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

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

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

History of Charter Schools in Arizona

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

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

Areas of Focus for Charter Schools in Arizona

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

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

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

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

Challenges for Growing a Charter School in Arizona

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

Finances

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

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

Enrollment

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

COVID-19 Pandemic

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

Starting a School in Arizona

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

1. Plan and Write Your Charter Application

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

2. Find a Facility and Finalize Your Educational Plan

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

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

3. Submit the Application by June

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

Growing Your Charter School in Arizona

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

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

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

Do You See Yourself as an Arizona School Leader?

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

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

CONTACT US

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

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

Identify and Engage the Stakeholders

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

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

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

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

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

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

Determine What Questions to Ask

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

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

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

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

Resource mapping can show you:

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

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

Pitfalls to Avoid
Not casting a wide enough net

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

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

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

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

Not listening to snippets

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

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

Missing the emotional component

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

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

Not understanding social structures

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

Not recognizing external influences in your community

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

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

Cohesiveness: Bringing it all together

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tour of the School (Weekly)

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

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

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

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

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

“Back to School” Evening Session (Weekly)

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

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

Coffee with the CEO (Monthly)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to Keep from Being Overwhelmed

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

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

Black leaders have long understood the path to equity is through education. That’s why Black people risked punishment, in times when learning to read was made illegal to them, to smuggle books and teach their children.

That’s why educators such as Fanny Jackson Coppin and Mary McLeod Bethune fought so hard to increase education opportunities for African-American people.

And that’s the very same reason why Black charter school leaders devote our lives to creating and growing charter schools that elevate educational standards in predominantly Black communities.

That’s why young educators like Patrick Edmond are stepping up to the plate as school leaders. That’s why my team of charter school leaders at ELITE Public Schools is bringing STEM and robotics programs to Black students.

That’s why inspiring educators such as Robert Marshall of Vanguard Collegiate of Indianapolis place such an emphasis on Social Emotional Learning and the well-being of their students.

That’s why charter school leaders like Craig Cason are demanding excellence from Black students and growing an expectation that college admission is not only achievable but the expected norm.

[CallOutBox bgcolor=”orange”]”We are committed to educating our young people and work hard to develop the whole mind of each of our Scholars. We focus on the “why” of education and want all students to understand the importance and significance of getting a quality education.” — Craig Cason, DuBois Integrity Academy[/CallOutBox]

Black Charter school leaders are aware these schools provide Black families with educational opportunities. Many studies also show these schools are getting dramatically better outcomes for Black students.

Charter schools are also more likely to employ Black teachers. This is important because research shows that Black students who have one or more Black teachers are more likely to go to college.

A Unique Problem-Solving Perspective

Charter school leaders focused on Black excellence bring a unique problem-solving perspective to their mission. In the economically depressed county is Quincy, Florida, Crossroad Academy Charter School is teaming up with a historically Black University to bring opportunity to rural Black students.

In Madison, WI, One City Charter Schools is partnering with a network of local realtors to bring Black families up to $15,000 for a down payment on a home. The program, called “OWN IT, Building Black Wealth.”

That’s why some charter schools are focusing on employment opportunities post-COVID.

That’s why Black education leader Sharif El-Mekki has raised $3 million with which he aims to bring 21,000 Black students into the teacher pipeline.

As Sharif El-Mekki states in an opinion piece, Black leaders have long looked at charter schools as a mechanism of emancipation, a tool for self-determination. School choice has meant something at a much deeper level to folks who were at one time actively prevented from learning.

  • A national study of 41 urban areas estimated that charter schools provide black students in poverty with an additional 59 days of learning in math and 44 days of learning in reading per year.
  • In a review of 15 randomized control trial studies on academic effects of urban charter schools, 12 showed significant benefits for reading and math, three showed no effects, and none showed negative effects.
  • Studies in three states have demonstrated that attending charter high schools boosts college entry and persistence.
  • Studies in two districts have shown that attending charter schools decreases criminal activity. (Source: Madison Institute)

Honoring Leaders of the Past, Building Leaders of Tomorrow

Robert Marshall, Founder & Executive Director of Vanguard Collegiate of Indianapolis, was recently recognized as one of the select few InnoPower Innovators on the Rise, for his role in furthering Black innovation and advancement.

 

This fall, DuBois Integrity Academy will be taking a field trip this Fall to Selma, Alabama as part of a historic reflection on the benefits of knowing the struggles of the past. DuBois Integrity Academy will take 700 of their scholars on a walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which has become such an important part of our American history.

The Black Teacher Pipeline will launch this year. It will identify and cultivate high school and college students for careers in education, offering them apprenticeships starting in high school, mentorship into college, and overall support through their first four years in the profession.

The Black Educators of Excellence Fellowship will partner with the United Negro College Fund to recruit and financially support students.

The goal is to bring 21,000 Black students into the teaching pipeline and mint 9,100 Black teachers over the next 12 years in 10 communities around the country.


Resources:

 

Your Charter School: Remember Your WhyDo you remember why you started your school?

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

Do you remember yet?

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

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

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

Often Your Why is Captured in Your Mission Statement

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

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

Your Why Matters

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

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

 Time and Changes

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

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

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

Recommit or Pivot?

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

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

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

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

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

Altruism and Practicality

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

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

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

Your Charter School: The Magic 450 - by Tricia Blum

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

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

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

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

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

The Importance of Having A Destination

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

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

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

“How much do I need to grow?”

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

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

The magic 450

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

Fixed Expenses

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

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

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

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

Starting Strong, Growing Steady

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

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

Logistics and Planning

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

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

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

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

Strategies for Growth

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

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

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

Every School is Unique

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

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

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

Dr. Ramona Bishop

Dr. Ramona Bishop was just eight years old when the wave of school integration swept her up and deposited her in Commodore Sloat Elementary School. Unbeknownst to her, she had been selected, together with other high-grades students in her classroom.  For Ramona, this was not a comfortable move. She had come from a highly-protective, nurturing family and a very supportive school environment into a hostile, unwelcoming new turf where she was seen as an interloper. This left a profound impression in Ramona – an impression that would later give her a purpose, and define her life’s work.

It was at that point that I realized there are children in our systems that are treated differently just by virtue of the zip code from where they live, or by virtue of the language that their parents speak, or by virtue of the country of their birth, or by virtue of the special abilities that they have, that there are ways that we treat people that cause them not to feel safe, not to feel comfortable in our own system.

And this is no one’s fault, it’s just the way things have been, because it’s very hard to do something that you’ve never seen done. So my whole career has been dedicated to showing people that young people, when you give them the opportunity, you give them quality teachers, quality instruction, they can do very much whatever they want to do in their lives.

A Guiding Purpose

Ramona decided she’d become an educator. And not just any educator – the kind of educator who loves her students, who believes in her students, who holds high expectations for her students. And who creates the kind of environment where students can rise to meet those high expectations. This set Ramona on a path that spanned many years as a public-school teacher, principal, assistant superintendent, superintendent, and finally to her own ambitious dream – a school of her own making.

I had to ensure I was leaving a legacy for all those young people whose lives I’ve touched over time – and a legacy for my own children. And what better way to create a sustainable legacy than to have your own school?

Once the vision for a charter school coalesced in Ramona’s mind, ELITE was born almost overnight. Ramona joined forces with two other remarkable leaders – Dr. Alana Shackelford and Bel Reyes – and they set things in motion. It was a bumpy road, but Ramona had experience with that. Soon they had the backing of their community, and enrollment got started at a whirlwind pace. As the leaders shared their vision with the families in the community, they found advocates and champions – people willing to amplify their signal. In Ramona’s view, this is essential to a school’s success – community members who are willing to advocate for the school at the Capitol, at the county board, in the local community.

Video – Watch Ramona describe her remarkable journey

An Ambitious Mission

The three charter school leaders defined an ambitious mission for their school. ELITE serves underserved youth – some formerly homeless, some who fell out of the school cycle due to pregnancies, some who work fulltime, or left school to work. And ELITE is true to its name – it offers a full Spanish-immersion program and a rigorous STEM program that includes coding and robotics.
The Spanish-immersion program stems from a deep respect for the local community, and the history of the city of Vallejo. But even further, an understanding that California is a historically Spanish-language region; a region that is distinctly bilingual. Graduating with those two languages gives ELITE Seniors a competitive edge in the marketplace, and also a better cultural grounding and connection to their place of origin.

The STEM program at ELITE

Bilingual graduates is a lofty goal – but ELITE’s leaders aim higher: They want students to graduate TRILINGUAL: English, Spanish and Coding. That’s where the STEM program comes in.

Deeply cognizant of the hiring requirements of the Amazons, the Facebooks, the Googles of today’s age, Ramona wants to prepare her students in such a way that they’ll be highly desirable candidates at any tech company. The school has a partnership with the University of California at Davis, and educators from the University are training ELITE’s teachers.

Our young people are digital natives, so they can very naturally learn how to code at those ages,” says Ramona. “They will be programmers and they’ll be able to just jump right in and go into those amazing jobs. If you’ve never visited one of those tech giants, when you go there, you’ll want to learn to do the technology just so you can participate in this beautiful environment that they’ve created for their workers.

That’s what we want for our young people. We want them to be able to go right in and plug in and be engineers and travel the world, and create, and live the lives that they’re destined to live, because they’re so bright.

It’s unusual for a charter school to open with over four hundred students. And when a school does that, the question is, will it be able to maintain its momentum. This question becomes ever so poignant in the face of a pandemic.

Distance Learning Plus

ELITE launched into its distance learning approach in May of 2020. It was a process of trial and error, and error, and error. Much was learned, and quickly. And a lot of the learning came through parent feedback. A key piece of advice here, for charter leaders: listening to parent feedback is key. By being able to incorporate parent feedback, being able to interpret it constructively and use it to advance the distance learning program to higher levels of quality, ELITE was able to truly meet the virtual learning challenge.

One of the learnings was the extent to which parents felt they were being forced to take on the role of teachers at home. This was especially challenging in the dual-immersion program, since many parents who selected the immersion program for their kids do not speak Spanish themselves. So teachers need to be VERY present, very participatory. ELITE teachers spend upwards of five hours per day with their students, engaging them in small learning groups.

Another learning is that Zoom is not the challenge, the level of engagement and competence of the teacher, combined with the quality of the teaching material, is the real key to success. ELITE also offers tutoring after the day is over, for those young people who need additional time. Yet another learning is that teachers need a lot of support themselves. Planning distance-learning classes can be grueling.

Add to this the technical proficiency needed to ensure everyone is connected, everyone is assessed and everyone is doing what they’re supposed to be doing. All these processes, as well as the management of asynchronous learning, is a lot of work for teachers.

Ramona is quick to emphasize that the Distance Learning Plus program at ELITE is not perfect – little imperfections creep in every day, and it leads to constant improvement.

Communication Is Key

At the end of the day, really, all of this is about relationships and communication. And the more we communicate, even when we’re having difficulty, our families have responded very well to that. Our school was built on parental leadership and we committed in our petition to continue to listen to and talk to parents.

At ELITE, Dr. Shackelford runs parent-input sessions every week, where parents can talk about any concerns, and offer suggestions. The school has also introduced parent leadership groups, with structured ways for providing input – sustainable, constructive input that bolsters the school’s educational plans beyond distance learning time. Ramona also makes herself available to parents via text – in fact her phone goes off several times during the interview.

Ramona is quick to recognize ELITE’s teachers. It is the teachers, she points out, who are doing the daily work to give these students and their families the very best, every single day. It is teachers looking for extra resources, finding out what each student needs, and finding ways to meet those needs. She also has words of praise for the secretaries, the classified staff, doing student intakes, receiving families, helping with internet connections, and ensuring all the critical components stay in place.

Education is transparent now, life never before. Parents can see into your classroom every single day. So they know exactly what is happening. And we’re getting a lot of positive feedback about the real commitment of our staff toward making sure that students are successful.

Video – Watch Ramona describe her remarkable journey

Growing In The Face of Deferrals (and Pandemic!)

ELITE opened strong, and continued to enroll. However, charter schools in California face the added challenge of deferrals – of not being compensated toward the new students. But they continued to do recruitment, continued to build relationships with families, and talk them through all the COVID-19 issues. And because of that, the school continues to grow. ELITE has over 480 students currently – a 20% year-over-year growth. For a charter school facing state deferrals AND a pandemic, that is truly remarkable.

The pandemic has affected families in many ways beyond the immediate health risks. The whole community is reeling from closed business and downsized jobs, and many families have been forced to relocate, to move in with relatives, to move out of California. ELITE works closely with the families who are staying in the community as they work through adjustments in housing and work situations.

Financial Planning

The beginning of any venture is always bumpy when it comes to finances. This becomes even more challenging when state funding is delayed.

I had identified through our budget team that we had a million-dollar problem, that throughout the year we were going to need about a million dollars in advance money to make sure that this school functioned.  That’s what led me to meet with the Charter School Capital – your team understands how California funding works. When people ask me how I’ve been dealing with the deferrals, I tell them I’ve been meeting with our Charter School Capital team for the last over a year. And so our team and the Charter School Capital teams are connected. So when it came to the deferrals it wasn’t a question of whether – it was a question of how.

This partnership allowed Ramona to work through California deferrals without compromising the quality of education, without having to limit programs nor cut corners.

A Light in the Darkness

This year is proving historically challenging on many fronts. For Ramona, who experienced the effects of racism and divisiveness at the young age of eight, this makes her mission all the more important.

We have our young people starting at four years old, studying freedom and democracy. They are studying protesting. What does it look like to protest? Why do people protest? What happens at the end of the protest? Not about anyone’s political agenda, but about their own thoughts, dreams, ideas, histories, families.

For Ramona, this is a time of intense opportunity. Opportunity for innovation, for new paradigms. How can she be the best leader, at this time of trepidation? She knows there must always be a light in the darkness – and she sees it as her life’s purpose to keep that light on for her students.

Video – Watch Ramona describe her remarkable journey

Ricardo Mireles

Academia Avance has a remarkable history, marked by remarkable achievements. In its sixteen years of educating young minds, Academia Avance has had its charter renewed three times. The school lived through the perils and funding gaps of the Great Recession, has endured through many hardships and has now proven it can succeed even during a pandemic.

Most remarkably, over 74% of graduates at Academia Avance are admitted into universities.

At the heart of this remarkable school, is a remarkable leader: Ricardo Mireles.

Ricardo jokes that his path to education happened through osmosis — both of Ricardo’s parents were educators.

After many years of working at the Los Angeles Unified School District, Ricardo began to look into alternative approaches to education in order to better meet the needs of his community. But there was a moment – an “on the road to Damascus” moment – where Ricardo’s path crystallized.

Video – Watch Ricardo describe his remarkable journey

On The Road To Los Angeles

In April of 2004 Ricardo was driving back from his first Charter Conference. Having heard charter leaders speak, he felt energized, inspired, and ready for action. The message he heard echoed throughout the conference was that charter schools are not just an education movement – they’re a community-organizing movement, a community-improvement movement. That a school has an impact, not just on the students and families but on the whole community.

Ricardo thought of calling his high-school classmate Guillermo Gutierrez – now the President of that school – to pitch the idea of starting a charter school together. As fate would have it, it was Guillermo who called him that night, as Ricardo was driving down from Sacramento. That night, on that phone call, a school was born. Soon they put together a package, they found support in their community, a board came together, and they soon filed with the L.A. Unified School District.

The Three-Legged Stool

Ricardo attributes the remarkable success of Academia Avance to a philosophy he describes as the three-legged stool. The metaphor is that a three-legged stool falls without all three legs being solidly in place. For Academia Avance, the three legs are the students, the parents, and then the teachers and staff. The relationships between parents, students and educators are what makes a school thrive.

College-Bound

Nearly three quarters of the students at Academia Avance go onto higher education. Ricardo gets passionate when asked about this. He says it jars him to hear someone say ‘college isn’t for everybody.’ In Ricardo’s view, every kid deserves the opportunity to advance themselves at their own direction. In high school, adults are telling kids what to do. But in college, it’s the students who are choosing a career, picking their courses, and making decisions. Every kid deserves that opportunity. With over 3000 colleges and universities in this country, and all of them so different, there’s a school that is the right fit for any student. It’s our task as educators, says Ricardo, to help students find the college that’s right for them – the one where they’re going to succeed.

According to Ricardo, it is that dedication to help each student find their perfect fit, that makes all the difference.

“We’re fortunate that we’re in the best state of this country. We have the best universities. We have the Cal State system, we have the UC system, we have excellent private schools, and we’re able to then provide those different options for our kids to discover and find the one that fits them. And you know what? Everyone can find a school that is their perfect match.”

The state of California recently published their college-going rates per school, and Academia Avance placed at the top 10% of schools within the L.A. Unified District – that’s almost 200 public high schools.

Returning Alumni

Nothing brings Ricardo more joy than watching his alumni come back and celebrate their success with the teachers. These alumni often volunteer to go talk to the Seniors – to motivate them with proof of what’s possible.

The school’s history is now extensive enough that alumni are now reaching graduate levels, and are coming back with advanced degrees in education – eager to work as counselors and teachers.

An example of this is an alumna who got her undergraduate degree at Mount Saint Mary’s and is now pursuing a degree in Social Work at USC. She’s returned to Academia Avance to work as a counselor, and her experience in the school, combined with her life experience as a Latina from Highland Park, allows her to build strong connections with the students. The kids immediately trust her, they relate to her, they see themselves in her.

Another example Ricardo eagerly shares is a student who struggled in his academics at Academia Avance, and then got accepted at San Jose State and found that a challenge as well, especially in his first year. He did graduate, and he now shares his story in his work as a workplace education experience counselor, securing internships for the students. This young man can tell the students, “look, you can do this.”

A Charter Renewed Many Times

Academia Avance started in 2005. The school’s charter has been renewed three times.

The school started as a very small, niche, community-based, Latinx-focused effort. The process got harder in subsequent years – the charter renewal took three years, and only got approved on appeal through the county. That led to the biggest growth spurt for the school, with enrollment reaching nearly 500 students.

The goal for Academia Avance has remained consistent: to lead their students to higher education.. This became their biggest focal point during the second charter.

Interestingly, it was the school’s growth that became its strongest defense against the hard economic times of the Great Recession – with state deferrals and other financial pressures impinging upon the school, Academia Avance continued to thrive. The partnership with Charter School Capital was instrumental to the school’s survival through those difficult years.

The third charter came through an appeal to the state. In 2015, the school faced declining enrollment as a result of gentrification – which forced many Latinx families to relocate.

Currently, the school faces the pressures of the pandemic, the pivot to a virtual environment, and the necessity to act as an island of safety and comfort for the community.

Video – Watch Ricardo describe his remarkable journey

The Role of Relationships

The long term relationship Academia Avance has built with Charter School Capital has allowed the school to weather some of the toughest storms and continue to thrive. Ricardo praises Charter School Capital for looking beyond the immediate fiscal issues to see what’s really happening with the school, visiting with parents and making efforts to fully understand their issues.

Another aspect of the support Charter School Capital provides, Ricardo remarks, is the innovation. With the help of a technology partner, CSC has recently brought major improvements to air quality in the school – a critical issue during a pandemic caused by an airborne virus. Ricardo again speaks about trust – having good air quality improves the trust parents and staff have in the school.

The Importance of Trust

A moment that Ricardo still remembers from the Great Recession is a Thanksgiving memory. November is an especially hard time in the fiscal cycle of a school, Ricardo explains. Funds come in during July and August, but funds run lean by November. This particular Thanksgiving, Ricardo had to gather all the staff and have a very somber discussion – because the school did not have the funds to meet payroll for November.

The importance of building trust, and having honest and transparent communication, really hit home – while obviously no one was happy about the news, the teachers and staff were understanding and supportive as they received it. As the meeting ended and people were heading for the parking lot, one of the operating officers for the school was able to log in and see that new funding had arrived into the school’s account – a receivables sale from Charter School Capital. And they ran outside to tell the staff that payroll would be covered – and the teachers and staff were able to have a happy Thanksgiving.

“Avance Is Like Family”

The secret sauce, says Ricardo, is always trust. He hears teachers and parents say over and over, “Avance is like family.”

The community has trust in the school. In Ricardo’s view, you can’t just hold trust – you can’t put it in a bank. You have to use it to make things better. There is an accountability that comes with trust. One of the ways this has translated into action has been in fighting stigma. For those who have gone through COVID-19 and recovered, to be able to talk about it. For those infected, to know that they’re not going to be shunned. Mothers who felt they couldn’t tell anyone about their struggles, have a safe space to speak. Removing that sense of shame or secrecy has led to better morale, has increased engagement in medical testing, and has led to a deeper sense of community.

“This Isn’t About Reopening”

In regards to operating a school in the face of COVID-19, Ricardo makes an important distinction about phrasing. “This isn’t about reopening,” he says. “Our school has been open all summer. We’ve been providing food all summer, and working with staff all summer. This is about re-starting, and providing the resources for restarting.”

When it comes to re-starting classes, Ricardo references Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. What mattered the most, to him, was working with the families and ensuring everyone had access to medical testing. He worked with a local clinic to ensure his staff was tested, and he continues to make that a priority in his communications with the students’ families.

The agility of communication is an important factor as well. Academia Avance is continuously gaining new information about the health crisis, and the speed to which this can be disseminated to the students and their families is an essential part of keeping everyone safe.

Thriving Through Crisis

Reminiscing about the fiscal crisis his school faced during the Great Recession, Ricardo is quick to emphasize that while the crisis, nationwide, played out in 2008-2009, it hit schools hardest in the subsequent years.

We haven’t even gotten to that stage yet, this time. According to Ricardo, the real financial impact of the pandemic will be felt in the years to come. He wants charter leaders to understand, this is not like a storm. This is not about hunkering down and waiting for the storm to pass over. He earnestly believes this pandemic is forcing every school to adapt and change. In order to succeed in the new normal, school leaders need to adapt and prepare for the fiscal challenges yet to come.

Video – Watch Ricardo describe his remarkable journey

 

Charter School Honor Roll WinnersAnnouncing the 2019 Charter School Honor Roll Winners!

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 created the Charter School Honor Roll in 2018 to celebrate the achievements of exceptional charter schools across the country.
We were humbled and inspired by the hundreds of worthy submissions we received for this, our second annual, Charter School Honor Roll. Our team was so moved by the passion and pride that ALL of our submissions shared about the hard work their students and school leaders have been doing. And, because the caliber of schools who shared their stories with us was so exceptional, selecting the winners was no easy task for our panel of judges.
The stories charter parents shared about their children blossoming; feeling included; feeling at home; being supported; being recognized for their achievements; being part of a larger family, were all so deeply moving.
School leaders shared their immense pride in student accomplishments; state and local recognition; the dramatic academic improvement due to the hard work and dedication of students and teachers; supporting the professional development of their staff; school service and outreach and how it has impacted their communities; beating the odds … just to name a few.
We carefully read each submission and selected schools that we felt best exemplified exceptional accomplishments in any of the following categories:

  • School growth
  • Student achievement
  • Community service
  • School leadership
  • Positive school climate

Thank you to everyone who sent in amazing stories and photos for consideration. Your hard work and dedication are truly awe-inspiring. Reading each and every one of these stories has reinvigorated our belief in what we do here at Charter School Capital—helping charter schools access, leverage, and sustain the resources they need to thrive, allowing them to focus on what matters most—educating students.
To see the list of 30 outstanding schools (from 17 different states) that made the grade for this year’s honor roll, click here!


Charter School Capital logoSince the company’s inception in 2007, Charter School Capital has been committed to the success of charter schools. We provide growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. 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 $1.8 billion in support of 600 charter schools that have educated over 1,027,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can support your charter school, contact us. We’d love to work with you!

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Charter School Honor RollNow Accepting Nominations for the 2019 Charter School Honor Roll

We are very excited to announce the nominations are now open for our second annual Charter School Honor Roll! The Charter School Honor Roll honors high-achieving charter schools from across the country.

About the Honor Roll

Currently, in its second year, the Charter School Honor Roll celebrates the outstanding work that charter schools around the nation are doing. We hope you’ll take a few minutes to nominate a school that exemplifies excellence in any of the following categories:
  • School growth
  • Student achievement
  • Community service
  • School leadership
  • Positive school climate
Our 2019 Charter School Honor Roll winners will be awarded a special gift package, free admission to the National Charter Schools Conference (in Las Vegas, Nevada June 30-July 3, 2019), and will be honored at an exclusive honoree awards event during the conference.
If you have a school you’d like to be considered, or if you’d like to nominate your own school, please click on the button below. We’re looking forward to reading your inspiring submission!

NOMINATE A SCHOOL