Charter schools are public schools that operate independently from the district school system. This structure gives schools more freedom in terms of curricula, programs, focus, and mission. The first charter school opened up in the Midwest in the 1990s.

There have been significant developments since then. Currently, there are 7,427 charter schools in the United States.

Charter schools are usually started by education champions, mavericks seeking to make a difference. These public schools are vetted to ensure that their curriculum and their funding are adequate. Charter schools are tuition-free, and they can set their own curricula. While funding for charter schools in Arizona does come from the State, it is often not commensurate to the funding of district schools. This creates a challenge for those who seek to fund the growth of an Arizona charter school.

History of Charter Schools in Arizona

Arizona was the tenth state to adopt charter schools. Charter school law was enacted in June 1994. It soon became known as the strongest charter law in the country.

After a recommendation from their neighboring state of Colorado, Arizona legislators created the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools to oversee these schools. There are more than 560 charter schools in Arizona today.

Areas of Focus for Charter Schools in Arizona

Charter schools do best when they have a specific focus. Arizona has a rich tradition of agriculture, so it’s no surprise that a network of schools focuses on agri-business. Students at the Arizona Agribusiness and Equine Center graduate with up to 17 college credits under their belts.

Some Arizona schools focus on the Arts – such as the Metropolitan Arts Institute, the New School for the Arts and Academics, and the Arizona School for the Arts.

Some schools focus on accelerated learning – such as the Mohave Accelerated Schools and the American Leadership Academy.

Some schools have a high percentage of students below the state poverty line. These schools function as community hubs, with meal plans for the students and other services that bolster families in their zone of influence.

Challenges for Growing a Charter School in Arizona

While the number of successful charter schools in Arizona keeps increasing, there are certainly challenges to growing a charter school in Arizona. Some of the biggest challenges are:

Finances

Many charter schools face financial struggles. Sometimes a school expands too quickly or embarks on too audacious a growth plan, and the finances of this growth cause cash flow problems. Sometimes the business plan has flaws that materialize only once the school is in operation. Keeping a charter school viable requires a strong combination of good governance and sound financial planning.

Working together with a financial partner such as Charter School Capital allows a charter school to navigate a temporary lag in funding, an unplanned financial emergency, or an ambitious growth plan.

Enrollment

To attract a steady flow of new students, an Arizona charter school needs to establish itself in the local community and be known. This requires good word-of-mouth, combined with strategic initiatives to promote the school – both at the grassroots level (what we call the “ground game”) and through digital marketing campaigns.

COVID-19 Pandemic

One of the leading causes of enrollment challenges in the past year has been the coronavirus pandemic. Many schools in Arizona moved over to a virtual teaching model to overcome the health crisis. This caused a strain on school resources. Depending on available infrastructure and skill level, some schools adapted quicker than others. Some of the financial strain was softened by the advent of ESSER funds (COVID-19 relief funds for schools). However, as the Delta variant disrupts in-person teaching, once again, schools are feeling the pressure.

Starting a School in Arizona

The process of starting a charter school in Arizona is similar to that of other states. However, a key difference is the length of time it may take. As we count all the planning, charter application, finding a building, and recruiting teaching staff, it will take a minimum of two years for a charter school.

1. Plan and Write Your Charter Application

This is the very first item for anyone looking to open an Arizona charter school. Planning and writing the charter school application allows the Board of Education to see precisely what your charter school will do, their curriculum, and your mission as an organization. This is usually helpful to give people an idea of how they can find a facility and the staff needed for their organization.

2. Find a Facility and Finalize Your Educational Plan

Finding a facility is also essential and clarifies that your charter school has a place to operate. This is what many of the board members will want to see, and they will be able to promote your school more if you are more prepared.

You will also have to finalize your educational plan, including the educational philosophy, the target population, and the course offerings. This will be the bulk of your application. (This document is currently 88 pages long – so allow ample time to fill it out.)

3. Submit the Application by June

Arizona is strict about its charter school applications. If you want to open your charter school in 2024, you must submit your application before June 2022. This allows the board to check your information and plan and see if you can be approved by December. Then, you have eight months to prepare and make your charter school plans a reality.

Growing Your Charter School in Arizona

Here are some of the ways that you can grow your charter school in your local community:

Market yourself to the local community online and offline.
Use social media where you can for digital marketing.
Use ads and promotional events to spread the word and get support early.
Create a website to help your parents and community see the value of your charter school.

While you can do most of this yourself, another approach is to outsource initiatives such as creating a website and digital marketing to a trusted partner. Charter School Capital has a team of professional marketers devoted to offering this service to charter schools

Do You See Yourself as an Arizona School Leader?

Charter schools help families have a wider choice on where their children can pursue their education. Creating a charter school in Arizona takes more work than in other states, but you can expect more stability once your school is off the ground than in most states.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can assist you with creating your charter school and what you will need to be approved with the first application.

During my time as interim CEO of a five-campus charter school, my team spent a lot of time talking about the communities we served and the stakeholders in those communities. Each school serves a specific community, and each community has a unique set of needs, desires, goals and challenges. Over time, we developed a needs assessment framework.

So, what exactly is a needs assessment? It’s is a systematic approach to understanding the nature and needs of your community. I’ll go over the three key recommended steps in a needs assessment, as well as some of the pitfalls to avoid and how to bring it all together.

Identify and Engage the Stakeholders

A good place to start is to establish the nature of your community and its segments. Of course, we can think of your school and its immediate neighborhood. For many charter schools, this may be the case. We have some schools that work with us that have students commute 30, 40 minutes by car. For those schools, community means something more than geographic proximity.

Your community is composed of your students, their parents, loving guardians and any adults actively invested in the lives of these students, and community members. The internal segment of your community is composed of the teachers and staff, the school leadership and the board. Another segment of your community would be the authorizers. The owner of your school building is definitely a stakeholder.
[CallOutBox bgcolor=”orange”]A needs assessment is a systematic approach to understanding the nature and needs of your community.[/CallOutBox]

If you have any partnerships or collaborations with other institutions or organizations, they are your stakeholders as well. Some STEM-focused charter schools have partnerships with the local university. West Hawaii Explorations Academy works closely with the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Atlantis Charter School in Fall River, Massachusetts, has built a unique coalition of universities, businesses, financial and philanthropic institutions, and other community groups. Through this coalition, the charter school students have access to the Berklee College of Music in Boston and TJ’s Music, a real recording studio in Fall River. Atlantis students have access to a curriculum that mirrors what’s taught to Berklee first-year students. Through another partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), students have access to the university’s Integrated Design Management (IDM) lab. Programs such as these create a pipeline for students into STEM and the Arts.

Several charter schools work closely with local Boys and Girls Clubs. In San Marcos, TX, both the San Marcos Charter School and the Texas Preparatory Schools have implemented BGC programs.

What I aim to do with these examples is twofold. On one side, I’m hoping to lead you towards making as exhaustive a list of stakeholders as possible, leaving no stakeholder behind. On the other, I want you to think ahead and identify – based on your school’s mission, direction, and goals – the relationships you might want to establish in the future.

Determine What Questions to Ask

In previous posts, I’ve written about your WHY (the reason you’re doing what you’re doing, the vision you have for your school) and about growth. Both of these should guide this exercise. Your WHY should be accurately reflected in your Mission Statement. Your growth plan should be a topic in your board meetings and your conversations with school leadership. Keep both of these in mind, and think of the questions these inspire.

Some examples of questions to consider:

What values/principles do they associate with this community?
In their eyes, what are the key issues facing the community?
In their eyes, what are the ways in which your charter school can forward those values/principles?
In their eyes, what are the ways in which your charter school could help resolve the key issues affecting the community?
What are their key expectations, and their hopes, in terms of your relationship with this school?
In their eyes, what current aspect of your school do they hold dear? What elements and programs of your charter school drew them to the school?
In their eyes, what current aspect of your school needs bolstering or improving?

Resource Mapping

Resource mapping is the process of identifying internal and external supports and services that can help you accomplish a set of goals.[CallOutBox bgcolor=”orange”]Some resources will inevitably prove more fragile or less reliable than anticipated through this process. At the same time, you might have some welcome surprises. [/CallOutBox]

As you speak with or survey the various stakeholders, you should keep resource mapping in mind. Find out which stakeholder can help in what capacity. Find out what tools, assets, materials, programs, facilities, etc., they have which might be a resource to your school. What people are available, what skills can they leverage? What’s their time availability, and what are their expectations? (recognition, prestige, compensation, etc.) In the examples above, resource mapping led to those relationships with universities, local businesses and local nonprofits.

Resource mapping can show you:

Additional resources available to do more of what you’re already doing
New resources that can help you accomplish the same things in a more efficient manner.
New resources that can empower you to provide additional solutions to community needs.

Resource mapping has to be followed by active and strategic resource management. This is where the rubber truly meets the road. Do keep in mind that some resources will inevitably prove more fragile or less reliable than anticipated through this process. At the same time, you might have some welcome surprises with people or assets who prove a lot more valuable than you expected.

Pitfalls to Avoid

Not casting a wide enough net

One example of that, with a charter school, would be to forget to include authorizers. Or to leave out board members. The board members are ultimately responsible for the effective running of your school. They should always be included at the early stages of planning.

In a community where grandparents or extended family play an important participatory role in the life of the student, these family members should be included as stakeholders.

The students themselves are definitely key stakeholders and can also prove valuable resources. Students can be activated to create a GSA or a No Bullying campaign. Students can help organize fundraisers and do prep work for school events. Students can voice their needs, which may impact decisions about facilities, lunch menus, musical instruments, field trips or even new pilot programs to consider.

Another key aspect of this is that people who have been invited to be part of a process are much more likely to contribute, and people who have been excluded from a process are most likely to find fault and complain.

Not listening to snippets

Feedback and input won’t always arrive through formalized channels. The offhand comment a parent makes as they’re picking up their student, the suggestion another parent voices from their car during dropoff, the observation a teacher makes at lunch – all of these are snippets that can point to a serious problem or a surprising solution.

One potential practice would be to write quick emails to yourself, with the word “snippet” at the beginning of the subject line. Then, every so often, search for the keyword “snippet” in your emails, and look for trends and patterns in these snippets.

Missing the emotional component

As people share their thoughts, ideas and feedback with you, they are less likely to share the emotional context behind these thoughts. It’s a good idea to look for the underlying emotional triggers. An expression that comes to mind is, “if the problem was the problem, there would be no problem.” What this means is, if people knew and expressed what’s bothering them, the solutions might be immediately evident.

In listening to stakeholders, it helps to imagine yourself as part detective and part therapist – looking for ‘the things behind the things.’

Not understanding social structures

It can be disheartening to spend energy and time coordinating with one individual or group, only to find that they’re not the true decision-makers. To make plans based on assurances from one source, only to learn they’re not empowered to give such assurances. In identifying stakeholders AND in resource mapping, you’ll want to chart the relationships and structures among these. This will lead you to fruitful conversations with the right people.

Not recognizing external influences in your community

I recently worked with a school that did an exceptional job of identifying their stakeholders and making sure to ask the right questions, and getting solid information. What they missed was that a whole segment of their student body were family members of transient military personnel. When 10% of their student body left the school as a result of relocation over the summer, the school had to scramble to bring enrollment back to its baseline.

In our present situation, the COVID-19 pandemic is very much one such external pressure that is playing havoc with our plans. School leaders should stay nimble and adaptable, and have a Plan B and even Plan C ready.

Cohesiveness: Bringing it all together

Once you follow all of these steps, you’ll have a sizable volume of information. The task that remains is to sort through it, organize it, and most of all, sort out the conflicts.

You might find one segment of your community loves the idea of dropping the focus on language immersion in favor of an accelerated learning initiative. Meanwhile, another segment may become downright disaffected with the school if the language focus is dropped. Issues of heritage, ethnicity and tradition may make this especially emotional. Moving forward with the change without thoroughly addressing these concerns could spell doom for a school.

Conflicts and misalignments can be resolved through meaningful conversations with stakeholders to understand their motives and drivers better. Sometimes conflicts can be resolved by finding “the third solution.” Instead of A or B, there may be a C solution that accommodates both needs.

You don’t have to please everyone. Prioritize and decide what aligns best with your WHY, along with what contributes to the growth and sustainability of your school. Then, communicate, communicate, communicate. People react best to change when they’re given plenty of information about the reason for a change, the scope of the change, and its expected impact.

A needs assessment and resource mapping exercise does not dictate what you should do next. It provides key information toward that – but your next moves need not be reactive. Armed with all the information, you can move to the next stage, strategic planning.

When charter schools focus on enrollment marketing, quite often, the focus is on digital initiatives. Google Ads campaigns. Facebook advertising to drive enrollment. Email marketing efforts. A revamp of the website. And more.

All of these are excellent ways to drive enrollment (and we deliver all of these as part of our pay-for-performance enrollment marketing solutions). But often, school leaders underestimate the importance of analog efforts – what I call “the ground game.”

A charter school’s ground game consists of the strategies and initiatives the charter school leader may implement at the local level. These are “old school” promotional efforts, networking, and just plain getting to know folks.

Three key initiatives can bring amazing results and help fill the waitlist at a charter school. (These are initiatives that I’ve implemented myself, back in the day when I was the interim CEO of a multi-campus charter school organization.) I share them below.

Tour of the School (Weekly)

Tours allow parents to come in and see for themselves what your school is all about. Parents want to experience what you have that is interesting or unique, they want to see your classrooms and see the grounds, and they want to meet the staff and get a sense of to what degree the ‘vibe’ of the school aligns with their culture and their vision for their child’s education.

It’s important to note that I’m not saying that the CEO or Principal of the school needs to commit to this charter school tour weekly. Tours can be delegated to staff members or even volunteers.

While informal, the tour should be pre-planned and scripted to decide the topics you want to be included strategically, the key talking points to float up, the main areas of the school that you would like to showcase. Did your school get new equipment? Was the cafeteria recently upgraded? Did you add elements to the playground? Is there something unique or interesting in your class layout or materials that you’d like to highlight? Write these points down and have a printout that volunteers giving the tour can use as a guide.

Note that school tours should continue year-round regardless of when school is in session or not.

I encourage you to prominently display how to sign up for this weekly tour on your website, Facebook page, and other promotional materials.

“Back to School” Evening Session (Weekly)

This should be a presentation delivered by a member of school leadership. It can happen at the campus or a meeting place off-grounds – it doesn’t have to be at the school. Make sure the chairs are comfortable for adults and ensure ample seating to allow for all who attend.

This presentation should be about an hour. Ideally, it would include a PowerPoint-like slideshow. Along with being visually pleasing, a presentation will provide a ‘cheatsheet’ for the presenter to follow to avoid getting lost (Although be careful that the presenter doesn’t just parrot the words on the slides! The slides should just be a guide.). Here is a great TEDx talk on delivering strong presentations.

Coffee with the CEO (Monthly)

Promote a once-monthly event to meet the leadership of the school. Events could be “Pie with the Principal,” or it can include any other member of school leadership – perhaps on a rotating schedule. The important point is that parents get to sit down with you or a member of school leadership and get their questions answered.

Events are also an excellent opportunity to create a support system for the school. You’ll have a chance to find highly engaged parents and turn them into volunteers. A parent can then help you with Instagram, another can help with flyer distribution, another can help with the school tour. You can also create a team that will help lobby for charter school acceptance when proposed bills threaten charter schools.

Show up to these events fully engaged – with patience, empathy. Quite often, the most vocal parents, and one might even say annoying, turn into the school’s strongest supporters if allowed to participate and have their voices heard.

Many of the successful schools I’ve counseled in my role as VP of Business Consulting here at Charter School Capital have mentioned parent and caregiver engagement as a key element of their growth and success. Listening to parent input, tailoring the school’s offerings to what parents articulate as needs, showing them that their voices matter, all of this counts.

There are other components of a school’s “ground game.” You can network with the leaders of the local Boys’n’Girls Club, and you can make your facilities available for town events (when feasible and appropriate).

Over the past year, many charter schools became hubs for distributing COVID-19 tests, vaccines, and even food. While this should never be done strictly for promotional purposes, this kind of engagement with the community positions a school as a reliable resource and a positive presence in the community.

By all means, continue your email marketing initiatives, your website upgrades, and your social media efforts as well.

How to Keep from Being Overwhelmed

The key to avoid being overwhelmed is delegation. Finding trusted volunteers for activities such as the school tour and the Back-to-School night will take a load off your shoulders.

In the same vein, you can entrust your enrollment marketing efforts to us. Our pay-for-performance model makes the decision completely stress-free. We only get paid for delivered results. We can help with logo design, an upgraded website, paid advertising on Google Ads and Facebook, and a lot more. Reach out today to learn more!

Whether you’re an educator, a passionate community member, or an entrepreneur looking to make a positive impact, starting a charter school can offer a unique opportunity to provide a nourishing learning environment to kids. In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the essential steps of how to grow and fund a charter school in the state of North Carolina.

The History of Charter Schools in North Carolina

According to the NC Association of Public Charter Schools, North Carolina first enacted charter school law in 1996.

The purpose of the North Carolina charter school movement was as follows:

Improve student learning
Increase learning opportunities for all students, with special emphasis on expanded learning experiences for students who are identified as at risk of academic failure or academically gifted
Encourage the use of different and innovative teaching methods
Create new professional opportunities for teachers, including the opportunities to be responsible for the learning program at the school site
Provide parents and students with expanded choices in the types of educational opportunities that are available within the public school system
Hold the schools established under this part accountable for meeting measurable student achievement results, and provide the schools with a method to change from rule-based to performance-based accountability systems.

A year after the birth of the North Carolina charter school movement, there were 27 charter schools. Charter schools in North Carolina experienced a setback that year: An amendment to the charter school laws gave local boards of education a say in new charter school proposals in their district. Still, by 2001 the state had reached its 100-charter school cap. At that point, the Charter School Advisory Board advised raising the cap by 10% each year. In 2011, the 100-school cap was removed.

North Carolina charter schools tend to have a specific educational area of focus. Schools are focusing on gifted students, athletics, military children, virtual teaching, and more.

Two points of controversy have long existed about charter schools in North Carolina: One of them, fueled largely by a 2006 study by Robert Bifulco and Helen Ladd, which reported that charter schools underperformed compared to district schools. Charter school leaders in North Carolina countered that charter schools tend to serve at-risk students, which explains the difference in test scores. The other concern has been racial imbalance: Since over one-third of all North Carolina charter school students are Black, some critics raised concerns over a trend of resegregation. Charter school leaders dismiss that claim, again emphasizing they serve at-risk students, often in financially disadvantaged neighborhoods, and these neighborhoods have a vast Black representation.

However, the consensus is that charter schools in North Carolina tend to have smaller class sizes, fewer discipline problems, and a better all-around learning environment.

Still, with charter schools being a heated political topic, acceptance has been mixed. According to a survey conducted by Reach NC Voices in 2019, 38% of North Carolinians support charter schools, 52% oppose them, and 10% neither support nor oppose them.

According to data from the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), there are 211 charter schools in North Carolina as of 2024.

According to a recent report article from EdNC, charter school enrollment in North Carolina increased 19% from 2019 to 2022—the fifth highest growth rate in the nation. Demand for charter schools has increased. According to self-reported DPI data, 85% of NC charter schools had a waitlist in 2022, meaning 77,000 were waiting for spots.

However, the consensus is that charter schools in North Carolina tend to have smaller class sizes, fewer discipline problems, and a better all-around learning environment.

Starting a school in North Carolina

Step 1: Research

Gather data on existing charter schools, public schools, and private schools in the region. This information will guide your planning and help you determine the viability of your charter school idea.

Step 2: Develop a Solid Business Plan

Outline your school’s mission, educational philosophy, and goals. Define your target student demographics and the unique approach you will take to meet their needs. Additionally, include detailed financial projections, outlining anticipated expenses and potential revenue sources. Your business plan will not only help you secure funding but also serve as a roadmap for the school’s growth and development.

Step 3: Navigate North Carolina’s Charter Application Process

In North Carolina, establishing a charter school requires approval from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI). Familiarize yourself with the state’s charter school application process. Be prepared to demonstrate how your school will fulfill a demand that existing public schools may not be meeting.

NC Charter School Application Process

The NC Charter School application can be found on DPI’s website. Charter school applications used to be reviewed by the Charter School Advisory Board, which recommended to the State Board of Education which ones should be approved or denied.

Following recent legislation, it is now the Charter School Review Board (CSRB). According to EdNC, here is how membership for the new Board will be appointed:

The state superintendent, as secretary and nonvoting of the review board.
Eight members appointed by the leaders of the House and the Senate (four each).
Two members appointed by the State Board of Education who are not current members of the Board and who are charter school advocates in North Carolina.
The lieutenant governor or the lieutenant governor’s designee.

Step 4: Secure Funding

Funding is a critical aspect of launching and sustaining a charter school. North Carolina offers various funding sources, including state and federal grants, private donations, and fundraising efforts. Explore available funding opportunities and craft a compelling case for financial support based on your business plan’s projections and the unique value your charter school brings to the community.

North Carolina’s 211 charter schools receive $1 billion in state funding, DPI Chief Financial Officer Alexis Schauss said during a recent presentation to lawmakers on charter school funding.

Like traditional public schools, charter schools receive funding across several buckets, Schauss said. These include:

State: Base allocations and restricted state funds administered through DPI.
Local (county) current expense
Federal: Grants administered through DPI
Capital financing
Enterprise funds, like through the National School Lunch Program, and before and after school programs
Other local funds

Step 5: Build a Supportive Team

Assembling a strong and dedicated team and board is essential to the success of your charter school. Recruit qualified educators and administrators who align with your school’s mission and share your passion for education. Collaborate with community members, parents, and local organizations to garner support and build a network of advocates for your school.

Step 6: Prepare for School Opening

Once your charter is approved and funding secured, prepare for the exciting journey of opening your school! Focus on enrollment marketing and finding a school building that serves your mission.

With the right planning and a commitment to educational excellence, your charter school can positively impact the lives of countless students and families in North Carolina.

Need support?

We’re here to help! We can get you the money, resources, and know-how to create a thriving school. Get started here.

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Interested in starting a charter school in New York? Read on for some of the history of charter schools in New York, the unique challenges you might face, and the step-by-step plan to begin your charter school journey.

History of Charter Schools in New York

New York became the 34th state to welcome charter schools in 1998, after the passing of the New York Charter Schools Act. In 1999, two charter schools in New York City and one in Albany opened their doors to students. When the law was first enacted, there was a limit of 100 charter new schools and no limit on the number of public schools that could convert to charter schools. Since then, the cap at 100 charter schools has increased to 460. In the 2020-2021 school year, New York charter schools served over 150,000 students. In a state where approximately two in ten children live in poverty, public charter schools are believed to be students’ best shot at making a better future for themselves. Still, charter school success doesn’t come without a fair share of challenges.

Challenges for Charter Schools in New York State

If you’re interested in starting a charter school in New York, you’ll want to be prepared to address these common challenges:

Finding school facilities. Securing school buildings is a costly task for charter schools, and in New York City especially, the number of adequate, affordable buildings is slim. Moreover, securing the proper facilities takes time and money—two resources charter schools often lack.
Lengthy application processes. The application process is rigorous and requires ample planning and details that deter some charter school startups from even starting. Applicants are expected to have educational, organizational, and financial plans in order when applying to authorizers. Charter school startups should also have evidence to prove that the founding group can operate the school effectively.
Lack of resources. Although charter schools are publicly funded, they often receive less funding compared to traditional public schools. Running a charter just like any other school requires funding to provide students with an adequate education. Charter schools in New York are left with no choice but to find federal or foundational grants.

Authorizers of Charter Schools in New York

Authorizers are in charge of approving charter school applications, providing oversight of approved schools, evaluating school’s charter renewal applications, and updating the public with each school’s progress, according to SUNY Charter School Institute. Before you begin the process to start a charter school in New York, you’ll want to know which authorizer you’d like to apply through. New York has three authorizers:

The State Education Department (NYSED)
The State University of New York (SUNY)
The NYC Department of Education

Each authorizer has its specific application process and timeline, so it’s essential to decide which one you want to work with early.

Steps for Starting a Charter School in New York

Are you ready to start your own charter school in New York? If the answer is yes, here’s how you can get started:

Decide which authorizer you and your team would like to work with on your school. Remember, there are three different authorizers in New York. Do your research to find the right fit.
Submit a Letter of Intent to the authorizer of your choice. Authorizers will put forth a Request for Proposals (RFP), and you must respond with your letter of intent. Then, if approved, they’ll invite you back to submit a thorough proposal.
Complete the Capacity interview. Capacity interviews allow authorizers to “ask clarifying questions” to the founding group about their application. If you nail that, you’re one step away from getting approval.
Receive approval from a Board of Regents. Once your charter has been issued, you’re free to start implementing your next steps, such as hiring and opening enrollment.

Examples of Successful Charter Schools in New York

Charter schools in New York aim to reach and educate students in innovative ways that ensure academic success, and many of the state’s charter schools are performing off the charts. Learn more about some of the successful charter schools in New York:

Success Academy Charter Schools (New York, NY) have certainly lived up to its name. The charter school network operates 45 schools in New York City, and 20 of their schools ranked on a list of 30 highest-performing elementary schools in the state for the 2018-2019 school year.
The Charter School of Educational Excellence (Yonkers, NY) has seen continued success. Test scores reveal that CSEE students outperform traditional public school students on ELA and math exams. The charter school is doing so well that it’s in the process of expanding its campus and adding a high school.
The Equality High School (Bronx, NY) highly focuses on academic achievement for its students who predominantly enter the school with low math and reading proficiency. Even with those headwinds, ECS brings its students up to proficiency by their senior year, and the school has an overall graduation rate of 85 percent.

Ensuring Long-Term Success for Your Charter School in New York

Operating a successful charter school calls for preparedness. Here are the best practices observed at high-performing charter schools in the country:

Create a mission statement that embodies academic success. The best charter schools have a clear mission statement that emphasizes academic success and personal development for students. Your mission statement should be easy to follow and understand.
Integrate the mission across school programming. Thriving charter schools don’t only have excellent mission statements, but they embody them. To be an effective charter school, the mission must be implemented in the school’s curriculum, its hiring practices, and more.
Encourage a supportive environment at the school. Meet each student where they are and create systems to help get students back on track. Successful charter schools cultivate a community around caring for their students.
Engage parents and caregivers in the students’ education. Partnering with parents to develop education strategies and be involved in their child’s overall school experience has proved to be a best practice for many successful charter schools. Students with involved parents are more likely to have higher grades and test scores, regardless of a student’s income or background.
Invest in enrollment marketing. Launch social media campaigns, email newsletters, and digital ads to reach your future students. Successful charter schools need successful students, so prioritize your enrollment marketing.

Finding a Building for your New York Charter School

You’ve got your mission statement and everything else to start your charter school, but what about your building? Finding facilities for New York charter schools is a complex, costly task, and funding charter schools in New York can be a challenge. However, New York has passed state law to provide some relief for unhoused charter schools.

In New York City, charter schools often share buildings with other non-charter public schools or are given free public buildings to use. But charter schools have to request rental assistance from the Department of Education when facilities aren’t available. Relying on rental aid isn’t the first option for most charter schools, so securing proper funding is essential for charter school startups. Providing facilities financing is one of our areas of expertise.

Do You See Yourself as a New York Charter School Leader?

Starting and operating a charter school in New York can be challenging and can also be extremely rewarding. However, once you make it past the initial startup hurdle, you can create a brighter and more innovative future for thousands of students.

Get the chance to make a difference in students’ lives by starting your charter school in New York.

Free Download: The Charter School Growth Guide: Grow Your School at Every Stage

Whether you’re just beginning the process of starting up a charter school, looking to expand, or trying to prioritize your next steps, this guide is for you.

You’ll find advice from experienced charter school leaders who deeply understand the unique terrain of charter school growth—they have been where you are now. You’ll get tips for you and your team on developing a strong charter, building culture and community support, and boosting your financing and practices to support your growth.

Do you remember why you started your school?

What was the compelling purpose or the unavoidable calling that led you to this work? What did you envision when you started talking about it? When you assembled your team? When you pitched the idea to other educators?

Do you remember yet?

You might remember this vividly. You might have it front-and-center in your mind.

Or maybe too much time has elapsed. Perhaps your school evolved, and your current vision for your school is a much sharper beacon. Maybe a pandemic and a drastic shift in educational format reshaped your vision. Perhaps external factors such as gentrification in the community your school serves forced adjustments or internal factors forced your school to refocus and adapt.

Maybe the current direction of your school, and your school’s current offerings, no longer reflect the original Why.

Often Your Why is Captured in Your Mission Statement

When you drafted your charter, you wrote your school’s mission statement. Many organizations, from small businesses to non-profits, engage in such an exercise at their inception. For some, it’s a profoundly heartfelt ritual. For others, it’s a necessary exercise to appease the gods of bureaucracy. Some see this moment as a time of deep reflection, while some may see it as one more checkbox in their journey.

Some leaders post the mission statement in a prominent place and discuss it with their staff regularly. Other leaders may put it in their charter, and seldom if ever, think about it again. Some leaders give it to their marketing person to put up on their website, then get busy grooving along, and get busy with the mundane details, the weight of responsibility, the logistics, and the day-to-day.

Your Why Matters

Your mission statement matters. One key reason is that it informs the public about your school’s focus. It tells parents and other stakeholders what to expect as they choose to send their children to your school. More importantly, it helps parents and other stakeholders decide if they want to send the students to your school, if your school is the right fit, or if your school is an effort they want to support.

But another key reason is that it informs you and your team about your school’s focus. It guides your actions and tells you what you want your school to become.

Time and Changes

This can be a little bit tricky for charter schools because what happens is here you are. You’ve started this great school. You’ve made this great application, and students are pouring in. The staff is really excited to be here working at a charter school with that mission. Parents are excited. Students may or may not be excited because they may or may not even understand it. But the families understand the mission.

Then suddenly, you start noticing that your recruiting might trickle down a little bit or that some of your founding families aren’t as satisfied with the school as they were in the beginning.

I often recommend that schools go back and look at their mission statement and make sure they still provide the same mission. And, if you’re not using the mission as your guide, you can decide whether you want to recommit to that mission or want to pivot away and create a new mission.

Recommit or Pivot?

There are internal and external reasons for a pivot. One external challenge is gentrification. Suppose a school opens in an underprivileged area. They have a mission to serve a particular demographic. Then investments in real estate, new businesses, a new shopping center, or some new development begin to change public sentiment and perception. A different demographic begins to move into the neighborhood, prices go up, and the original population is displaced.

Often schools in gentrifying neighborhoods have written a mission, for example, that says that they will serve a specific population of students. And then they find that because of gentrification, their target students are no longer in that area. At that point, school leaders need to decide if they recommit to the mission, move the school to an adjacent neighborhood closer to their intended demographic, or work on somehow attracting the students located outside their immediate community.
Internal challenges also provide opportunities to pivot.

Several years ago, I became aware of a school where a specific foreign language was a crucial part of its mission and reason for the formation of the school. For the first few years of the school’s existence, it provided a specific foreign language program, and that program made the school attractive to their community.

Then, the school experienced solid testing results, and it was doing a great job with its curriculum. Parents outside its immediate community noticed and enrollment grew. But the language program became less critical to the school’s new population, and so the school gradually decreased its focus on that language. Unfortunately, many of the founding families were disappointed and angered by that shift. The school had to decide if it would recommit to that foreign language program or pivot to something different.

Sadly, for that school, it didn’t do either. They just left the mission statement as it was, with the promise of a language they no longer delivered. Over a few years, the school lost enrollment, went out of business, and became yet another example of why a school’s mission is so critical to the curriculum it leverages and the community it serves.

Altruism and Practicality

There’s another aspect to this. In trying to decide whether you should pivot to a new mission or recommit to your existing mission statement, you should regularly consider the extent to which the mission serves the entire community and yourself.
For example, your mission might be incredibly generous, but it may not serve the population you need to serve. There needs to be some balance to your mission statement to fulfill both the pragmatic and altruistic sides. You must consider the business piece of it because there may be a reason that you need to be in a specific area to serve your mission, but other students might be coming along with those students. Depending on your circumstances, there may be other balances to strike, different tradeoffs to consider. Tradeoffs between the part of your mission that guides your heart and the part of your mission that allows your school to be strong and flourish.

Creating a mission statement, just like determining your why is not always a simple one-direction line. You have to take in all of the competing thoughts and ideas and develop a genuinely powerful, well-rounded mission statement that fully reflects your Why.

What are your thoughts on this? Have you encountered these challenges? Share your comments with us!

After a full year of mid-pandemic learning, a major topic among educators is bridging the education and social gap for students. As such, administrators plan to increase summer school in districts and charter schools across the country.

With the recently passed $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act and the $4.6 billion for Expanded Learning Opportunities (ELO) Grants in California, school leaders may finally have resources to support struggling students with summer programs.

According to The Washington Post:

“Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said schools need to be creative and employ a ‘sense of urgency’ to summer programming. ‘The summer learning experiences we’re talking about now really need to be better than they ever were in the past,’ he said in a call with reporters earlier this month. Cardona also said districts will need to work with local community groups and organizations such as Boys & Girls Clubs of America to create additional learning opportunities and experiences for children.”

There’s no question: the need is there. But how do charter schools cover the expense?

While schools have struggled to cover the expense of summer school sources, they may now be able to afford the program thanks to additional National and State funding options. In the American Rescue Plan, Congress set aside $1.2 billion that states, districts, and schools must use to build successful summer programs.

Beyond supporting the student needs and accessing incremental funding, there are long-term benefits for the charter schools that deploy a summer school program.

While enrollment numbers are down (by about 155,000 students) and hit record lows across the state, parents are putting off their enrollment decisions longer than ever. Summer school provides an incredible opportunity to serve the community, support students, and give an introduction to your school that – done well – will encourage that family to stay with your school long term. While parents would default to the local district school in years past, a summer school program creates the soft entry into your curriculum to show that family and those in their community what alternative options are available to their student.

According to new state projections, California traditional public schools are suffering a record enrollment drop of more than 155,000 students. That drop-off is about five times greater than California’s annual rate of enrollment decline in recent years, which boasts the largest student enrollment in the country.

As reported by California charter school leaders, the common theme driving this decline is the swell of parents who are frustrated with the way district schools are handling in-person learning. Meanwhile, agile and innovative charter schools have quickly pivoted and serve all aspects of student success during this trying time.

Parents are seemingly waiting longer to decide on educational options for their students, as they’re uncertain of what the needs will be. This is pushing back the traditional enrollment calendar we’ve seen in years past and creating a critical opportunity for charter schools on the student enrollment horizon.

Knowing charter schools can quickly and effectively pivot as needed to meet student needs (and the lift of California’s “Hold Harmless” provision stifling growth funding), California charter schools are now in an exciting position to acquire new students if they’re ready for it.

But there are three things charter schools need to communicate early and often to bring in those families:

Safety precautions in place to ensure kids and teachers are safe
Your intentions around holding in-person learning
The fact that your school has space!

If you can broadcast these components for parents now, there’s an ample opportunity for schools to grow enrollment for this year and ongoing retention in years to come. With California funding models going back to the normal cycle this year, schools will be paid for this incremental enrollment and can resume their school growth strategy.

While parents are procrastinating the decision this year to Spring or even Summer, there’s a short window here for schools to take advantage of this opportunity to introduce their charter school model to the community and support those students with an alternative education model.

Now is the perfect time to make sure you’re casting as wide a net as possible.

You can download the Digital Marketing for Charter Schools Manual here.

If you are unsure how to address this unconventional enrollment cycle, Charter School Capital has you covered. Every year we take on a small group of charter schools to support through a pay-for-performance Enrollment Marketing program.

Charter leaders can choose a program that focuses on generating awareness primarily through digital marketing or “ground game” marketing to convert applicants into enrolled students. Our enrollment marketing efforts will be customized for the school’s unique needs.

To learn more, visit the information page or contact growcharters@charterschoolcapital.com.

How many students should your school have? You’d be surprised how essential this question can become to your strategic decision-making as a charter school leader.

As the Vice President of Business Advisory Services at Charter School Capital, I often meet with school leaders to advise them on operations, fiscal decisions, governance, long-term strategy, and how to bring their vision for their school into reality. A significant part of that process is understanding a school’s growth goals. With a solid foundation in these areas, school leaders can provide sanctuary and educate their students.

Despite including a 5-year growth plan in the Charter application, I’ve found that some school leaders haven’t given much thought to their actual growth goals. In their view, they’ll start with the students they’re able to attract, then they’ll try to enroll more students, and then the school will grow organically.

While this is an understandable view, it leads to uncertainties in direction and budgeting. It can, at times, bring divisiveness and conflict to future board meetings as the growth vision remains unclear.

Some school leaders give this question a lot of thought. Even as they start their charter, they may already have a certain number in mind. Sometimes this number may be unrealistic, especially in terms of trajectory, causing worry and anxiety.

The Importance of Having A Destination

You’re probably familiar with the saying, “if you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there.” There are entire business books on the topic of goal-setting.

I talked about this with a friend, and we landed on the metaphor of going on a hike. It feels very different whether you start walking with no clear goal of where you’re heading. Suppose you set out with a clear understanding that you’re aiming for the lake, or the mountaintop, or a waterfall. You might look at it on a map or GPS and know the destination is at 6.3 miles. This impacts your hike’s length, affecting when you take breaks and when you stop over for a bite. It influences how you ration your water, how much stuff you take with you, and how you plan the rest of your day. Moreover, it influences your state of mind. If you know that this is a four-hour hike, then you’re not likely to grow despondent at the three-hour mark – you know you’re getting close.

Knowing where you’re going tends to put a spring on your step, and it can make your pace a bit faster as you may challenge yourself to reach your destination by a specific time. It can boost morale as you find yourself crossing the halfway point and as you see the milestones along your path.

“How much do I need to grow?”

School leaders ask me whether there is a student enrollment ‘sweet spot’ for charter schools and how they can know what to aim for.

In my view, every school in each state will have a ‘sweet spot’ – at least when it comes to California charter schools. When it comes to California, I call it ‘the magic 450’. This number is specific to California charter schools because California real estate is much higher than in most other areas. Additionally, Some schools in other states make more in revenue, have lower fixed costs, etc. However, you can extrapolate the premise and apply it to your state.

The magic 450

In California, it’s really about having 450 enrolled. In my opinion, that’s the magic number that enables a school to be financially comfortable and to effectively use economies of scale without constantly looking over your shoulder and figuring out what expenses you need to cut. Of course, fundraising can change the magic enrollment number to a lower number of students (should your charter cap prevent you from getting to 450.

Fixed Expenses

We know a school’s revenue is tied to students. Enrollment is your big variable driver, and to a large extent, it’s a variable driver under your control. When you’re talking about finances, the expenses break down into infrastructure and buildings and staff and supplies, and these fall into two large buckets: fixed costs and variable costs.

Your fixed costs mostly stay the same whether you have 200 students, 450 students, or 1200 students. As your enrollment increases, your fixed costs don’t move. Just your variable costs do, adding teachers, technology, food services, etc. There are expansion jumps, as in the case of moving into a larger building. But aside from these strategic expansion decisions, your fixed costs likely stay the same. My main point is that these are predictable and constant.

At 450 students, your ratio of fixed vs. variable expenses is healthy, with fixed costs becoming a smaller percentage of your budget overall. And your revenue provides for both fixed and variable costs to be nicely aligned.

In my experience, this magic number of 450 is where your enrollment brings in enough funding so that you can have enough leadership, enough administrative personnel, enough teachers in the classroom. You can focus on special programs. You can have offerings that might be different from other charter schools. You can also have a capital investment account so that one day you can build a gym, ball fields or find your school a forever home.

Starting Strong, Growing Steady

Depending on your area, the strength of your ties within your community, and the immediate demand for your school’s services, you can formulate a strategy that will work best for you.

One approach is to have that sweet spot as a goal at the very onset. The leaders of E.L.I.T.E Schools rallied the community behind their vision for a charter school in Vallejo Valley and opened with nearly 400 students.

Logistics and Planning

Knowing your enrollment goal can also help you plan in terms of facilities and resources. Your relationship with your school building can be a comfortable one, where your school building is an asset, or it can be an albatross around your neck.

Suppose that you hoped for a lot more expansion, but you didn’t engage sufficient enrollment marketing, and now you’re facing empty rooms in a building that is much too big for your current student body. This can deplete your reserves, cause you anxiety, and affect your school culture. A new but unused wing can make a school feel empty and institutional. There is a specific energy that comes with a full building.

On the flip side, suppose you did not plan for growth, and suddenly you find yourself with more students than your building can handle. Now you have to scramble to find a new building, and it can add stress to everyone involved.

Having a solid growth plan will lead to sound decisions regarding resources, facilities, and hiring.

Strategies for Growth

An excellent approach to growth is the model adopted by E.L.I.T.E. Schools. The leaders engaged the community from the start, and constantly include parents and community in their decisions. As a result, the school has a strong external team of advocates and evangelizers.

Another strong strategy is to learn, through consumer research, the specific programs that families in the area are hoping to see. It could be a specific language, or a strong STEM program, or an organic garden and education about farm-to-table, etc. Then, focusing your efforts on promoting that specific program can result in higher enrollment.

Enrollment marketing is a topic in itself. If you have the time and energy, learning about digital marketing, search engine optimization and social media engagement can prove valuable. However, many school leaders prefer to focus on education, and work with an external resource. Charter School Capital offers a pay-for-performance enrollment marketing solution that allows you to focus on your core strengths while we work to drive awareness, interest and enrollments for your school.

Every School is Unique

Of course, your school is unique. You might find that your school achieves a sustainable momentum before you get to 450 students. This will depend on your school’s specific finances and composition.

But keep pushing for that magic 450. And somewhere along that hike, you will notice that you’ve found ‘the sweet spot.’ Things will get easier. Things will feel like they’re just moving along. The feeling of climbing an incline becomes a sense of walking sure-footed down a path. And soon enough, you’ll find yourself at the mountaintop.

What do you think? What has been your own experience? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

California’s Hold Harmless provision was paved with good intentions, and we all know that sometimes the best intentions have unintended consequences.

Back in June 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order freezing funding for California schools. The new state budget extended the 2019-2020 attendance levels and base per-pupil funding rates to 2020-2021. This “Hold Harmless” measure, intended to safeguard California schools from predicted declining enrollment due to the pandemic, had an unwanted negative impact on growing schools – charter schools and district schools alike.

The Error: Not Accounting for Growth

The shortsightedness was not considering growth. Several schools had received approval to open new schools or grow their enrollment in the fall of 2020. For schools that expanded their facilities or increased enrollment, this measure cut their legs from under them, as it prevented those schools from receiving the increased funding justified by their growth. This placed many such schools under undue duress.

During the 2020 summer, four charter schools filed a lawsuit (pdf) in the California Superior Court, claiming the state’s funding formula would illegally deny payments for new students.

The Shortcomings of SB 820

As a band-aid solution, the state legislature passed Senate Bill 820. This bill allows growing schools to receive higher levels of funding proportional to their increased enrollment. However, the plaintiffs in the Atkins case raised concerns. SB 820 provides for actual or projected enrollment funding, but it only honors the lower of the two enrollment numbers. Should a charter school succeed in enrolling many more students than projected, it would have to contend with the funding shortfall.

The other significant issue with SB 820 is that the bill specifically targeted non-classroom-based schools as ineligible for receiving any growth funding in fiscal year 2021. In other words, any additional students the school onboarded would receive $0 per student, inhibiting non-classroom-based charters in high demand from serving students.

What’s Happening Now

Recently, California lifted the Hold Harmless provision for fiscal year 2022. However, many charter schools are not filing the spring enrollment count in fiscal year 2021 (P2). This would typically set the stage for a school’s final apportionment for that year and determine the funding amounts for the first half of fiscal year 2022. With schools not filing in the spring, their Advance Apportionment (generally July 2021 – January 2022) funding will be at the same level as in the previous year.

When schools file P1 in January 2022, schools will claim their new student numbers and ultimately get a true-up for their additional students (this funding will be spread through the Spring 2022 funding amounts). For growing schools, this creates a seven-month gap to navigate.

During this timeframe, schools that have grown will have to manage all the additional expenses for onboarding and growth without the funding to match from the state until February 2022. This will be the most significant financial challenge for any school growing into fiscal year 2022.

Remember, this is a timing gap, not an actual financial burden in the school’s long run. New students will add long-term value to the school by providing additional resources to deploy back into the program, benefitting the entire student population.

Additionally, since this P1 count will be the first time funding numbers are changing since fiscal year 2020, it will be the first time in three years that charter schools are finally getting appropriately funded, based on reported and validated numbers. With many students going back to school in the fall, this will likely create an undue financial hardship to expanding schools.

Aside from the practical problem of securing financing, this is likely to have a demoralizing effect on school administrators and educators – it’s like getting penalized for success.

What Can Your School Do? Our Key Four Recommendations

Grow for efficiencies
Have cash on hand
Develop a solid fiscal projection
Have a financing resource available at your disposal

Growth Is Survival

As we covered in a recent blog post by Tricia Blum, the best way to reach sustainability and add value to your students is to grow. The main reason for this is in the simple formula of fixed costs vs. variable costs. By expanding your enrollment, you’re reducing your fixed costs’ footprint, leading to more control over your school’s financial position.

Growth is a long-term strategy. Once you onboard a new student, your school’s cost will decrease over time, while the revenue will increase. This will expand your school’s long-term financial resources, enabling you to develop and deploy new programs, buy supplies, hire more teachers, etc.

The challenge for California schools is that, unless they have significant reserves, they’re likely to need some form of interim financing.

Cash on Hand

Almost more important than the annual budget is your month-to-month cash flow. If the school isn’t paid on a portion of your students until the second half of the year, will you have the capital to cover the expenses related to those students?

Most schools aim to have a cash balance of up to 60 days of cash on hand. At that level, the school could survive two months in the event revenue is interrupted. If your school doesn’t have such a reserve, you should seriously consider an established financing source (Reminder: the funding gap will return to a full 7+ months in fiscal 2022).

A Solid, Realistic Projection

In uncertain times, the more certainty, the better. Work out a solid projection of your next fiscal year (and beyond). Add a realistic forecast of revenues, all anticipated expenses, a realistic forecast of cash-flow monthly going forward, and always add a margin for incidentals.

Work with your back-office provider (BOP) or internal resource. If you don’t have someone like that, find a partner that can help you with financial planning. At Charter School Capital, we make our Business Consulting services available to each of our clients.

Send In the Cavalry: Having a Financing Resource at the Ready

Even with a reliable cash-flow forecast and known cash-on-hand, your school must have a financial backup plan. By doing so, you’re preparing your school for a potentially significant, unexpected revenue challenge with the state or another COVID-related crisis.

If you want to learn more about how to finance your school’s growth, download our growth guide or contact our team. We can help you forecast your cash flow, evaluate your school’s needs, and provide a financing backup plan that’s ready to execute in case of emergency.