More than 300 charter leaders attended the Ohio Auditor of State‘s first Charter School Summit in Columbus, Ohio, last week (August 11-12). There were two days of workshops and keynote addresses from thought leaders on charter school funding, best practices, changes in the state laws, and other training topics.
Featured keynotes came from Ohio State Auditor Dave Yost, Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone, Mike Feinberg of the KIPP Foundation, Dr. Steve Perry of the Capital Preparatory Magnet School, and Paolo DeMaria, the new Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction. The two-day summit provided options for charter school funding and facilities financing, compliance training around Ohio’s charter school laws, record keeping and enrollment best practices, teacher development and retention, cultivating public-private partnerships, and charter school board governance.
Charter School Capital’s own VP of Business Development/Facilities Jon Dahlberg was the panel session, The Challenges and Opportunities of Facility Expansion, presented Thursday morning. Moderated by Dr. Darlene Chambers, Senior Vice President for Programs and Services at the National Charter School Institute, the panel will also include Tom Babb of Constellation Schools, Brian Schneiderman of Self-Help and John Zitzner of Friends of Breakthrough Schools. The panel discussed the availability of charter school funding for facilities expansion and compared the benefits of leasing versus purchasing facilities, tenant improvements.
You can recap the event, watch speaker videos and see photos provided by the Ohio Auditor of State’s office.
We thank the Ohio Auditor of State’s team for inviting us to participate in their first event!
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On Monday, August 1st, the California Legislature will return from its summer recess. When they return they will have until August 31st to complete all legislative business for the year. Since this is the second year of a two-year session, all bills that are not passed to the Governor Jerry Brown’s desk will be officially dead. With the budget a done deal and most of the ‘easier’ bills acted upon, the legislature will be dealing with a number of contentious issues. For virtual charter schools there is one bill moving through the process that could severely limit their ability to operate in the future. AB 1084, by Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, would prohibit a virtual or online charter school from being owned, or operated by, or operated as, a for-profit entity. The bill would also prohibit a nonprofit online charter school, nonprofit charter virtual academy and a nonprofit entity that operates an online or virtual charter school from contracting with a for-profit entity for the provision of instructional services. Though the charter school is defined as one that provides 80% of online teaching and pupil interaction, instructional services is not defined. This means that instructional materials, supplemental materials, special education services, and a number of other products and services could fall under the definition. AB 1084 would become effective for the 2017-18 school year. A number of charter school entities lined up to oppose the bill when it was heard in the Senate Education Committee, but it passed out on a 6-2 vote with the Chair, Carol Liu, abstaining. The measure is now on the Senate Floor and, if it passes it, will be headed to the Assembly Floor for final passage.
To register your concerns about this bill, please call your State Senator and ask that they oppose it on the Senate Floor. To view the language in the bill and the analysis of it, go to www.leginfo.ca.gov and put in the bill number.