Charter School Capital is proud to support National School Choice Week this week (and every week) by providing working and growth capital, charter school facilities financing and other resources to help charter leaders be successful. But don’t take our word for it! Hear from the charter leaders about how we’ve provided funding to help educate students.
To join the conversation with Charter School Capital, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Have a great #schoolchoice week!
Category: Charter School Events
National School Choice Week (NSCW) is here! Held every January, NSCW shines a spotlight on effective education options for every child across the United States.
Last year, the week boasted the largest series of education-related events in US history, including more than 16,000 events and 227 governors, mayors and county leaders with the goal of raising public awareness of all types of education options for children – including, of course, charter schools. NSCW is also hosting live broadcasts throughout the week, where you can keep up with activities across the country.
Join the conversation with Charter School Capital, as we share stories and quotes about school choice on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Follow all the school choice week festivities, events and conversation using the #schoolchoice and #SCW hashtags.
We would also love to hear what you’re doing to celebrate the week. Leave us a comment below. Have a great #schoolchoice week!
Still time to register!
Finding and securing state-of-the-art facilities and financing is one of the biggest challenges facing charter school leaders this year. Learn about the various options and how to evaluate what is best for your school.
Join our President and CEO, Stuart Ellis, and the Senior Vice President of Dougherty & Company, Dick Ward, on Wednesday, November 30th from 9-10 a.m. PDT / 12-1 p.m. EDT for an exclusive webinar:
How Should Charter Leaders Approach Facilities Financing Options?
Attendees will learn:
- Funding structures and options available
- Pros and cons to various financing options
- Balancing needs versus wants for your facility
- Facing budget realities
- Facilities planning best practices
Featured Speakers:
Dick Ward, Senior Vice President, Dougherty & Company
Dick Ward has 27 years experience in bond issuance and finance as an investment banker and financial advisor to schools, governments, non-profits, and developers. His experience includes tax supported and revenue based financings for education, housing, municipal utilities, and specialized project financing. In the last 15+ years, he has helped pioneer access to the bond market for the national public charter school sector. His underwriting of the Community of Peace Academy is considered one of the first tax-exempt bonds in the country. He is regarded as a national leader in this arena and has presented on the topic to the National Federation of Municipal Analysts, Bond Buyer Seminars as well as several state and local trade associations.
Stuart Ellis, President and CEO, Charter School Capital
Stuart is the Co-founder and CEO of Charter School Capital, the nation’s leading provider of growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. The company has provided in excess of $1.2 billion in support of 500+ charter schools educating more than 550,000 students across the country. Stuart has presented around the country on growth strategies for charter schools and facilities options to aid charters in their growth.
Register Here!
What’s the latest in digital marketing today for charter schools? How are you using digital marketing to benefit your student engagement and enrollment?
Join us for an informative webinar featuring a high level overview of the digital marketing landscape and what key platforms and programs charter leaders should be paying attention to. We will also talk about what types of programs will help in brand awareness, community engagement and student enrollment.
Register today!
Facing key challenges in operating your charter school? Want to hear what other charter leaders are doing to aid in their school operations? Join us to discuss growth strategies for charter schools on Tuesday, October 4th at 9:30 a.m. PST/12:30 p.m. EST.
Our session will focus on the three core areas of growth – start-up, expansion and maturity – and what the key challenges and best practices are at each stage of growth. Learn how to work through operational issues, expanding teachers and staff, upgrading programs and technology, facilities options, and funding for charter schools.
Register
Featured Speakers:
Kendell Walton, Founder & President of Walton Business Management Solutions
Kendell Walton has a decade of experience helping companies with financial management in both the private and non-profit sectors. Kendell became involved in the charter school movement in 2010, and has worked with charter schools across multiple states, providing financial advice, budgeting supervision, and overseeing operational and facilities acquisition efforts.
Stuart Ellis, President & CEO, Charter School Capital
Stuart is the President and CEO of Charter School Capital, the nation’s leading provider of growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. The company has provided in excess of $1.2 billion in support of 500+ charter schools educating more than 550,000 students across the country.
Register Today
What you will learn:
- Best practices for growth and replication
- Funding options specific to your growth stage
- Lessons learned from charter school leaders
More than 300 charter leaders attended the Ohio Auditor of State‘s first Charter School Summit in Columbus, Ohio, last week (August 11-12). There were two days of workshops and keynote addresses from thought leaders on charter school funding, best practices, changes in the state laws, and other training topics.
Featured keynotes came from Ohio State Auditor Dave Yost, Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone, Mike Feinberg of the KIPP Foundation, Dr. Steve Perry of the Capital Preparatory Magnet School, and Paolo DeMaria, the new Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction. The two-day summit provided options for charter school funding and facilities financing, compliance training around Ohio’s charter school laws, record keeping and enrollment best practices, teacher development and retention, cultivating public-private partnerships, and charter school board governance.
Charter School Capital’s own VP of Business Development/Facilities Jon Dahlberg was the panel session, The Challenges and Opportunities of Facility Expansion, presented Thursday morning. Moderated by Dr. Darlene Chambers, Senior Vice President for Programs and Services at the National Charter School Institute, the panel will also include Tom Babb of Constellation Schools, Brian Schneiderman of Self-Help and John Zitzner of Friends of Breakthrough Schools. The panel discussed the availability of charter school funding for facilities expansion and compared the benefits of leasing versus purchasing facilities, tenant improvements.
You can recap the event, watch speaker videos and see photos provided by the Ohio Auditor of State’s office.
We thank the Ohio Auditor of State’s team for inviting us to participate in their first event!
Have you ever wondered if play matters in today’s education?
We did too and so we decided to partner with Kevin Carroll to bring charter leaders, advocates and students a free YouTube Live series designed exclusively for charter schools. We will begin our exploration with four key themes that impact charter schools, education and the classroom – Play Matters!, Storytelling, Delivering the Unexpected, and Got Grit?!. Kevin is an author, speaker, mentor, and an agent for social change. He has inspired organizations and individuals — from CEOs and employees of Fortune 500 companies to school children — to embrace the spirit of play and creativity to maximize their human potential and sustain meaningful growth.
Join us this Wednesday, May 18th at 9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 p.m. Eastern as we kick-off this journey with PLAY Matters! and learn more about how we will capture and embody this theme throughout 2016. Check out a preview of Kevin’s talk and register below.
RSVP using the form below. The YouTube Live event is 100% free and will available across any device — PC, tablet or smartphone. Bring a friend or your entire team! We look forward to seeing you there.
Register to Attend the Webinar
On Tuesday, May 3rd, thousands of charter school advocates flocked to their state’s capitals to encourage legislative support and action for the charter school movement. Known across the country as Charter School Advocacy Day, this nationally coordinated effort empowers students, teachers, parents, and administrators to share their stories of charter school successes directly with state government officials.
In California, where 581,000 students attend 1,228 public schools, nearly 500 charter school supporters met with state representatives and state senators to reiterate the need for school choice, praise supportive officials, and advocate for continued expansion of the state’s substantial charter school program. Throughout the day, a bipartisan group of state officials spoke to charter school advocates, praising the innovation charter schools bring to the education space, as well as the advances charter schools have made in bringing a quality education to students from all backgrounds.
“It’s great to see the Capitol full of charter school advocates,” said Branche Jones, a charter advocate in California. “As they visit legislative offices they really enforce the importance of school choice and options while letting legislators know the benefits that they are providing for their constituents.”
Meanwhile in Ohio, where nearly 125,000 students attend charters, more than 400 families gathered at the state capital in Columbus for a series of inspirational speeches from state legislators on the steps of the Statehouse. Ohio Senate President Keith Faber encouraged everyone to keep pressing for school choice, “…remember to tell your legislator that parents know what learning environment is best for their children.”
Inside the Statehouse in Columbus, the Ohio House of Representatives passed a resolution recognizing National Charter Schools Week, reading in part, “Through the efforts of educators and administrators, Ohio’s charter schools have made significant contributions to improving the quality of life in our society.”
This resolution echoed similar resolutions of praise across the country, including official proclamations from President Barack Obama and Texas Governor Greg Abbott recognizing National Charter Schools Week.
Charter School Capital is proud to support National Charter Schools Week and Charter School Advocacy Day. With more than 1 million students still on wait lists for charter schools, every effort to educate, advocate, and advance the charter school movement is essential to making sure all children in this country have access to the highest-quality education.
Visit the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools site for more information on National Charter Schools Week.
The White HouseOffice of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
April 29, 2016
Presidential Proclamation — National Charter Schools Week, 2016
NATIONAL CHARTER SCHOOLS WEEK, 2016
– – – – – – –
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
Our Nation has always been guided by the belief that all young people should be free to dream as big and boldly as they want, and that with hard work and determination, they can turn their dreams into realities. Schools help us uphold this ideal by offering a place for children to grow, learn, and thrive. During National Charter Schools Week, we celebrate the role of high-quality public charter schools in helping to ensure students are prepared and able to seize their piece of the American dream, and we honor the dedicated professionals across America who make this calling their life’s work by serving in charter schools.
Charter schools play an important role in our country’s education system. Supporting some of our Nation’s underserved communities, they can ignite imagination and nourish the minds of America’s young people while finding new ways of educating them and equipping them with the knowledge they need to succeed. With the flexibility to develop new methods for educating our youth, and to develop remedies that could help underperforming schools, these innovative and autonomous public schools often offer lessons that can be applied in other institutions of learning across our country, including in traditional public schools. We also must ensure our charter schools, like all our schools, are of high quality and are held accountable — when a charter school does not meet high standards, we need to act in the best interest of its students to help it improve, and if that does not prove possible, to close its doors.
Charter schools have been at the forefront of innovation and have found different ways of engaging students in their high school years — including by providing personalized instruction, leveraging technology, and giving students greater access to rigorous coursework and college-level courses. Over the past 7 years, my Administration’s commitment of resources to the growth of charter schools has enabled a significant expansion of educational opportunity, enabling tens of thousands of children to attend high-quality public charter schools. I am committed to ensuring all of our Nation’s students have the tools and skills they need to get ahead, and that begins with ensuring they are able to attend an effective school and obtain an excellent education.
Educating every American student and ensuring they graduate from high school prepared for college and beyond is a national priority. This week, we honor the educators working in public charter schools across our Nation who, each day, give of themselves to provide children a fair shot at the American dream, and we recommit to the basic promise that all our daughters and sons — regardless of background or circumstance — should be able to make of their lives what they will.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 1 through May 7, 2016, as National Charter Schools Week. I commend our Nation’s charter schools, teachers, and administrators, and I call on States and communities to support high-quality public schools, including charter schools, and the students they serve.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand sixteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fortieth.
BARACK OBAMA
It’s National Charter Schools Week! Join Charter School Capital as we celebrate the nearly 3 million public charter school students along with all the teachers, administrators and staff across 42 states plus the District of Columbia. The growth of the charter movement during the past 25 years, since the first charter law implemented in Minnesota, has been incredible, from nearly 2,000 students attending public charter schools in 2000-2001 school year to almost 7,000 enrolled this school year.
There are many ways you too can celebrate charter schools this week. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools offers a host of tools you can access, including infographics, detailed one-sheets around the myths and facts about charters, to templates for press releases your school can use now. There’s also a big showing across social media – #CharterSchoolsWeek! You can access social avatars and other social icons from the National Alliance as well. Easy to download and then use across your own social pages in celebration of National Charter Schools Week. Show your support and engage.
“Though (public charter schools) only account for roughly 7% of public schools in the United States, they make up 1/3 of the top 100 schools in both the U.S. News and Washington Post lists.” ~ Nina Rees, CEO, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (Charter Schools Stack Up Well, U.S. News & World Report)
The team at Charter School Capital is celebrating and honoring public charter schools this week. Check out our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Slideshare, and other social pages for ongoing posts, quotes, infographics, and more. Tell us what you think about charter schools.
Check back to our blog and social pages this week for more around National Charter Schools Week. If you haven’t signed up yet for our blog RSS or to get regular information from our team, sign up today!