When Jason Wall decided to open Young Scholars Academy, he wanted to focus on kids that everybody else had given-up on. Experienced in charter school administration, Wall and his wife decided that they needed to “put our money where our mouth was” and open a school specifically geared towards high-risk students that were struggling in public school.
“We opened Young Scholars in South Linden, Ohio which is probably the roughest area in all of Columbus,” explains Wall. “In the past six months, there have been 19 homicides within a two-mile radius of our school.”
Young Scholars started out as a very small school with only 30 students the first year. They received a Federal Startup Grant that helped them get started. As word spread about Young Scholars, the school found their enrollment nearly tripling the following year.
Despite having to staff for 80 students, Young Scholars was allotted funding based on their previous years enrollment numbers. That’s when Wall reached out to Charter School Capital.
“I truly don’t know how we would have been able to staff for that many students if it weren’t for Charter School Capital,” Wall says. “I probably would have had to come up with the money myself, or try to take some sort of outside funding that would have been far more complex and convoluted.”
Access to reliable funding has empowered Young Scholars to offer a very low teacher-to-student ratio and purchase 40 new computers for their students.
They also have adopted a unique staffing model to best serve their challenging student population; teachers are trained for months before the school term begins in order to receive in-depth training, at a considerable expense.
“A school is only as good as its teachers,” says Wall. “We’re able to have that model because we were able to get that extra cash flow from Charter School Capital.”
The school’s rigorous model, which focuses on creating individual educational “playbooks” for each student and imparting socially acceptable skills, also demands constant parental involvement and asks for rigid behavioral standards.
It’s not just educational growth that Young Scholars is tackling. Their goal is to actively engage with, and improve, their community in South Linden, including partnering with a local civic center, nearby churches, and sponsoring anti-violence events.
Wall describes the positive impact they’re having on their community. “When I pulled up the first day to hang the school sign, there were 15 gang members peddling drugs in front of the building. Since we’ve been open and having a presence in the community, they’ve taken their business elsewhere.”
Three years after opening their doors, Young Scholars has increased enrollment to 100 students. Once again they’ll be working with Charter School Capital to help finance their growth.
Category: Ohio Charter Schools
Even the most successful organizations face difficulties when expanding, and charter schools in particular face extra challenges. Public funding is determined by current, not projected, student enrollment. Advances for capital needs can be difficult to obtain from traditional banks, particularly given the often unfair reputation charter schools have as risky investments.
This is the situation that faced I CAN SCHOOLS, an ambitious charter network based in Cleveland, Ohio, which overcame charter school funding issues with help from Charter School Capital.
Founded by eight local teachers in 2010, I CAN’s first campus opened serving grades K-8. The school was an immediate success, earning a “B” rating in its first year – the first charter school in Ohio to achieve that feat. But things weren’t easy. After operating two years in “survival mode” – as school co-founder and CEO Marshall Emerson III describes it – the school’s administration realized that additional help was needed to expand. So they turned to Charter School Capital.
“Banks don’t get it sometimes. They don’t get that we’re doing good for the community,” explains Emerson. “Charter School Capital was able to assist with advice and with the financial landscape. Moreover, they have been very willing to make connections and introductions that help us.”
The industry expertise Charter School Capital provided combined with working capital funds enabled I CAN to realize several goals in a short period of time. Now, the charter school network operates seven campuses serving approximately 2,200 students across Ohio, including three new campuses in Akron, Maple Heights and Canton that just opened in Fall 2013. Emerson states that the network’s rapid growth is rooted in a desire to serve more kids, in particular low-income and minority students that are at risk of dropping out.
“Students mentally drop out in 7th grade; they just stop going to class in 12th,” says Emerson. “The better foundation we can give them, the better students do in the long-term. That’s why we’re here.”
During the next decade, I CAN has an aggressive plan continuing its expansion in Ohio, and eventually entering additional states, all in partnership with Charter School Capital.
“We’re able to speak confidently now about growth thanks to Charter School Capital,” concludes Emerson. “We were able to pay off a lot of our bills and then fund our growth. It’s been a real blessing.”
Share What School Choice Means To You
In honor of National School Choice Week (Jan. 26 – Feb. 1, 2014), Charter School Capital wants you to share what school choice means to you and your community.
Open now, the “What Does School Choice Mean to You” contest is accessible on Charter School Capital’s Facebook page. Students, parents, educators, and supporters from the community all are encouraged to share their stories about how charters and choice have impacted their families and lives. As a bonus, everyone who shares a story is automatically entered to win a free Kindle Fire HD.
School Choice has become a powerful movement during the past decade. Charter schools today are positively impacting communities across the nation – increasing educational opportunities and driving up academic performance. A 2012 study by the Florida Department of Education shows that charter school students are outperforming their traditional public school counterparts on almost all benchmarks. In California, underserved or disadvantaged students who would have been left behind in their education have now received their degrees thanks to charters focused on the goal of getting everyone to the finish line.
Freedom to choose the best educational environment for yourself or your children has never been so important. In this rapidly changing digital world, flexibility and innovation have become cornerstones to success. Charter School Capital understands that, and that is why we are proud to be the nation’s leading working capital and facilities funding source for charter schools in the U.S.
Charter School Capital funds more than 400 charter schools serving 400,000 students from California to North Carolina, Ohio to Arizona. That is why we want to hear from you. Coast-to-coast, school choice is making a positive difference in education and we want to hear those stories. Share yours with us today, and then share it with your friends.
You can share your story and enter to win the Kindle Fire HD here. (Full link below) Also, be sure to keep your eyes on the Charter School Capital blog. We’ll be taking excerpts from your stories to share with our readers. We might just share yours!
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