Charter School Events Archives

As the saying goes, “if you’re not growing, you’re dying…” Learn the challenges and best practices for charter school growth on our webinar next week Tuesday 4/5 at 9:00 a.m. PDT, featuring Sandro Lanni, CEO of CSMC and Stuart Ellis, CEO of Charter School Capital.

Register today!

Speakers:

Stuart Ellis, President & 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 billion in support of 500+ charter schools educating more than 500,000 students across the country.

Sandro Lanni, CEO, CSMC
Sandro Lanni became involved in the charter school movement in 1997 with writing a charter petition as a committed parent, and ultimately opening a charter school in Temecula, Ca. Mr. Lanni served on its Board of Directors for 4 years. Based on the need he saw at this school, Sandro started CSMC in 2000 to provide complete back office services to charter developers and schools.

What you will learn:

Best practices for growth and replication
Funding options specific to your growth stage
Lessons learned from charter school leaders

REGISTER TODAY!

We’re having a party and you’re invited! Our team is heading to the California Charter Schools Conference in Long Beach next week and we’ve teamed up with Kevin Carroll for an evening of catalytic conversation and cocktails. You can RSVP here!
Tuesday, March 15 from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. in The Empire Ballroom at The Sky Room. 40 S. Locust Street in Long Beach just a few steps away from the convention center.

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.Tonight Kevin will be helping us launch a program series for charter leaders to focus on four key themes – Storytelling, PLAY Matters!, Delivering/Enabling the Unexpected, and Got GRIT?!

Join us as we journey through these themes and learn more about how we will capture and embody these themes throughout 2016.

RSVP

When:
Tuesday, March 15
6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

Where:
The Empire Ballroom at The Sky Room

40 S. Locust Ave
Long Beach, CA 90802
(One Block from the Convention Center)

Charter schools face multiple challenges from Year 0 inception in establishing the school and a different set of challenges once in operation through their growth. What are the charter school growth strategies that will help your school succeed? What are your plans for charter school replication? How do the challenges faced by charter leaders change as they expand?

Join us for a webinar focused on charter school growth strategies. We’ll feature the challenges schools face during various phases from start-up, expansion through to a mature school as well as highlight best practices schools use to achieve success.

REGISTER TODAY!

Speakers:

Marshall Emerson, Co-founder & CEO, I CAN SCHOOLS
Marshall the Co-founder and CEO of I CAN Schools, overseeing seven charters and more than 2,000 students. I CAN began in 2010 and the schools have been one of the country’s most successful charter school concepts in closing the achievement gap for low-income students.

What you will learn:

Best practices for growth and replication
Funding options specific to your growth stage
Lessons learned from charter school leaders

Planning to boost student enrollment? Looking at classroom improvements and upgrades? Want to maintain control over your school facilities?
Join us for an informative webinar that will feature facilities options for charter schools.
Tuesday, October 6, 9:00 a.m. PST / 12:00 p.m. EST
REGISTER TODAY!
Finding and securing state-of-the-art facilities and financing is a challenge charter school leaders face. Learn about the various options and how to evaluate what is best for your school.
We will cover:
– Funding structure and options available
– Pros and cons to various financing
– Balancing needs versus wants for your facility
– Facing budget realities
– Facilities planning best practices
Speaker:
Stuart Ellis, President & CEO, Charter School Capital
REGISTER NOW.

Join us on Wednesday, February 18th at 9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 p.m. Eastern for our webinar, “Building a Growth Strategy: Start-up, Growth, Maturity.”

We will cover a variety of challenges charter schools face at each stage of growth. Our speakers will outline stages of growth from start-up to expansion to maturity and highlight the challenges schools experience at each stage. Our panel of experts will offer best practices from their experiences.

REGISTER TODAY!

Speakers:

Marshall Emerson, CEO, I CAN Schools
Marshall is co-founder of I CAN Schools, overseeing seven charters and more than 2,400 students. I CAN began in 2010 and the schools have been one of the country’s most successful charter school concepts in closing the achievement gap for low-income students.
Stuart Ellis, President & CEO, Charter School Capital
Stuart is co-founder of Charter Schools Capital, the nation’s leading provider of growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. The company has provided in excess of $800 million in support of more than 450 charter schools educating 450,000 students.

You’ll learn:

Best practices for growth and replication
Funding options specific to your growth stage
Lessons learned from charter school leaders

What attendees have said:

A similar presentation was held at the 2014 National Charter Schools Conference to a standing-room only audience and was rated as a top 10 session out of 200 offered. Below is feedback received from attendees:
“It was beneficial to hear other school leaders explain how they overcame the same challenges that my school is currently facing.”
“Once I understood the different stages, I could see that our school was in expansion stage, but our organization was still making start-up stage decisions.”

REGISTER TODAY!

We are so excited to learn that Mosaica Education was selected as the highest performing Education Management Organization (EMO) in Ohio, out of 41 organizations. This honor comes on the heels of Columbus Preparatory Academy, a Mosaica school, receiving a 2014 National Blue Ribbon designation by the U.S. Department of Eduaction. Columbus Preparatory Academy was recognized in the category of Exemplary High Performing Schools.
The ranking was published by Beacon Journal in a report that analyzed the overall performance of all EMOs in Ohio.
Mosaica Education is a valued partner of Charter School Capital, and has previously won awards for Columbus Preparatory Academy and Lorain Preparatory Academy. They operate over 100 schools worldwide, including 17 schools in Ohio, serving a total of 3,774 Ohio students.
“The staff at the Mosaica schools in Ohio are tremendously dedicated to building high performing academies, and that’s evidenced by the remarkable growth of the schools and academic achievements of the students,” said Cris Worrel, Charter School Capital Client Services Representative for Ohio. “We look forward to many more successful years as partners to Mosaica Education.”

Welcome to Charter School Capital’s weekly round-up where we feature charter school news about operations, policy, funding for charter schools, charter school facilities financing, and other trends.
It’s officially the first week of fall, and with school back in full-swing we’ve compiled a few updates including one from California and Florida. Tell us your thoughts and leave a comment.

Tell Your Students: CA State Board of Education is Looking for a Student Member

The California State Board of Education (SBE) is looking fora public high school senior to serve as a Student Board Member. Does your charter school have a student who might be a candidate?
From the application page: “Any student who is a California resident and enrolled in a public high school, will be a senior in good standing in the 2015–16 school year, and will be available to attend a statewide student leader conference November 11-14, 2014 in Sacramento, is eligible to apply.”
For more information, including the 2015–16 Student SBE Member application, please visit the SBE Student Member Application Web page, or contact the SBE by email at sbe@cde.ca.gov or by telephone at 916-319-0691.
Applications must be received by the SBE by 5:00 p.m., Monday, October 20, 2014

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Join Charter School Capital for a Webinar on Charter School Facilities Financing

We’re excited to be partnering with Procopio to lead a discussion on various charter school faciltiies options.
Presented by our president and CEO, Stuart Ellis, and Chip Eady, a lawyer with Procopio who specializes in education facilities and land development, this webinar will cover various financing options and best practices for facilities planning.

If you’d like to register, we recommend doing so as soon as possible, as we only have a few seats left, and registration closes on Monday, September 29th.

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Florida Board of Education Adopting New Charter School Contract

When the Florida Board of Education meets in Tampa at the end of September, they will be moving forward with adopting a standard charter school contract.
According to an article in the Tampa Bay Times, “The recommended new rule makes clear that the standard contract would serve as the basis for an initial draft contract. Both charter applicants and districts would be allowed to modify the document, but would have to indicate clearly how they changed it and why.”
If Florida adopts the standard contract, it would go into effect in November 2014.

If there’s one thing we know at Charter School Capital, it’s charter school growth strategies.
We’ve supported charter school expansions, strategized about new locations, and created charter school funding opportunities. Not only has our team been able to support high-quality and accessible education for every student, but each school has given us incredible insight into what works, and what doesn’t.
In fact, charter school growth is one of our favorite topics to discuss with charter schools and leaders. That’s why we were excited when asked to participate in a webinar for the Florida Consortium of Public Charter Schools (FCPCS).
We’ve been providing working and growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools in Florida for nearly two years, and the demand from charter schools continues to grow. There’s currently 623 public charter schools operating in Florida with a student population of 229,233 currently enrolled in public charter schools. Click here to learn more about charter schools in Florida.
FCPCS is one of the oldest and largest charter school associations in the country. It has over 400 charter school members, and provides advocacy, support, resources, and networking opportunities to new and existing charter schools, parents and students.
Here’s the blurb from FCPCS’ website promoting the webinar: Charter School Capital will present recommendations and information on building a growth strategy for your charter school. Stuart Ellis, co-founder and CEO of Charter School Capital will explain best practices and common obstacles for charter schools during the start-up, growth and sustainability phases.
This event is only open to members of FCPCS, but we will recap the main charter school growth strategies on our blog, and you can find past presentations on similar topics on our SlideShare. Click here to download past presentations.
If you have questions about how Charter School Capital can help your school grow, or alleviate some growing pains, we’d love to hear from you.

Last week, at the National Charter School Conference in Las Vegas, we announced an innovative $500 million charter school facilities program to help charter schools nationwide address one of the charter school movement’s biggest challenges – securing facilities that meet the growing needs of charter schools. The formation of American Education Properties, LLC (AEP) brings together Charter School Capital and investment firm, American Infrastructure MLP Funds (AIM) to help solve the growing facilities needs of America’s charter schools.
The offering is unlike any other facilities financing options available on the market today. Charter schools will now be able to determine their own long-term facility needs and maintain full control of their buildings. This represents a major improvement from the year-to-year lease renewals that many charter schools currently experience. By providing long-term facilities security and an investment partner interested in charter school expansion, charter schools now have the ability to expand their enrollment and educational offerings with confidence.
What does this mean to charter schools?

Charter schools now have the opportunity to provide the best facilities to match the needs of their educational programs as well as determine long-term facility needs while maintaining full control of their buildings.
Schools will be empowered with the flexibility to make choices about what to do with their space so it best suits their faculty, staff and student community.
Charter School Capital will work with all charter schools to facilitate the origination and sourcing, underwriting, asset administration, and property management.

Charter School Capital President and CEO, Stuart Ellis, noted, “The dramatic growth of charter schools – 13 percent in 2013 alone – makes it clear that facilities financing, which is already one of the industry’s largest challenges, will become an even more pressing issue during the coming years. In 2012, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) found that more than half of charter schools would outgrow their current facilities within five years. Collaborating with AIM in the formation of American Education Properties allows us to serve a broad array of charter schools nationwide by freeing-up resources that schools are then able to allocate to classroom instruction or other operational needs.”
The news has charter school advocates celebrating. “Nearly one million students nationwide are on charter school waiting lists. Charter school educators are eager to meet that demand. Fortunately, Charter School Capital has stepped up and created a solution to help parents,” states Caprice Young, President, Education Growth Group and founder and former CEO of the California Charter Schools Association. “These resources will open doors like never before! Public charter schools are now able to expand, offer new programs and customize their space to create the learning environment that best matches student needs.”
Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools added, ” By providing charter schools security in their facilities, this effort helps lift a burden many schools face and will enable schools to focus, as they should, on their students and their academic results. School administrators will be better able to direct their scarce resources and time toward educating students rather than worrying about real estate needs.”
“We are pleased to be partnering with Charter School Capital on this important initiative,” said Bob Hellman, CEO of the American Infrastructure MLP Funds. “Our goal is to help solve America’s infrastructure needs with innovative capital solutions, and we believe that charter schools represent a critical and growing piece of this infrastructure puzzle. We look forward to working with schools and communities in need of secure, long-term facilities to provide the resources to help them continue to grow and thrive.”
Since we made this charter school facilities announcement, the availability of funds has been mentioned in several news media including the Portland Business Journal and Reuters.
What are your facility challenges? Has the inability to secure the right type of facilities impacted your charter school’s ability to enroll and educate more students in your community? Share your experiences with us below or email our team at GrowCharters@charterschoolcapital.com.

Charter school leaders are today’s entrepreneurs and education innovators. With more than 6,500 charter schools supporting 2.5 million students today, the power of charter school education thrives. Yet more than one million students remain on charter school wait lists across the country. Why? Lack of financial resources is cited most often as the reason many charter schools don’t succeed as charter schools don’t have the same access to capital as traditional school districts. On behalf of the Charter School Capital team, we’re proud to provide funding and services to support charter schools and the educational opportunities they afford students. We commend all charter school edupreneurs during National Charter Schools Week. These charter school leaders are making amazing things happen in education today. Please join us as we celebrate all charter schools, their mission and the leaders who drive education innovation across America.
– Stuart Ellis, President & CEO, Charter School Capital