California Charter School LegislationCalifornia Election: Primary Results Come In

Tuesday, Californians went to the polls to vote in the ‘jungle’ primary. There were two notable results from the California primary election that will affect the charter school and education reform community. As I have stated before the races for Governor and Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) turned into proxy wars between the reform community and the traditional education establishment. Antonio Villariagosa, who was backed by heavy expenditures from the reformers, came in third in the race for Governor with 13.5% of the vote. That means he will not be in the runoff in November. That race will feature Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, who received 33.3% of the vote, against John Cox, who received 26.2% of the vote. Since California is a dark blue state, Newsom is expected to prevail in November by double digits. It remains to be seen what the charter school supporters will do now as they placed all of their efforts and hopes on Villariagosa making the run off. They spent almost $30 million on independent expenditure tv adds and mail and used some of that money to directly attack both Newsom and Cox. Their campaign efforts were a flop and left many political experts scratching their heads and questioning their strategy. What will be the next Governor’s view of charter schools and education reform is an open question, but there is no incentive for him to be supportive.
The reformers fared better in the race for SPI. In a four way race their candidate Marshall Tuck lead the way with 37.1% of the vote. The traditional education establishment’s candidate Tony Thurmond came in second with 34.3% of the vote. This sets up a November matchup between the two. Marshall will have the clear advantage because of his higher name identification, as he previously ran for SPI.
Additionally, the Democrats in the State Senate were dealt a serious blow as Senator Josh Newman was recalled for his vote in favor of higher taxes last year. This will put the Democratic two-thirds supermajority in risk in the Senate if they do not pick up an additional seat in November.

charter school resources

Charter School Resource: Toolkit for New School Development

Editor’s Note: The start-up stage includes the very first tasks required to form a charter school: hiring, launching, and running until 10 – 25% of your target enrollment has been achieved. Without a doubt, this is the most challenging and stressful stage for charter school leaders. If you’re at this stage now and you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re not alone. We found this charter school resource and hope that the toolkit we share provides helpful tips for you and your team to develop a strong charter, build culture and community support, and supports your growth.
We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational resources,  and how to support charter school growth.  We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable.


New School Development: A Toolkit for Charter Support Organizations and Charter School Founders

charter school resourcesOpening & Expanding, Operations & Compliance, Leadership, Facilities
TOOLKITS|THE NATIONAL CHARTER SCHOOL RESOURCE CENTER|10 APR, 2018
Planning & Designing, Starting a Charter School, Communications, State Reports, Educators, Charter School Family and Community, Recruitment & Retention, Opening & Expanding, Operations & Compliance, Leadership
DOWNLOAD TOOLKIT HERE
The National Charter School Resource Center (NCSRC) released a new toolkit to help Charter Support Organizations (CSOs) and charter school founders find key resources on opening a new charter school. The number of new charter schools opening each year is down in many states. Founding groups report a variety of challenges that make it more difficult to open new schools, including securing affordable and appropriate facilities and estimating enrollment or recruiting students, among many others.
In response to these challenges, the NCSRC has designed a navigational toolkit that provides a wide array of publicly available New School Design (NSD) resources from across the country. These NSD resources focus primarily on supporting founding groups during the planning and start-up phases of a charter school’s life cycle. Founding groups can use this toolkit to research CSO NSD services, find advice from charter school founders, and explore NSD resources to strengthen their understanding of what it takes to open a new charter school. This toolkit was developed with four main sources of data:

  1. Interviews with experts at state-wide CSOs that support NSD
  2. Questionnaire responses from charter school founders
  3. Reports from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
  4. Research on NSD resources

You can download the Excel spreadsheet referenced in the toolkit here.


Charter school growthThe Charter School Growth Manual
Although charter schools are champions of educational diversity, they typically face similar sets of challenges and encounter the same potential pitfalls, regardless of their focus, location, or population.
For this charter school resource guide, we turned to our wide network of charter school experts for best practices and strategies for success at every stage of maturity. All of the advice in this book comes from experienced charter school leaders who have been where you are now—they understand what you’re facing and the pitfalls to avoid.
Whether you’re just beginning the process of starting up a charter school, looking to expand, or trying to prioritize your next steps, download this guide to get expert tips and pitfalls to avoid as you grow.

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Board GovernanceCHARTER EDtalk: Board Governance- Episode 2, Featuring Darlene Chambers

In this CHARTER EDtalk, Janet Johnson, CMO at Charter School Capital, sits down with Darlene Chambers, Sr. Vice President for Programs and Services, National Charter Schools Institute and Charter School Capital President and CEO, Stuart Ellis, to discuss the importance of charter school board governance to the success of charter schools. If you missed Episode 1, find it here. Below you’ll find the video and the transcript from this episode.


Board Governance – Episode 2 transcript:
Janet Johnson (JJ): Good morning everyone and welcome to CHARTER EDtalk. We are here with our fabulous guest, Darlene Chambers, who is the Senior Vice President for the National Institute for Charter Schools, did I get that right?
Darlene Chambers (DC): Yes, you did. It’s a mouthful. But good morning. [all laugh]
JJ: … and Stewart Ellis, who is the CEO of Charter School Capital. Welcome.
Stuart Ellis (SE): It’s wonderful to be here, Janet.
JJ: Thank you. And in our CHARTER EDtalk, what we’re doing is speaking with in industry luminaries to get their perspectives on things that are facing charter school leaders. And, for this session, we are going to be talking about board governance. So, Stuart, if you’d like to kind of talk through some questions that you’ve prepared for Darlene, we’re going to talk through how boards should behave in support of their charter schools.
SE: Sounds great. Thanks.
DC: What a pleasure to be with your whole team. I want to thank you for what you do nationally to provide both facilities and finance for the charter sector. There are many that think charter schools are a risk. Perhaps they are sometimes, but you believe in them and you make sure they have the resources. So, thank you for what you do and it’s a pleasure to be with your whole team.
SE: Thank you. It’s a privilege for all of us to be working with you. As you tour the country and think about—really as an authorizer, as an educator, as a leader now in the movement nationwide—and you’ve probably looked at more schools than most people have had an opportunity to be associated with in the industry—I wonder if you could share a little bit about the recent Fordham report and analysis and thoughts that came from that (your own) about what makes, or what drives the success of one charter school versus another—and issues around board management, board governance, and leadership.
DC: Thank you. I want to give the context of what I can contribute to this talk. I think it’s optimum that we’re starting with board governance. If I had to pick an area of greatest confusion, it is who the charter is with and who the various players are. And charter school boards are the base. They are very important. They hold the charter.
As I go around the country, the institute is in 28 different states and we have 45 states that have charter school law and there’s one common denominator that can be the success or potentially the failure of a charter school and that is the base foundation—the charter school board. I am thrilled that one of my favorite entities, Fordham, is a great think tank in both Washington and they do have an office in Ohio, so I got to know them when I worked in Ohio.
It’s the first report of its kind that tries to quantify board governance. What part of board governance makes a difference in the success of the school? What helps make a high performing school, what type of board, what type of attributes? This particular study, Charter School Boards in the Nation’s Capital, just got released, and it particularly focuses on the DC Charter School Board and as it looks at it, it can take its facts and findings and take it across the country because what they found – the highlights for me –was when you have a successful charter school, you have a board that is trained, that takes a look at facts and data, meets, and is engaged and involved. And then we look at each other and go, well, we already knew that, but there’s actually data that goes with it. They contracted with the Bellwether Group to do a survey and they scientifically looked at the data to develop the report. So, thank you to Fordham. I hope there are those that read it. We already felt and knew what they said about board training is important. Engagement is incredibly number one, and that you have to get together, and you have to know what boards need to do to connect to the school and help us with its performance.
SE: When you think about coming out of the analysis by Fordham – but also your own experience – when you think about the things that boards can be or should be trained on, what are the kind of high- level subjects that a board member needs to know to be excellent at guiding the school to success?
DC: I’m not sure, Stuart, that people know that you’ve been a board member yourself. Of not one school, but I think two schools at least. And I’ve been a founding board member myself and I think one of your board assignments was as a founding board member? You’ve got to smile when you’re a founding board member because you have all the enthusiasm. Mine was a feeder school for performing arts and it just goes straight to my heart – because I believe in performing arts for children – and you start out and you’re so excited! You’re going to just slay the world and your school is going to be the very best and then you at each other and you go, what did I sign up for? And doesn’t the money just sort of fall out of the sky and we get together?
SE: Yes, it does. [all laugh]
DC: No, it doesn’t. Very quickly you learn that charter school boards are different and the same of a district traditional school board. First of all, charter school board members aren’t elected. I’m not sure why, but we volunteered … we volunteered for it. But you have some of the same duties: a duty of loyalty, duty of understanding public trust, and then you start to realize the seriousness of this is taxpayer money, that the parents are trusting that you will govern the school, you will take care of their most precious commodity (that any one of us has—their kids) and that you have an enterprise that takes understanding finance. Again, a lot of people don’t even understand that it is not academics that closes schools, whether it’s traditional district or charter, it is finance. The number one reason.
So, go figure. As a board member, I was in charge of the finance committee and had to work with the auditor once a year. And that’s one of the toughest committees and task force. So as a board member, and talking about charter school boards, I think it’s really important for us to know the difference and should be very wary of people that say  “those charter schools, they’re private, they’re not public.” And I don’t understand that because we are public. We’re a 501c3 as a board of a charter school. We report to public agencies, we use public money where every bit is public, and it takes good governance to watch over all that.
SE: As you think about the tools available to board members and to some of these schools as a public entity, what are some of the things, from an analytical standpoint around the school, either the specifics of their finances or the strengths and weaknesses of any particular school – that you think board members should be focused on or, or helping the leadership of this school drive?
DC: I think there’s a linear order of how boards should approach their work. I think number one is you come on a board, you need to know your bylaws, you need to understand what governs you, you need to understand your roles and responsibilities. And, I think what’s key in those roles and responsibilities, Stewart, is where you can get good resources, good data, and good assistance. So, the data can come in from strategic planning, setting key performance indicators, and making sure you have good metrics coming in on that data.
Do we ever get to do, do-overs? If I could do a do-over on my time in board governance, I would want to have a do-over in being more focused, not trying to just do a flurry of activity at every board meeting but having good data reports—whether it is my financials, whether it is academic measurements in the school – very important in operations. How’s the physical plan?
We had a great school leader. I just enjoyed hearing her every time she spoke, but it was always a rosy picture. It was always a story and here’s another does over. I never asked for the data that made her feel and think the way she was portraying to the board on the health of the school, the health of the operations, the health of the finance, the health of the academics, and more important—let’s go back to why charter schools are called charter schools, the health of the promise in the contract. And that’s really important data to have at your fingertips as well.
SE: What do you think drives the difference between those schools that are extremely successful, versus those that survive, versus those that fail? When I think about charter schools, whether they have the money or the capital that they need to survive and thrive. While that may be a driver of why schools often close as they run out or don’t have the money. I think about schools in these three categories: those that don’t make it at all, those that kind of get along and barely bubble up above the surface but really aren’t able to flourish. And those that really are changing the face of public education by delivering superior quality education to their communities, students, and families. What do you think drives the difference between charter schools that really flourish, those that survive, and those that just fail?
DC: Besides being a board member? I’m a recovering authorizer [all laugh] and I say that lovingly. I was very blessed to be an authorizer, which is an overseeing entity in all the states that have charter schools. It’s another common denominator that you have a public entity that holds that contract. And so, Stewart, I had to make a decision with my team. There was no, “I” at our operation as authorizers. We, I called them the magnificent seven. I had an amazing team of individuals, but we would get petitions, or we would get applications.
Can you imagine that you would have these excited people across from you and they would have great ideas? And, in this very short time period here in California (authorizers have 60 days to decide) and you get a petition –when you don’t know these people, you hear their stories and you have to make a decision whether these people are going to be successful or not. Because what I’m not okay with, and what good authorizers are not okay with are “pop-up campers” where you throw open the school door and you close it.
Because you said something very important in your question. Families and students—should we never forget that it takes a village to raise a child and that our schools are not detached from our communities. So, let’s go back to your question. So, you get the unsuccessful, barely above water’s, going down for the count. And then your very successful schools. The ones that are unsuccessful, typically are not focused, they don’t have the resources lined up, and a bit of a deer-in-the-headlights look. “I’ve got this idea. It’s going to work,” but they can’t tell you and they can’t, more importantly, tell themselves how it’s going to work.
This is my 48th year in education. And as I, as I look over those many years, I kind of smile because I would say three-fourths of those many years have been in the traditional district framework. That framework has been alive and existing for hundreds-plus years. And then charter schools are going to start out, and how are we going to have the framework to make it successful? So those are the unsuccessful ones. Great idea, no plan, no understanding of the resources.
The middle ground is they’ve got some backing, they have some resources. Typically, they may not have even asked the community if they would like their model. Typically, they could be anywhere USA and start this school, but they didn’t engage in the community, they didn’t do their market research. I make people nervous with my business background, but I think if you’re going to be in the charter sector, it’s important to have a business background because charter schools are a business as well as an educational entity.
Those middle ground folks. I’ve noticed the common thread in my experience is a detachment from the community, not understanding a connecting to their mission and vision—kind of losing their way. Also, the middle ground could be a great initial first school that should have stayed a great initial first school, but they expanded too fast, blurred the vision.
So, let me go to the successful ones in just my opinion—laser-sharp focus. Is the team connected to the community? Know their kids?  Have a board that’s bought in, and shows up, and attends, and is part of the livelihood of the school? Keeping in mind their governance is different than running it, but you have engagement from the board share all the way. And, I love going to some of the high performing schools because typically you won’t find Darlene with the school leader. You’ll find Darlene with the janitor. You’ll find me on the playground. I’ll be with the lunchroom help. And, the reason why I travel everywhere when I go to a school—because no matter who I mentioned, they can tell you the mission. They’re proud of their school. They love showing up every day. Those are the successful ones.
JJ: That’s great. And with that, I think we’ve inspired some charter leaders around the country and we’d like to do this again. So with that, we’re going to end our first discussion with Darlene and Stuart and we’re going to have another one to follow. Thanks, everybody.
SE: Thank you.
DC: Thank you. What a pleasure.


Charter School Capital is committed to the success of charter schools and has solely focused on funding charter schools since the company’s inception in 2007. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $1.6 billion in support of 600 charter schools that educate 800,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can support your charter school, contact us!

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Funding Charter School Facilities: How the Federal Government Can Help

funding charter school facilitites
Editor’s note: This post was originally published here on March, 26, 2108 by The 74 and written by Christy Wolfe, a senior policy adviser for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Finding suitable buildings and financing charter school facilities have been ongoing challenges for charter schools across our country. This article takes a look at some ways the federal government can remove some of the barriers that are contributing to this issue.
We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational resources, and how to support charter school growth. We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable.


Opinion: Charter Schools Can’t Grow If They Can’t Afford Buildings for Their Students. Some Ways the Federal Government Can Help

Charter schooling is often described in terms of the charter bargain: increased accountability in exchange for high-level autonomy. Unfortunately, in most places around the country, that bargain doesn’t include a building or funding for building expenses. Although charter schools today account for 7 percent of K-12 public school enrollment nationwide — more than 3.2 million students in more than 7,000 charter schools — and in some localities, charters educate 50 percent of the students, districts generally have a monopoly over public school buildings. Meanwhile, charter school operators must rely on a patchwork of solutions to access space and cover their operating costs.
Consequently, school facilities are one of the biggest obstacles to expanding charter school options. Given that charter schools are public schools, and the federal government plays a key role in providing funds to startup charters, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has examined how federal programs and the public sector can assist charter schools with their funding and financing needs in a new paper, Strengthening Federal Investments in Charter School Facilities. Some key findings:
Inequitable access:  Charter schools face steeper challenges in acquiring facilities than do district schools, which typically own or control their facilities and can issue tax-exempt bonds to support new construction or renovations. Districts pay back these bonds with taxpayer funds out of their capital budgets, independent of their schools’ operating budgets. Some states also provide direct operating and construction financing to districts. And, districts usually maintain large inventories of school buildings that can be renovated to accommodate growing enrollments.
Higher costs: Charter schools, despite being public schools, lack the options available to districts for accessing buildings and financing new ones. When a charter school wants to open or expand, it is generally on its own to find appropriate space. And once a charter school has a building, most states do not provide per-pupil funding to cover operating expenses. Charter schools may not raise taxes. They lack an inventory of buildings, and in many states and localities, districts refuse to allow them to purchase or lease existing school buildings even when they are vacant or underutilized. Depending on how well-established a school is and its geographic location, it may or may not be able access federal assistance to reduce the costs of acquiring capital.
Because of these two barriers, there is a shortage of facilities for charter schools, especially for those serving students in our nation’s poorest communities. Consequently, they must operate in any space they can find; frequently, these are expensive and suboptimal, such as storefronts and commercial buildings that lack libraries and outdoor space.
This deficiency in the public infrastructure for education is having a significant impact on the education choices for millions of parents and children. But the federal government can help to remove this significant barrier to school choice and charter school growth through two key strategies:
● Leverage federal funds to incentivize state support for charter school facilities and access public buildings. Policies assisting charters can be encouraged through an improved and better-funded State Facilities Incentive Grant Program. Other funds, such as new infrastructure spending, could be tied to state charter school facilities policies and equitable access to public buildings.
● Reduce the cost of acquiring capital to access charter school buildings. Existing federal initiatives, such as the Credit Enhancement for Charter Schools Facilities Program and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Community Facilities Grant Program, can be strengthened and better funded to meet the needs of more charter schools. Additionally, creation of new charter school-focused instruments could encourage private investment, similar to tax-credit bond programs or New Markets Tax Credits. Without intervention, the market will not respond to the needs of charter schools to make capital affordable.
A silver policy bullet that can fix charter school access to facilities doesn’t exist, especially at the federal level. Reforms like those above can equalize that access, enhancing what is already working well and creating new, efficient programs to ensure that all charter schools — including those that are higher-risk — are able to access financing to meet the demands of today’s and tomorrow’s students.



The Ultimate Guide to Charter School Facility Financing:
Thinking about a new facility for your charter school or enhancing your current one? This guide shares straightforward and actionable advice on facilities planning, financing options, getting approved, choosing a partner, and much more! Download it here.

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charter school authorizers

Elements of Successful Charter School Authorizing

Editor’s note: This post on charter school authorizing was originally published on February 27, 2108, by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and written by Kevin Hesla, the Director of Research and Evaluation at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. In an earlier CHARTER EDtalk with Darlene Chambers Sr. Vice President for Programs and Services, National Charter Schools Institute, we discussed the importance of balance as it pertains to the authorizer/charter school relationship. This is another interesting look at the role of authorizers as examined in the newest NACSA study, Elements of Successful Charter School Authorizing. It not only highlights the essential qualities of successful authorizing as shared in this post but also the essential practices – in four key areas – of successful charter school authorizing.
We think it’s vital to keep tabs on the pulse of all things related to charter schools, including informational resources,  and how to support charter school growth.  We hope you find this—and any other article we curate—both interesting and valuable.


Strong, thoughtful, and visionary authorizers and authorizing practices are absolutely essential to the continued growth and health of the charter school movement – a movement which aims to provide expanded opportunities to millions of students while also positively reshaping the larger public education landscape. Based on recent national surveys, 16 to 17 percent of parents would choose a charter school for their child if location and capacity were not an issue – indicating that the potential number of charter school students in the U.S. is between 8 and 8.5 million. While parent demand for charter schools remains strong, supply growth has increasing been constrained by several factors, including: facilities access, the talent pipeline (including founding groups, school leaders, and teachers), overall funding and funding equity, authorizer capacity, union and political opposition, and limitations in state laws (including caps on charter growth).
Amidst this environment, the National Alliance, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), and various stakeholders at the national, state, and local levels, are committed to working together to remove these barriers to growth. That is what makes NACSA’s new report on the successful elements of charter school authorizing so important and timely. The best authorizers view their role as supporting school success and not as that of “compliance cop.” As charter school demand continues to exceed supply – the role of strong and visionary authorizers in providing systemic leadership, setting expectations, supporting schools, and helping developing groups overcome obstacles – is more important than ever.
Over the past several years, NACSA convened a panel of researchers and advisors to collaboratively investigate the perspectives and practices of high-performing authorizers compared with a sample of authorizers achieving moderate outcomes. As a result of this research, NACSA identified a list of “practices and [qualities] that appear similar and different across these two groups of authorizers.” These qualities and practices are highly correlated with success; however, the report notes that “additional research is needed to establish casual relationships between authorizer practices and outcomes.”
NACSA found that “while successful authorizers are grounded [in] smart systems and tools, they are [also] empowered to make the best decisions for children through great leadership, institutional commitment, and strong professional judgment.”

Essential Qualities:

Great Leadership: “Great authorizers are dedicated to a mission of giving more children access to better schools through the proactive creation and replication of high-quality charter schools and the closure of academically low-performing ones.”
Institutional Commitment: “Great authorizers reflect their institution’s commitment to quality authorizing. Authorizing is visible, championed, and adequately resourced, rather than buried in a bureaucracy. The people responsible for day-to-day authorizing functions have influence over decision making.”
Professional Judgement: “Great authorizers make decisions based on what will drive student outcomes, not based on checking boxes or personal beliefs.”
Along with these three essential qualities, NACSA also looked at essential practices among four key areas: culture, staff development, and norms; the application and pre-opening process; monitoring and intervention; and charter school renewal, expansion, and closure. Among these four topic areas, NACSA found a number of practices that differentiate strong authorizers from average authorizers.

“our nation’s strongest authorizers create environments where charter schools thrive [and they] help charter schools live up to their fullest potential.”

Essential Practices:

Culture, Staff Development, and Norms.
High-performing authorizers developed a culture and staff competencies that were grounded in their mission of providing expanded educational opportunities to students and families. They used data as a tool to help drive decision making, but they also applied their professional judgement in interpreting the data and understanding its limitations. They created a culture where staff felt empowered to make decisions and were not “bound by protocols, templates, or other authorizing tools that limit decision making.” High-performing authorizers built strong and supportive relationships with their schools while also drawing a “very clear line between providing support and direction.” They frequently sought out new and best practices from other authorizers (and at times other sectors) and modified them to fit their organizational context. They created an environment with structured and regular opportunities for “staff reflection and self-critique on practices and systems.” They had a “history of long-tenured senior leadership, including multiple long-tenured executive directors.” And they spent a great deal of time developing their staff, including cross-training on other authorizing functions and developing “explicit strategies to ensure a shared understanding of, and expertise in, quality authorizing.”
Application and Pre-Opening Process.
High-performing authorizers were transparent in their decision-making process, they often encouraged denied applicants to reapply, and they supported schools in the pre-opening process. They provided applicants and the public with “detailed information about the application process including timelines, evaluation criteria, [and] previously submitted and reviewed applications.” They looked at the application holistically while also ensuring that “all parts of the application [were] internally coherent and reinforcing.” They assessed geographic and community need while being careful not to “specify a preference for specific types of schools.” They used the approved application as a detailed blueprint for the opening and operation of the school. Unlike in other areas of the authorizing practice, high-performing authorizers were “very hands on (sometimes quite intensively) in the pre-opening process” and they used the pre-opening process to “build relationships, set expectations, and provide technical assistance to schools.” In addition, they reviewed their application process after each cycle to improve its efficiency and validity.
Monitoring and Intervention.
High-performing authorizers conducted ongoing monitoring that was clearly aligned with the expectations laid out in the charter contract, they did not ask for data that they could easily obtain from public sources, and they used professional judgement in determining if interventions were necessary. High-performing authorizers provided formal and informal feedback to schools so that there was consistency and clarity about where schools stood relative to their expectations. They used “formal site visits to collect information about schools [and] facilitate difficult conversations with schools when needed.” They used a transparent, regular, and predictable system to collect data from schools and they did not ask schools for data that they could easily obtain from public sources. In addition, they used their professional judgement to determine if interventions were necessary and, if so, the specific nature of the intervention.
Renewal, Expansion, and Closure.
High-performing authorizers provided clear information about whether or not schools were meeting expectations, they provided incentives for replication and expansion, and they took an active role when a school was closed. High-performing authorizers regularly communicated with schools and alerted them to any potential underperformance or concerns long before formal decision were made about renewal, expansion, or closure. They did not approve replication and expansion plans automatically but they did provide incentives for replication and/or expansion by, for example, reducing per-student oversight fees, expediting the application process, and providing access to facilities. In addition, they took an active role when a school was closed by finding a replacement operator and/or ensuring that students had access to other schools.
The report notes that “authorizing is, ultimately, an intensely human endeavor. Like all bureaucratic functions, authorizing certainly must be grounded in good laws and policies, sound principles and standards, and—day-to-day—smart processes, rubrics, and benchmarks.” But NACSA points out that the best authorizers take a much more proactive approach to their work, specifically “our nation’s strongest authorizers create environments where charter schools thrive [and they] help charter schools live up to their fullest potential.”


We’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on this topic. Please leave them below.
Charter School Capital is committed to the success of charter schools and has solely focused on funding charter schools since the company’s inception in 2007. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $1.6 billion in support of 600 charter schools that educate 800,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can help your charter school, contact us!

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CHARTER EDtalk: California Charter School Facilities

In this CHARTER EDtalk, Janet Johnson, CMO at Charter School Capital, sits down with Branché Jones, Lobbyist with the Branché Jones Lobbying Firm and Charter School Capital’s Co-Founder, President and CEO, Stuart Ellis, to discuss California charter school facilities. More specifically, they discuss the effects of Proposition 39 and SB740 on how charter schools are able to access funds for their facilities as well as how state-driven programs or laws contribute to the dynamics between the authorizers and the schools. See the video and the transcript below.


Transcript:

Janet Johnson (JJ): Hello and welcome to this edition of CHARTER EDtalk. Today we are speaking with Branché Jones, who is a California lobbyists and consultant who served for seven years as VP of Governmental Affairs for the California Charter School Association. And, we are speaking with Stewart Ellis, CEO of Charter School Capital. We’re going to be talking a little bit about facilities today and board governance.
Stuart Ellis (SE): Branché, given all of your expertise and the experience you’ve had impacting charter schools and education in California, tell us a little about – from your perspective – what an authorizer in that role has to do with charter schools and their facilities.
Branché Jones (BJ): In California, we have a unique situation where charter schools are actually authorized by their competition because the charter school is going to try to educate and work with the same students that the school district serves, so it’s a unique model that we have in the state. Under Proposition 39, the authorizer is obligated to provide facilities to the charter school for kids that would otherwise go to the school, the traditional school, so there’s a burden to authorize the school, but also the tension that develops because you have to provide facilities for those kids who actually left your traditional schools to go through a charter school. So, it’s a unique situation that creates a lot of tension between the authorizer and charter school.
SE: How does that tension reveal itself between authorizing and overseeing a charter versus providing or supporting the school for their facilities? What kind of problems arise between the district and the charter school?
BJ: Well, in a different time and place, I was actually a lobbyist for San Francisco Unified School district, and I worked for a superintendent. In that capacity, one of the things the district does is create a facility master plan. So, they look at all the buildings they have, facilities they have, where they are, which ones they need close, which ones they need to renovate, which ones that you have to spend dollars to maintain. So, they’ve got a whole list of things they do. The charter school comes and basically opens up in a part of town—there may be a closed school there—it may impact the district in another way. It’s hard for the district to figure out where the charter school fits in because they haven’t prepared for it in their facility master plan.
Additionally, one of the things that districts do – that we find problematic – is they will provide the charter school multiple sites. So, they’ll give you 60 seats over here, the room for 100 students three blocks away, and another building a mile away. Under that scenario, they have met their Prop 39 obligation, but it becomes impossible or nearly impossible for the charter school to utilize all those facilities. Although some of our folks are very, very creative and they find a way to utilize the facilities. But those are some of the issues that arise between the authorizer and the charter school facilities.
SE: You mention Proposition 39 and how it impacts the way the districts and charters work together. Talk a little bit about how SB740 or other state-driven programs or laws contribute to those dynamics either between the authorizer and the school and how that fits into the picture.
BJ: Specifically, on SB740, that actually assists the district and assists the charter school because it provides money for facilities. So, the charter school doesn’t have to go to the district. They can rent or lease somewhere else. And actually, if they meet the requirements of SB740, they receive funding for their students. The flip side of SB740, which no one talks about—it was a two-pronged approach. One side was to provide facilities for charter schools in low-income neighborhoods. That’s where it started. But the other side was actually to create regulations around non-classroom-based charter schools. So that side of SB740 has non-classroom-based charter schools filing funding determinations with the state and the state will determine how long they’re funding. It can be up to five years and what percentage they’re funded at. And so, the best thing you’d come out with is five-year funding termination with a hundred percent funding. So that’s a problem with SB740 because no one likes that side. The state doesn’t like to go through the process and charters hate going through this process because there are different bars and percentages you have to make. It becomes pretty complicated.
But you know, when, when we started out, I want to say maybe 15 years ago, maybe 17 years ago, SB740 was $7.7 million for the whole state for charter school facilities. My good friend, former superintended Jack O’Connell, was part of putting that together and helping us get facility money. Be we grew it to nine and then we worked with the speaker of the assembly at the time, president of the state Senate to grow the pot to out a $120 million. So now it’s an excess of $100 million to provide money for charters school facilities. So that actually helps, takes a burden off the district and it allows a charter school to actually be able to plan, enter into a long-term lease, figure out how these costs are going to be met from a school site level.
SE: How much money is available to charters on a per-student basis? How does that translate down at the level of the individual school that qualifies for SB740?
BJ: To be honest with you, I don’t have the number right now. I don’t remember what it is per student. It was $750 per student, they’ve changed the formula. We’re going through a budget process right now and they’re changing the formula. And the governor wants to get it up to $1,100, and I think the legislature wants to be around $900. So, I’m assuming that it’ll be somewhere around $900 this year.
SE: And the funding determination that you mentioned for a non-site-based charter learning models or whatever, do they have access to the same kind of dollar figure and dollar amount if maxed out?
BJ: They don’t because they’re non-classroom based, so they don’t have facility costs that the traditional classroom-based charter school has.
SE: So those other aspects of the laws don’t give them access to the same money. It just creates limitations on the per-student funding level they have.
BJ: It can create limitations. It doesn’t give them access to the SB740 pot. It can create limitations if they don’t spend, I think it’s 80 percent of their money on instructional materials and 40 percent of their money on certificated employees. So, there’s a whole process that the department of education staff goes through examining what you’ve spent, what your budget looks like. You can’t have a lot of money in reserve.
A long time ago, in some faraway place, there were charters that were doing things (not everybody, but some schools) that were questionable with their reserves and how they spent their money. This was the state’s answer to address that. I think it was the incorrect answer, but oftentimes when the state faces a problem, they always impose the incorrect answer. You just have to live under them. So that’s kind of where we are. And the reality is that most charters have now mastered that system. They understand how the process works so they can meet all the requirements that the state puts before you and they’re coming out – in four or five years – with a hundred percent of their funding.
SE: You mentioned some things about constraints of resources and the infrastructure that a district has allocating pieces per Prop 39 to schools – whether intended to be helpful or not – given that they’re supervising and authorizing their competition. How has the state or the district and/or charter schools, as you think about it, invest in the infrastructure necessary to support students going forward? Where’s that funding coming from? Or what kind of challenges are there to districts?
BJ: And you’re talking about it in terms of school bonds?
SE: You’ve got, across the state, existing schools that may, by law be required to be offered to charters, but often those schools are mothballed or broken down or, or really very old facilities that need significant investment to bring them up to a place where they can really serve the student population. What kind of challenges exist there and how is that being addressed?
BJ: I’ll say overall, I don’t believe the state is addressing their facility needs when it comes to K through 12 education. On top of that, you apply the pressure of transitional kindergarten programs that the state would like everyone to have. My good friends in Sacramento, at Universal Preschool, there’s a whole number of things they want, the LEAs traditional schools and school districts to do that they don’t have facilities for.
Typically, you have local bonds. The state does every other year, every four years ago, about a $9 billion K through 12 bond. When you think about the school system that has over 6 million kids, that’s not enough. It just can’t keep up with what we’re doing. Excuse me. Not what we’re doing—but [can’t keep up] with the students we’re educating.
But also, you would like to see more bonds. You’d like to see more local bonds, more state bonds, but you have to start thinking about local debt and what’s that doing the taxpayers. Maybe a decade or 15 years ago, we actually reduced the threshold to pass bonds. Local bonds used to be 66.7% or two-thirds and now we’ve reduced it to %. So, you have bonds flying everywhere because you (US political folks) can figure out how to get that 51%. That’s not hard.
But the question is what is that doing to your tax base? And, and on top of that, when you’re a district as large as Los Angeles, how do you equitably set that so all students benefit? When you’re in San Francisco when you are landlocked and there’s no buildings to buy, right? There was like nowhere to buy. You can’t build a new school. So basically, your money is for renovation. The state, when they do the K through 12 school bonds—I think Assemblyman O’Donnell has the bond bill this year for $9 billion—part of that will be for new construction, modernization … you know, you’ve got all these different pots … a charter school pot, etc. so $9 billion isn’t a lot when you’re cutting it four or five ways – so you’re not really meeting your needs.
It’s kind of like infrastructure. We never meet our infrastructure needs in the state and we pay gas tax. I really don’t know where it goes but I’m still having a fifth wheel alignment in my car. Right? Because it’s bumpy. So, I don’t have an answer but we’re not addressing our needs and we need to figure that out.
SE: You got any questions for me today?
BJ: I do have one question for you. When we talk about school facilities and the tension providing facilities for the charter causes the district, how can Charter School Capital step in there and help them ease that tension or help with growth with the charter school as they prepare to move forward. How can you be helpful with that?
SE: I think you mentioned some of the constraints and the lack of resources available when we go through taxpayers and support from the government agencies out there that are supposed to do that. And I think one of the things that Charter School Capital has been able to do over the past decade-plus that we’ve been funding charter schools, (starting here in California) is to bring private capital from outside the government and outside the taxpayer base to support the building and creation of that infrastructure necessary for schools to flourish. And, to be able to deliver that in a way that is more efficient perhaps than the way a government money is provided and customized for the solutions that the schools need to create to serve their underlying families and student populations.
So, we’ve been able to bring that to bear, particularly in California, and although it may not be enough to support all of public education, the $1.6 billion-plus that we’ve now invested in charter schools in our history is actually quite significant when combined with government funding. That allows schools to both support their long-term facilities needs and do so in a way where it’s customized. It’s not scattered across campuses. They can’t get kicked out of the facility after two or three years or see their rent or debt service rise drastically. But they also have access through us to the operational capital and growth capital they need to hire and invest in the programs, teachers, technology and things to really make their program work within whatever facility they have.
And so they have access to the funds in a reliable way. And then the expertise that comes also from our organization – outside of the money – we funded now over 600 schools supporting more than 800,000 students. That expertise really allows us to help charter school leaders utilize the money in the most efficient and effective way to deliver the best quality programs to the students and families that they serve or have picked their programs as the best thing that public education can offer in California.
BJ: We really need to figure out how to make that fact known. I think that the number of students served is an incredible number and that’s something that you should be yelling from rooftops. Making sure people are aware of that. And also, on the facilities side, we should work hard to find a way to partner with districts and say, hey, we have a solution to your Prop 39 problem. I think those are two takeaways we can have.
SE: It may be that frankly, because the capital we have available for schools to take advantage of, I think working with the districts to either pay for or acquire [facilities] so that the district can actually have more funds going in. Then we can take advantage of or acquire the underlying facilities to serve the charters and then invest money that the district or local agencies don’t have to put to work. And we can actually turn some of these aging facilities into properties and educational facilities that charter schools can leverage to really deliver customized solutions for the underlying families and where they have an investor willing to add to and enhance the underlying property.
SE: People don’t get to see you very often. You are behind the scenes working on these things, but I just want to say, having worked with you for years, and seeing the impact you’ve had on education in California, I don’t think people really appreciate the impact that you’ve personally had on the growth of charter school movement in California and across the country. And it’s always been a privilege to work with you.
BJ: I appreciate that. Appreciate those kind words. And you know, I love working with Charter School Capital. And I think that everything we can do to promote what’d you’ve done for students and the schools you’ve helped stay open when we’re going through deficits and deferrals in the state, the impact you had. I think sometimes folks don’t understand that, but it was huge, and I think a lot of charter school people who’ve worked with you and then you’ve actually helped out—they get it. But we’d always need to remember that. So, thank you.
SE: A pleasure.
JJ: And, with that, thank you, Branché, for coming in and speaking with us today and thank you, Stuart, for your time. And thank you for listening in on this latest CHARTER EDtalk.


Charter School Capital is committed to the success of charter schools and has solely focused on funding charter schools since the company’s inception in 2007. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $1.6 billion in support of 600 charter schools that educate 800,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can support your charter school, contact us!

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California Charter School Legislation

2018-2019 California Budget May Revision

On Friday the Governor released his 2018-2019 California budget May Revision. Below are some highlights compiled by our partners at Capitol Advisors.


Overall, the 2018-2019 California budget May Revision contains positive news for California’s economy, General Fund revenues, and Proposition 98 funding. We have known for several months that tax revenues are higher than what was projected in the January budget proposal, but several variables related to the Proposition 98 minimum guarantee formulas indicated that recent increases in tax receipts would not result in significant additional 2018-19 funding for schools. That view is confirmed in the May Revision – however, the fairly strong growth in the Proposition 98 guarantee projected in the January budget proposal is retained in the May Revision. The minimum guarantee for K-14 schools is slightly higher ($68 million) in the May Revision compared to the January proposal, which is good news given recent Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) analyses suggesting that the Proposition 98 guarantee might actually end up lower than January estimates.

Highlights of the 2018-19 California Budget May Revision

• $142 billion General Fund resources available
• $137.6 billion General Fund spending (including transfers)
• $17 billion total state budget reserves
• $78.4 billion Proposition 98 Guarantee
• $3.3 billion increase for LCFF (over 2017-18)
• “Full implementation” includes 2.71% COLA
• Proposes an additional $166 million increase to base grants
• $2 billion one-time, discretionary funding (roughly $344 per ADA)
• Retains recognition and funding for county office support role
• No major K-12 policy/funding changes from January

Governor Brown’s Press Conference

Governor Jerry Brown appeared in a good mood as he seemed to ad lib his way through a stack of familiar charts indicating that good budget years are always followed by bad budget years. Governor Brown reminded the audience of Sir Isaac Newton’s observation that “what goes up, must come down,” and with regard to fiscal prudence and the budget surplus he intends to leave his successor, he added, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: let’s not blow it now.”
Consistent with the last several budget proposals from this Administration, Governor Brown focused on the importance of maintaining a large reserve in anticipation of the next recession; significant one-time investments ($2 billion) for state infrastructure; a mixture of ongoing and one-time expenditures for public schools; addressing poverty (including homelessness, health care, child care, etc.); and combatting climate change.
Early comments from leaders in the Legislature are supportive of the Governor’s fiscal approach and are also mostly supportive of his various program and funding proposals.

Revenues, General Fund and Budget Reserves

Compared to January, and after accounting for transfers (which include both required (Proposition 2) and discretionary budget reserve and debt payments), the May Revision forecasts General Fund revenues to be higher by almost $2.6 billion in 2017-18 and more than $3.7 billion higher in 2018-19. Most of that increase is from higher personal income tax revenues related mainly to stock market gains through the end of 2017, although a fair amount also comes from higher corporate tax revenues related to new incentives (repatriation of foreign earnings) from federal tax reforms.
Including the prior year balance, the May Revision identifies $142 billion in total resources available for 2018-19, proposes $137.6 billion of spending (including reserve and debt transfers) with an ending fund balance of $4.4 billion.
The Proposition 2 automatic transfers amount to $3.5 billion, with half going to repay state debt and the other half going to the Budget Stabilization Account (BSA or Rainy Day budget reserve). The May Revision retains the January proposal to make a discretionary transfer to fully fund the BSA at 10% of General Fund revenues, which equates to a BSA fund of about $13.8 billion by the end of 2018-19. An additional $3.2 billion proposed for the discretionary reserve for economic uncertainties would leave the state with about $17 billion in General Fund reserves.

Proposition 98 and LCFF Funding

The May Revision calculates the 2018-19 Proposition 98 guarantee to be $78.4 billion, which includes a very small $68 million increase over the January proposal. For those of you following the LAO reports and our prior updates on variables impacting the Proposition 98 guarantee, the slight 2018-19 increase is largely dependent on an assumption of an attendance growth of about 600 students in 2017-18. This has the effect of resetting a Proposition 98 provision providing a one-year delay in accounting for the attendance decrease of about 16,000 students projected for 2018-19 (in other words, the 2018-19 guarantee is not adjusted downward for this loss of attendance – that adjustment will likely be made next year). Additional variables include a shift from Test 3 to Test 2, payment of the remaining maintenance factor and changes in per-capita income growth. We’ll cover all these issues in detail at our May Revision Workshops.
The Proposition 98 guarantees for 2016-17 and 2017-18 are also shifted upwards in the May Revision, resulting in about $660 million of additional funding. The increases of about $730 million over the three-year budget period allow the Governor to provide additional ongoing and one-time resources for K-14 education, including for LCFF and one-time discretionary funding.
The Governor achieves “full implementation” of LCFF as planned in his January proposal, with a few minor adjustments. In the January proposal, LCFF was increased by just over $2.9 billion. A COLA of 2.71% instead of 2.51% requires additional funding of over $150 million, and the Governor proposes a $166 million increase to base funding as well. It is not clear whether the additional base funding is a partial response to the Senate proposal to increase LCFF funding by $1.2 billion, or whether it is simply to achieve the round number of a 3% increase to the formula. In any case, compared to the 2017 Budget Act, LCFF funding is increased by roughly $3.3 billion, so a little more than what was proposed in the January proposal.
As you know, many supporters of public education are reminding the Governor, the Legislature and the public of the severely insufficient level of per-pupil funding in California. While achieving full implementation of the LCFF is a positive outcome, much work needs to be done to ensure our students are provided the educational resources necessary to compete on an equal footing with their peers in other states with respect to entering the workforce or advancing to higher education.

One-Time Discretionary Funding

Consistent with his fiscally conservative approach over the last several budget cycles, the Governor avoids any significant ongoing expenditures other than for LCFF, and again proposes a large one-time funding expediture. The May Revision adds $286 million to the January proposal of $1.8 billion, bringing one-time discretionary funding to just over $2 billion. This comes out to about $344 per ADA for 2018-19, and a total of almost $8 billion in one-time funding over a five year period, a trend that is not likely to continue at this level for much longer. These funds continue to count as an offset to any outstanding mandated costs reimbursement claims by local education agencies (LEAs).

Other Programs and Issues

Fiscal Transparency

The 2018-2019 California funding May Revision expands upon the January proposal for a budget summary aligning school district expenditures to LCAP strategies. The updated proposal specifies that this information be displayed in a parent-friendly format that includes graphics (when possible) and additional information that explains how supplemental and concentration funds are being used to increase and improve services for eligible students.

County Offices of Education (COEs) and Accountability

The January proposal recognized the important role of COEs in the state’s new accountability system and proposed $55 million in ongoing funds to support their work to provide assistance to school districts under the LCFF/LCAP structure. The January proposal also included a $4 million competitive grant program for eight individual COEs to act as resource and training centers for other COEs.
The May Revision does not propose any changes to the COE funding provided in January, and this funding appears to have support in the Legislature, so we expect this funding to be included in the final budget. There are some minor changes related to funding for the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) and for the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT).

Proposition 98 and LCFF Technical Adjustments

The Governor also makes a technical proposal related to future funding of the LCFF COLA, and two additional technical proposals related to the Proposition 98 Guarantee, which could result in future impacts on funding for K-12 education. First, the Governor proposes to put the annual cost of living adjustment applied to LCFF base grants on auto-pilot (making them part of the “continuous appropriation”), meaning that there would not have to be a separate action in the annual budget act to fund the LCFF COLA.
The Governor also proposes to move the responsibility for making the final calculation (called “certification”) of the Proposition 98 Guarantee for any given fiscal year to the Department of Finance (DOF), while current law creates a joint responsibility between the Director of DOF and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Finally, the Governor proposes to rebench (or recalculate) the Guarantee to include child care expenditures that were used by the state to meet the Guarantee in 2015-16. If expenditures on programs that were previously funded outside of Proposition 98 are counted toward meeting the Guarantee, then the Proposition 98 Guarantee should be expanded to provide for those expenditures. This was not done when funding for full-day State Preschool wraparound services provided by LEAs was brought under Proposition 98 in 2015-16. The Governor’s proposal would resolve this issue.

Career Technical Education (CTE)

As we mentioned in our review of the January budget proposal, the future of CTE funding and support is an ongoing topic of discussion between the Governor and the Legislature. We are currently in the last year of the CTE Incentive Grant Program, which provided $900 million over the past three years to encourage the creation and expansion of high-quality CTE programs. Members of the Legislature have proposed extending and expanding this program, while the Governor in January countered with a $200 million program to establish a K-12 specific component of the Strong Workforce Program administered by the Community College system.
As expected, since no one thought that the Governor would start negotiating with himself, the Governor maintains his proposal to provide $200 million for K-12 CTE through the Strong Workforce Program. He also makes no change to the $12 million in funding for technical assistance.
The 2018-2019 California budget May Revision continues to advance the Governor’s position that the LCFF 9-12 grade-span adjustment (2.6% of the LCFF 9-12 base grant) accounts for the higher cost of delivering CTE at the high school level, and that a separate CTE program is not necessary. CTE advocates and members of the Legislature continue to object to this revised view of how CTE programs have been, and should be, funded.
The Administration does partially respond to some of the criticisms of the January CTE proposal, clarifying:
• Grant decisions for the K-12 component will be made exclusively by the K-12 Selection Committee.
• Requirements that apply to the new K-12 component of the Strong Workforce Program.
• A role for the Technical Assistance Providers established under the California Career Pathways Trust Program, and further clarifying roles and responsibilities of the Workforce Pathway Coordinators.
• Additional resources are available to the consortia for administering the regional grant process, including resources to support the K-12 Selection Committee duties.
Again, as expected, this will be an item of negotiation between the Governor and the Legislature. Most Legislative Members are holding their position that K-12 CTE funding should be administered by the CDE, and flow through to K-12 entities directly without community college intervention. The feeling in the Legislature is that providing that funding through the CTE Incentive Grant is the common-sense way to proceed. The good news remains that the Governor continues to propose the $200 million in ongoing funding for K-12 CTE, rather than eliminating state funding altogether at the conclusion of the current three-year program.

Community Engagement and Improving School Climate

The Administration proposes to $13.3 million in one-time Prop 98 funds to create a Community Engagement Initiative to “help communities and school districts engage more effectively when developing LCAPs.” They also propose $15 million in one-time Prop 98 funds to the Butte and Orange County Offices of Education to be used to contract with a California institution of higher learning to expand the state’s Multi-Tiered System of Support framework to foster positive school climate in both academic and behavioral areas, including but not limited to, positive behavior interventions and support, restorative justice, bullying prevention, social and emotional learning, trauma-informed practice, and cultural competency.

Miscellaneous

While special education, the educator shortage, early learning and child care, and other programs and issues continue to receive a lot of attention in the Legislature and among advocates, the Governor’s May Revision does not include any major new initiatives related to these programs and issues.

Digital Marketing for Charter Schools

Your Ultimate Digital Marketing for Charter Schools Guide is here!

Scratching your head as to how to go about implementing digital marketing for your charter school? You’re not alone!
You probably already know that having a digital marketing strategy is important for raising awareness, fundraising, meeting your enrollment targets, and creating a network of champions that will nurture your school over the long term. The goal of digital marketing is to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time—and in a meaningful way. It sounds simple, but it takes a surprising amount of strategy.
Because we understand that it can feel like a daunting task in your already-busy schedule,  we wanted to help take the guesswork out of digital marketing and support you with the tools you need for success! In this power-packed, 57-page workbook, you’ll get the ins and outs of refining your school’s message, setting strategic marketing goals, and achieving them through a variety of digital marketing programs.
We truly set out to make it as straightforward as possible for you build and follow through on a simple digital marketing strategy that will help your school achieve its goals.
In it we cover:

  • Setting your marketing goals
  • Determining your audience
  • Understanding your differentiators
  • Messaging and positioning
  • Marketing tactics
  • Managing and optimizing your school’s website
  • Paid media
  • Social media
  • Email marketing
  • Handy worksheets
  • … and much, much, more! 

Digital Marketing for Charter SchoolsDigital Marketing for Charter Schools: An Actionable Workbook to Help You Achieve Your School’s Goals!
This, our most recent guide will be your go-to guide for all of your school’s digital marketing needs! This manual will help you get your marketing plans started, guide you as you define your audience, differentiators, pick your tactics, and start to build your campaigns.

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 Charter School Honor Roll

Our 2018 Charter School Honor Roll List is Here!

Charter schools help create educational choice. That’s why Charter School Capital only works with charter schools – we believe in the power of charter schools and their leaders to deliver quality education. We wanted to celebrate the achievements of exceptional charter schools across the country, so we’ve launched our Charter School Capital Honor Roll 2018 and started our inaugural year by honoring some of the exceptional charter schools in the beautiful state of Arizona! Learn more about Arizona charter schools here.

ABOUT THE HONOR ROLL

The Charter School Honor Roll is a celebration of charter schools with high growth, student achievement, or community service. Honor Roll schools are awarded a special gift, free admission for one to the Southwest Charter Convention, and will be honored at an exclusive dinner at the September event.
We’re very excited to share the incredible schools that have been selected for the 2018 Arizona Honor Roll. Did you make the list? Curious who did? Would you like to nominate a school for 2019?

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Charter School Capital is committed to the success of charter schools and has solely focused on funding charter schools since the company’s inception in 2007. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $1.6 billion in support of 600 charter schools that educate 800,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can help support your charter school, contact us!

Email Marketing for Charter Shcools

CHARTER EDtalk: Email Marketing for Charter Schools

On this CHARTER EDtalk, Stephanie Ristow, Sr. Marketing Programs Manager at Charter School Capital and Janet Johnson, CMO at Charter School Capital sat down with Michael Barbur, SVP, and Chief Creative Officer at Godfrey to get his insights, expertise, and perspective on email marketing for charter schools. Below are the video and transcript from this informative episode.

Janet Johnson (JJ):  Hi everyone, welcome to Charter EDtalks today. I’m honored to be speaking with Michael Barber. He has been a digital marketing guru for many – including working with Charter School Capital– for many, many years. Welcome. And, Stephanie Ristow, who is leading up all of our digital Demand Gen efforts at Charter School Capital. So, if you’re seeing this, it’s probably as a result of Stephanie’s work. We’re going to be talking about email marketing today for charter schools. So, Stephanie and Michael Take it away.
Stephanie Ristow (SR): To get us started, let’s begin with the obvious question. Does email marketing still work, and why?
Michael Barber (MB): It works really, really well. I mean, no matter where you look across the research studies, we continue to see that consumers, regardless of audiences, regardless of industries, this continues to be a channel that they gravitate towards.
Adobe has probably done the most work around this channel in terms of research and consumption habits. And, for the past five or six years, they’ve put into the market a really, really good study on email consumer behavior. And, year over year over year continues to show that email is still the number one revenue generator for organizations and it is still the channel that brands are going to be using to push out content to consumers, or to their constituents, or their audiences. It’s still the place they say they want to receive that message from. Now, on the why. This one’s an interesting question. I think personally, there’s a lot of research out there that’s looking at the why of this, but I think it’s got to do with everything that consumers are being faced with in terms of choices of where they’re participating online.
They’re getting bombarded by Facebook, bombarded by Instagram, Twitter. You look at what’s happening from a geopolitical perspective right now, and the inbox is the one place that everyone understands. It’s been largely the same for the last 25 years, if you will, since Hotmail came out in 1986. So, they don’t have to get accustomed to the Facebook newsfeed changing or wonder how they post a story on Instagram … reply, forward, reply to all, contact lists. They’re largely the same as they’ve been since the beginning of email. So, it’s a place where people are really comfortable.
SR: It all totally makes sense. So specifically, when we’re looking at charter schools, how should they be using email marketing?
MB: I would say, not for students, anybody under the age of 18, unless they’ve got a very specific reason to have an email, like an Amazon account or they signed up for one of these social networks using email. They probably don’t even have one unless they’ve been required to by their school, which you do see some high schools require students to have email addresses, but it really just depends on the school. So, this is a marketing channel that you’re going to want to use for parents. You’re going to want to use it for potential board members, for community and government involvement with your school. For all of those constituent groups that surround your students. So those are the audiences that likely have an inbox if not multiple email addresses. That’s the place you’re going to want to use email when it comes to charters. Largely for all the audiences that surround the students in the cause you’re trying to bring forward.
SR: That makes sense. So, I know for a lot of these charter schools, they want to know which tools – which platforms– they should be using from a thousand-foot level (like if they have the budget) and then at a grassroots level, what realistically makes sense for them.
MB: So, a thousand-foot level just really depends on how you want to use email from a tactical perspective—from a marketing perspective. A lot of the turnkey student enrollment platforms, especially as you’re maturing as a school, will have some sort of email marketing component built into their platform. So that can be used for student enrollment activities, or for letting people know what’s happening at the school on a weekly basis. What activities are students participating in, what do parents need to know on any given week, month or year, if you will? Most of them have really robust toolsets built into their platform so that you can utilize them as a sort of 360 solution or an all in one solution.
At a grassroots effort if you’re just starting up and you’ve got no budget, and no time, and no energy… Almost all the really great platforms that are out there offer some sort of either free or sponsored model around their platform. For the sake of example, MailChimp is a great one to use. If you have under 5,000 subscribers, they will allow you to use the platform for free as long as their little logo can be at the bottom of your email footer. There are multiple platforms that are out there (Constant Contact, Vertical Response, MailChimp, Emma) that do the same sort of monetization model that aren’t going to charge a lot for a small subscriber base. Now, as you get more sophisticated, those platforms have got be able to grow with you and as you add more subscribers, you’re probably going to be having to pay for that email service provider. That being said, not a huge expense, even at 10, 20, or 30,000 contacts. If you’re not doing significant activities around the platform, you’re probably getting away with something under the neighborhood of say, $100 per month. But as you get more sophisticated, these platforms get more expensive and there’s certainly more platforms out there that you could do a lot more with as you mature as a school.
SR: There are definitely some folks out there that haven’t used an email platform before and might not understand the benefits of it. What’s the benefit of say a MailChimp over a just using thousand-person BCC line? Cause I’ve seen it before.
MB: This is a really good question. This comes down to really two things, one—deliverability. When you’re BCC-ing a thousand people, if someone marks your email address – your @charter school’s domain or whatever your domain is – as spam, that reflects against your domain really heavily. And the last thing you want to do is compromise the deliverability of just your normal day to day, professional ‘to’ and ‘from’ emails getting characterized as spam. So, having an email service provider gives you some layer of protection from that deliverability perspective.
The second big piece of this is just all the data that goes around these users and these contacts. Any one of these email service providers, whether it’s Constant Contact, Vertical Response, MailChimp, Emma or the like … or anyone of the hundreds that are out there, allow you to build data profiles around individual email addresses—from what’s her first name and last name—so that you can do some personalization inside of that email campaign. It allows you to segment groups. So, let’s say you’ve got grades one through five. You can segment your parents – or whoever is in those lists – by where their students are at so that you can target those communications really well. Also, it’s a lot easier to manage those communications. If somebody unsubscribes, the provider deals with that unsubscribe for you. You don’t have to manage your list that way. There are a lot of benefits that get you so many better features than just having a thousand people on a BCC list.
[Everyone laughs]
SR: We laugh, but I’ve seen it.
MB: One of the most important things that schools can do is build their brand, right? What does the school stand for? And how do you bring that to life visually through your logo and your identity and your colors and your fonts? And, certainly designing an email inside of Outlook or Gmail is not great. You know you can only do so much. You want to have an email that looks great, regardless of whether you’ve got a parent that’s on a phone or whether they’re on a Mac, right? Then all of those email service writers will help you create templates that’ll look great, that will work for your brand, that will build that brand identity for you. There are any number of key features – going outside of Outlook or Gmail or wherever you’re doing that thousand-person BCC list – that you’ll get from an email service provider like MailChimp.
SR: I totally agree. And one more bonus question for you, because I think we have the time. I know often when we talk to these schools, they’re like, great, I want to do email, but how do I start my list? How do I create the list to send to people? I know that that’s a gorilla of a question, but in a 30-second clip, what do you think you’d say there?
MB: The first thing is to make sure you’ve got your data cleaned up. So, you’re not going to want to import what we would call a ‘dirty list’ of old subscribers or parents that aren’t part of the school anymore. The second thing is, is there’s a couple of key campaigns that you want to try and set up if you can and have the bandwidth. Your “Welcome” series – which is the first email that someone receives when they subscribe – is by far the most important email you’re going to work on because you want people to get that right away.
Beyond that make sure the data’s clean and test your campaigns. Always makes sure – before you send out that first campaign – to have a group of subscribers (could be a parent, a teacher, it could be admin individuals or a group of people that you trust) to send out a test so they can see what your emails are going to look like and then you get a little bit warmed up to actually having to hit that send button and send to hundreds – or thousands – of people.
SR: I would like to make one more plug. If you want additional resources on how to get those leads in the first place or some of the tools and platforms that Michael talked about. We have those on our site. Just go to our Charter School Capital resources page.
MB: Thank you, Stephanie.
SR: Thank you, Michael!
JJ: Michael, we can’t thank you enough for coming and being here with us today. We really appreciate all that you’ve done for us. For sure.
MB: My pleasure. Thank you.
JJ: Thank you, Steph. Thanks, Michael. And, thank you for showing up for Charter EDtalk.


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