it embraces a deepening understanding of an inclusive school community. Too often, desegregation means only that students attend school in the same building — often experiencing separate and unequal education under the same roof. We’re working to help schools not just attain diverse enrollment, staff and leadership, but foster inspiring communities where students can form bonds that cross boundaries, learn from one another and together develop a vision for their world.
We’re seeking to grow the number of these schools, in part by recruiting and preparing future leaders with a clear vision for new diverse-by-design charter schools. Our fellows are matched with a host school, exposed to exemplary models, given access to experts and resources, offered a tailored residency and provided with individualized learning. Leaders of our member schools receive coaching and support, which we plan to expand to district leaders as well.
America is a different and more diverse place than it was when Harris started school, yet our schools are just as segregated. We need to use every tool possible to change that, and charter schools must be part of that.
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!
This year, for our 3rd annual Richard Dewey Awards, we were so honored to have received such amazing, touching, inspirational submissions. Close to 75 stories about how teachers have made a difference were shared with us. The caliber of submissions made selecting our three winners a very challenging task for our panel of judges.
And the 2019 Dewey Awards go to…
In no particular order, here are the winning stories that will receive the $1000 grants that will be given to a charter school of their choosing! Read these three heartwarming stories about teachers who have truly impacted the lives of their students.
Teacher: Joshua Curry Subject: History and Social Studies School: Options Charter School Noblesville, State: Indiana Submission from: Conner Reiff
“How has Joshua Curry impacted my life?
Prologue
To answer this question, allow me to review the two previous years of my life. I had been told that I had ADHD, but in 6th grade, I had actually become seriously ill with Narcolepsy with Cataplexy. I was put on homebound restrictions through my previous school for almost two years. Having to do online work was not fun and sometimes I fell asleep halfway through my work! Sometimes I fell asleep for weeks at a time! I was put into a clinical trial for a medication where I had to frequently fly to California. Then I had to be seen by the top research doctor at Stanford University because I was still sleeping so much. It was there that I was also diagnosed with Klein-Levin Syndrome, a very rare sleep disorder. I have no idea how, but I somehow survived through those painful two years on an online school and traveling. After successful medical interventions, my homebound instructor suggested Options Charter School in Noblesville, Indiana. Today I am a successful student at Noblesville Options Charter School. Let me tell you about one of my teachers, who has made it his mission to ensure my success in school.
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Actual Story
The school I am at now, Options Charter School, has put me on a brighter path by inspiring the student in me to wake up (no pun intended) and to be free. Regardless of my disorders, I am able to function at school and complete my work every day, sometimes with no homework at all!
The one teacher who helped me through a lot of this was my social studies teacher, Joshua Curry. He had some secondhand experience with Narcolepsy and it came from a surprising source! My family and I attended the Center for Courageous Kids in Scottsville, Kentucky. There I met other children who have narcolepsy including one of Josh’s school friends named Nick who had a daughter with the same type of narcolepsy as me! Nick tutored Josh on every possible important thing for a narcoleptic like me. He taught him the wants, needs, and level of care needed to help. Josh then suggested extended time for assignments, minimal homework, and that the goal was to help me succeed with whatever it took. Over a short period of time, Josh became not just a teacher, but my best friend and someone who cared for me. He came to my awards ceremony for the community project I had done. He even spoke at the ceremony despite his nervousness toward the thought of public speaking! He even drove me back to school afterward and bought me a giant-sized Dr. Pepper when we stopped at Speedway! We laughed all the way back! It was the best day of my life!
Josh has always had my back and he gives me somewhat ridiculous deadlines for school assignments. When I bring this up, he would say, “Just take the two weeks, Connor. Besides, it’s only just in case you fall asleep.” We would both laugh for a while after that and then I would go on to my next class. Every day at school I wish one thing for myself, “I wish to be in Josh’s classroom all day, every day!”
The reason that I like his classroom so much is because when I was undergoing treatment, I read a lot of historical articles, books, and movies. In the classroom, he makes history relevant and interactive. He uses constant hilarious dark humor that keeps my mind engaged. He engages the students by demonstrating that he is an authority about each topic. It makes me ask questions about the sequence of history.“History is not wrong unless you record it wrong” is one of his favorite quotes. He has many books in his classroom for different perspectives and time periods. This allows me to gain historical knowledge and draw my own conclusions.
There isn’t a teacher more deserving of being recognized than Josh Curry. Often times, charter school teachers are not recognized for helping individual students and for the good that they do in the world. Thank you for the opportunity to nominate Josh Curry. He is most deserving of this national honor!”
Teacher: Betty Williams
Subject: Academic, 2nd Grade
School: Frostproof Elementary School
State: Florida
Submission by: Mary Milton
“In loving memory of Mrs. Betty Williams:
As a first grade student, I hated school. I couldn’t read in first grade and everyone knew it. My first-grade teacher told me that I wouldn’t amount to anything because I couldn’t read and she wasn’t very pleasant or patient with me. I didn’t want to go to school. That all changed when I started second grade and had Mrs. Betty Williams as a teacher. Mrs. Williams was an older woman that had taught for years. She had a sense of calm that every student should encounter in a classroom. Mrs. Williams genuinely cared for her students and took the time to know each of us.
I remember the day I cried to her about not being able to read. She told me that I may not be able to read today, but she promised I would be able to read. Mrs. Williams patiently worked with me, she met with my mom and tried different strategies to help me read. One day, she moved my seat closer to the front of the room. I was able to see the board a little more clearly, but still not perfectly. I had never told anyone that things were blurry to me, but Mrs. Williams noticed that I was squinting and trying to figure out words on the board, that is why she moved me closer. When she requested a meeting with my mom I thought she was going to tell my mom the same thing my first-grade teacher told me. Instead, she told my mom that she thought I should have my eyes checked. We were a very low-income family and my mom told her she didn’t know if she could afford to take me to the eye doctor, but would try to get me in as soon as possible.
Mrs. Williams gave my mom her eye doctor’s name and told my mom to take me there and she would take care of the bill. I remember the doctor telling my mom that I needed glasses, I was far-sighted and had astigmatism. I was so proud when my glasses came in and begged my mom to take me by Mrs. Williams’s house so I could show her my glasses and tell her that trees had leaves now, not just blurry blobs. She didn’t mind that we stopped by her home after work and was so happy to see me smiling with my glasses on. Mrs. Williams continued to work with me on reading and I stayed in contact with her after her retirement. Her caring personality, her patience, and her observant eyes helped me believe in myself, taught me how to read, allowed me to see, and inspired me to become a teacher.”
Teacher: Chantal Haskell
Subject: Drama, Strings, Choir
School: Greenville Technical Charter High School
State: South Carolina
Submission by: Savannah Cannon
On my first day of freshman year, I was scared out of my mind. I didn’t really want to go to Drama Class, because I knew I would be the only freshman in Drama 2. I came inside and sat down on the third row. I was encouraged to come sit on the front row with my six other classmates and reluctantly agreed. We instantly started introductions, but Ms. Haskell didn’t do it like any of my other freshmen teachers would. We were asked about our summers, and Haskell showed us pictures from her wedding. We started improv, and I quickly became very aware of the energy in the room. My upperclassman classmates were performing scenes about babies in blenders and crazy things I had no idea how to react to. But Haskell quickly showed me that we were a family and that our family liked to have a lot of laughs.
Within only a couple weeks, I became more and more comfortable in Drama 2 class. With Haskell leading us, it wasn’t only about learning or getting the grade. It was about teaching us things that we would never forget. It was about making friends and gaining relationships I could treasure forever. Every project had a different twist and turn that scared me at first, but always came back, in the end, to teach me a bigger lesson.
Ms. Haskell wasn’t only teaching us inside of her classroom either. Haskell is the only teacher I have ever met that was brave enough to open up her own home to her students. Over Christmas break, when she should have been thanking God that she didn’t have to deal with us hooligans, she invited us to come bake cookies and spend time together. Haskell was not just a teacher that we sometimes talked to because we felt like we needed to, Haskell was someone I knew I could always come to for advice about anyone or anything.
Only about a month into the school year, auditions were held for Alice in Wonderland. I performed some little monologue about a school play and I loved every little second of my two minutes, but I was scared out of my mind. Only a couple of days later, I received callbacks for the show. I ended up playing the Red Queen, but what Haskell told me just a short 12 hours later would change everything I thought about myself. Before class, she pulled me to the side and told me that she believed I had really good talent and that if I kept working, she knew I would do big things. That statement has stuck with me for over two years now, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.
Haskell has continued to teach me things throughout my high school experience. She has worked harder than any teacher I have ever seen. She has given up her after school time four, if not all five days of the week. She has Musical Theatre class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, holds an acapella club for her students on Wednesdays, and stays after school on Mondays so that I can have meetings for our annual Murder Mystery Dinner, and so other kids can rehearse lines. She puts in more commitment inside and outside of the classroom than any teacher. She might leave our building with hours of work to do, but you can always count on her to have it done the next day when we return.
When I was having a tough time handling school, sports, friends, and family, Haskell was the only adult I knew I could come to. She never judged me, never looked down upon me. She only gave me the greatest advice and endless support. But most importantly, she just kept on telling me she loved me.
In my opinion, being a teacher is about sacrifice. Sacrificing your time, your effort, and probably sometimes your sanity. Only the best teachers truly care about their students the way that Haskell does. She is always there for a laugh, but she is also always there for a hug and to be a shoulder to cry on. Haskell is the kind of teacher that you cry about on graduation day because you’re not really sure what you’re going to do without their smile, support, and advice every day when you’re gone. Someday, when I become a teacher, I hope to have just as much passion for my kids as Haskell does for hers.
Thank you again to all of those who shared your amazing submissions, we were so very inspired reading (watching) them all!
Our Esteemed Submission Review Panel:
Darlene Chambers – A national leader in education reform, Dr. Darlene Chambers is the Senior Vice President for Programs & Services at the National Charter Schools Institute, and a review alum from both 2017 and 2018.
Janet Johnson – Chief Growth Officer at Charter School Capital and internal teacher/ inspiration officer herself (though she’s too humble to admit it), Janet is a review alum since 2017.
Amanda List – Amanda is a principal of AList Consulting and served as Texas Charter School Association’s first director of advocacy. Amanda has extensive state government affairs and public charter school experience including strong ties to the Texas Capitol and the Texas Education Agency. We welcome Amanda as a first time review panelist for the 2019 Dewey Awards.
Juana Garcia – With more than 25 years of experience in education, Juana is the Founder of three Montessori Charter Schools and has served as a Magnet Lead Teacher, the Educational Excellence School Advisory Council Chair and United Way Ambassador. We welcome Juana as a first time review panelist for the 2019 Dewey Awards.
If you missed this year’s submission window, but still want to share your story and honor a special teacher outside the awards program, post it on social and tag @GrowCharters and use hashtags #WeLoveCharter Schools and #DeweyAwards and we’ll share it on our social platforms.
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!
Preparing Your Charter School Board to Govern For Growth
For this CHARTER EDtalk, Michelle Lohner, Sr. Account Manager at Charter School Capital, was joined by BoardOnTrack’s Director of Leadership & Governance Training, Mike Mizzoni to discuss how a charter school board can best govern for growth. Mike shares his expertise on why charter school boards should be governing for growth, what that means, planning your board so that evolves over time, setting board priorities, and choosing the right people on the board to effectively navigate every stage of your charter school’s growth.
To hear all of Mike’s tips and guidance, please watch the video below or read the complete transcript below.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Michelle Lohner: Hi, I’m Michelle Lohner with Charter School Capital, senior account manager, and have Mike Mizzoni here with us today, director of leadership and governance training from BoardOnTrack.
Mike Mizzoni: Happy to be here. Thanks so much.
Lohner: Thank you so much, Mike. So, really I know so many things we want to talk about, but we’ve been hearing a lot about having boards prepared for growth. Can you tell me a little bit? What does that mean?
Mizzoni: Yeah. We’re going around and promoting what we call this notion of governing for growth, and it’s a message that our company BoardOnTrack is really promoting, because we work with charter school boards around the country, and what we’ve found is that there are so many students who need the kind of programming that charter school offer, so we see schools with wait lists that are twice the size of their enrollment. We have schools that are actively looking to expand into other geographic locations, or to expand into new grades that they can serve, or new schools together.
What we’ve found is that as organizations go to evolve and to expand to the number of students that they can serve again either by growing into a new physical location or by expanding their grade levels that the governance that the board provides of the organization doesn’t always keep pace with the organization itself, and so what we’re doing is we’re really trying to promote this idea that boards need to be very methodical, intentional, about not just promoting the strategic direction of the organization, but also improving their own governance capabilities as well in some of the key areas of board governance.
Lohner: That’s actually really interesting that you mentioned that because like you said schools are growing. The board may or may not be keeping up with that, so how would you suggest that they do that? What does that look like?
Mizzoni: Yeah, so what we try and get boards to focus on are what we call the five Ps of good board governance, and so really these are the five key areas that good boards need to do well, and so these are the five areas that we say especially if you’re an organization that’s governing for growth that you need to keep your eye on. What we would call those are like I said the five Ps. They’re your priorities, your people, your process, your performance, and your progress. So quickly what we mean by that, when it comes to your priorities is making sure that the organization, the school leadership, and the board, are fully aligned on the direction that they’re headed, what it is that we’re trying to accomplish, what’s our vision of excellence look like for the organization.
With the people we’re talking about making sure that you’ve got the right people on your governance team, so the right board members with the right backgrounds, skills, demographics. Also, your officer positions and the leadership of the school, so your CEO, your school leader, and their designees, so those senior staff members. Those are all people who are involved in governing the organization.
Next thing is the process, so the way the board goes about doing its work, so complying with things like the Open Meeting Law, and your state’s authorizers requirements, things like your meeting, schedule. Little things like whether your meetings last for too long. We feel really strongly that good board meetings don’t need to last longer than two hours, and anything longer than that quickly leads to burn out of good board members.
So the way you do your work needs to change and evolve. When we talk about performance we’re talking holding each other accountable on your board to the performance metrics you’ve set for each other, but then also for the organization as a whole, and holding your CEO accountable. So one of the things we look for is how you evaluate and support your CEO at the end of the year.
And then, lastly when we talk about progress we’re talking about whether the board itself makes progress in these areas, so in its governance capabilities is the board improving its own capabilities, so things like watching CHARTER EDtalks, and getting professional development for your board is what we would look like there.
Lohner: That’s interesting. There’s like you said the five Ps that they need to focus on but how do they make sure that they focus on the right priorities, because there’s so many things that are coming their way that they need to give attention to as a board member.
Mizzoni: Yeah, that’s exactly right, and so when we talk about priorities, the first of those Ps, it really is making sure that everybody on the team knows exactly where they’re headed. One of the metaphors that I like to use is that this charter school board that we’re on is sort of an adventure that we’ve all elected to go on, and at some point we all got together and pointed at the mountaintop that we’re looking to head to, and with the nature of charter school governance, [inaudible 00:04:22] we tend to see three to five year charter renewal cycles.
The reality is if this group of individuals is going to get to where we’ve all agreed that we need to go we need to have clear priorities year by year that allow us to get there. And so, when it comes to governing for growth if we as a team, as a governing board, and our school leadership are not totally in sync as to where it is that we’re trying to head then we quickly find people pulling different directions. Leadership really starts at the top and if there’s misalignment as to where our priorities are then that trickles down throughout the organization.
Lohner: That makes sense. How can a board make sure, you talked a lot about the different priorities, but make sure that they have the right people to govern at each stage of this growth?
Mizzoni: Yeah, that’s one of the biggest challenges for sure when we travel around the country and talk to governing boards. One of the things that they have the most difficulty with is keeping a steady pipeline of really high-quality board members who are aligned with their mission, and willing to participate.
And so, that challenge becomes even more difficult as the organization is looking to govern for growth because what happens is the types of skillsets that an individual needs to bring to a board changes as the organization evolves. An example of it would be let’s say that we’ve elected as a team that we’re going to expand and replicate into another location. This might be the first time in a decade that we’ve ever needed to acquire a building.
In this case, we may never of had really a cause for needing somebody with real estate transaction experience, or school architecture, or facilities just in general. What we like people to think about is when they’re planning for the year, and they’re getting ready to set goals around recruitment is as you’re growing we really like boards to say what is it that this board needs to get done this year, and we’re going to recruit people specifically to fill those gaps.
We want to make sure that we always have a diverse set of skills so that we can do all of the things that a good charter school board needs to do, financial oversight, academic oversight, fundraising, all of these key areas. We want to make sure that we have people who meet each one of these needs so that combined as one governing team we have all of the skillsets combined.
Lohner: I like that. That’s actually really helpful in terms of best practices. You’ve had a lot of experience what would you say is the most common mistake that you see boards make?
Mizzoni: When it comes to boards that are governing for growth I’d say hands down the biggest mistake we see is people not prioritizing in governance. We know that a lot of organizations when they’re getting off the ground the governance portion of it is one of the last things that they go to. We know that most people are here because they want to educate students, they want to get results in the classroom, they’re really passionate about the mission.
We put all the focus on strategic planning and the direction and development of the organization, and we don’t put that same kind of spotlight or attention on us as the governing board, and so what we want is for people to not keep making that mistake. We want people to understand that the success of the organization is going to largely depend on the work of the governance team.
Unfortunately, the world that we live in is that not every charter school is successful for a long period of time, and unfortunately a lot of the reasons for why schools close can be traced back to some sort of either action or more importantly inaction on the part of the board, so putting an emphasis on a strong board governance is something that we want to see people do more, and not making that mistake again.
Lohner: Definitely. Mike, was there anything else? I really appreciate you coming on today and sharing some of your insights and best practices for governing for growth. Is there anything else that you wanted to share with everyone?
Mizzoni: No. My final conclusion I would say is that there are a lot of students out there who need what it is that your schools are offering, and so putting a spotlight and making sure that we’re keeping the board governance healthy throughout this sector is important to us.
Lohner: Thank you so much, Mike.
Mizzoni: Thank you.
Lohner: Thank you, everyone, for joining us.
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 important webinar, our partners and industry experts on Board Governance, BoardOnTrack, will be sharing their expertise on the ins and outs of recruiting, building, and managing your governance team as you grow.
Watch and 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
Download it now and get the tools to be more strategic about your school’s board governance practices!
6. Principal turnover tends to hurt student achievement — but not always.
Darlene Chambers – A national leader in education reform, Dr. Darlene Chambers is the Senior Vice President for Programs & Services at the National Charter Schools Institute, and a review alum from both 2017 and 2018.
Janet Johnson – Chief Growth Officer at Charter School Capital and internal teacher/ inspiration officer herself (though she’s too humble to admit it), Janet is a review alum since 2017.
Amanda List – Amanda is a principal of AList Consulting and served as Texas Charter School Association’s first director of advocacy. Amanda has extensive state government affairs and public charter school experience including strong ties to the Texas Capitol and the Texas Education Agency. We welcome Amanda as a first time review panelist for the 2019 Dewey Awards.
