Resources
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Overview: School Planning and Startup
Category: School Planning and Startup
The U.S. has witnessed tremendous growth in charter schools, with over a million students being served in over 4,600 charter schools across the country. Charter schools serve a diverse array of students with education programs that highly vary in focus, delivery, and design. Yet despite the growth of charter schools, planning, opening, and operating a charter school remains a tremendous challenge. Successful charter school developers...
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Accountability and Renewal Overview
Category: Accountability and Renewal
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Authorizing and Oversight Overview
Category: Authorizing and Oversight
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Facilities Overview
Category: Facilities
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Proposition 39 Facilities Reminder
Category: Facilities
by Eric Premack, Charter Schools Development Center. Posted on 02/26/2010 Charter schools that are seeking facilities from school districts through the "Prop 39" facilities process need to respond to school districts' preliminary facilities proposals by March 1st. Background Education Code section 47614 (et. sec.), which was promulgated by Proposition 39 in 2000 ("Prop 39"), generally requires school districts to provide "rent free" facilities to charter schools. Extensive and controversial...
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No, You're Not Done Yet: Proposition 39 Next Steps
Category: Facilities
by Miles Denniston, Charter Schools Development Center. Originally published in the Fall 2008 edition of Charter Currents. Introduction Proposition 39 is a statewide proposition approved by voters in 2000 that generally requires school districts to provide charter schools with facilities. Due to new regulations that are now in effect, the process and timeline for requesting such facilities have substantially changed. For both operating charter schools and for...
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Finance Overview
Category: Finance
California's charter schools are funded much like other non-charter California public schools, but generally at lower rates. They receive funding from a mix of local property taxes, state education aid programs, the California Lottery, federal education aid programs, fundraising, and other sources. They are prohibited from charging tuition, but may charge fees for certain items to the same extent as non-charter public schools. California's original charter...
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Governor’s Proposed 2010-11 Budget: Hold Harmless Or De-Facto Cut For Schools
Category: Finance
by Eric Premack, Charter Schools Development Center. Originally sent to CSDC members on 01/11/2010. Though Governor Schwarzenegger says his proposed budget for FY 2010-11 would “protect education,” CSDC’s analysis shows that whether the budget protects or cuts K-12 schools depends on what one assumes as the starting point. Relative to current law, CSDC’s analysis of the governor’s proposal shows that the governor uses creative accounting to substantially...
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Governance Overview
Category: Governance
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Grants Overview
Category: Grants and Fundraising
Fundraising, including grants, can provide critical funds to enable schools to offer additional programs, purchase needed equipment, and support general operations. Hundreds of California’s charter schools have successfully implemented a variety of fundraising activities, ranging from small bake sales to large-scale capital campaign efforts. Fundraising projects can be time consuming and labor-intensive. To ensure successful implementation, it is important to have a clear fundraising plan...
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Charter School Fundraising Essentials: Implementing a Successful Capital Campaigns
Category: Grants and Fundraising
by Stephanie Schwuchow, Charter Schools Development Center. Originally published in the Fall 2008 edition of Charter Currents. Interested in raising $100,000 or more for your school? Dozens of charter schools across the country have successfully implemented capital campaigns to raise millions of dollars for their schools’ facilities, equipment and other large financial needs. Unlike other fundraising campaigns, capital campaigns are specifically designed to address a significant,...
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Strategies for Effective Individual Donor Campaigns
Category: Grants and Fundraising
by Stephanie Schwuchow, Charter Schools Development Center. Originally published in the Winter 2006 edition of Charter Currents. Many California charter schools seek outside funding to supplement ‘guaranteed’ general purpose and categorical block grant funds. Among the most common additional source of funds are foundation and government grant funding, but these sources often requiring long-term relationship building and burdensome amounts of paperwork. There are several alternate fundraising methods,...
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Eight Steps to Planning a Successful Fundraising Event
Category: Grants and Fundraising
by Stephanie Schwuchow, Charter Schools Development Center. Originally published in the Fall 2006 edition of Charter Currents. Overview In past issues of Charter Currents, we detailed various guidelines to successfully implement an individual donor campaign and a direct mail campaign. This article will focus on special events, such as fundraising dinners, auctions, or student performances, and will outline specific planning and implementation guidelines to ensure a successful event. Step...
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Implementing an Effective Direct Mail Campaign
Category: Grants and Fundraising
by Stephanie Schwuchow, Charter Schools Development Center. Originally published in the Spring 2006 edition of Charter Currents. In our last issue of Charter Currents, we reviewed the value of individual donors and various guidelines to successfully implement an individual donor campaign. As part of a series of fundraising topics, this article will focus on direct mail, the most common method used to solicit individual donors, and will...
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Instruction and Assessment Overview
Category: Instruction and Assessment
California opened its doors to charter schools to improve student achievement, drive innovation and provide expanded educational choices, among other purposes. To enable charter schools to implement distinctive educational visions, the law frees them from many constraints of traditional public school systems. In exchange for this greater autonomy, they are held accountable for student performance. Instruction in charter schools ranges from traditional to highly innovative. Operators...
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The Power of Using Data: What Reasearch Says
Category: Instruction and Assessment
by Susanne Coie, Charter Schools Development Center. Originally published in the Winter/Spring 2009 edition of Charter Currents. Research seeking to understand “what works” in schools suggests the benefit of using student performance data to inform instruction. Not all data use is equal, however. Some schools that use data to inform instruction do not, in fact, show higher achievement. Skill in using data appears to be important: some...
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Using a Data-Based Inquiry Cycle
Category: Instruction and Assessment
by Beryl Nelson, Charter Schools Development Center. Originally published in the Winter/Spring 2009 edition of Charter Currents. Drowning in data? Some students are struggling? Teachers confused about how data can be used to improve instruction? Schools generate a great deal of data from many sources and make use of data in multiple ways. Charter schools report data to their boards, to their authorizers, to the state,...
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Netbooks: A Cost Effective Computer Option
Category: Instruction and Assessment
by Miles Denniston, Charter Schools Development Center. Originally published in the Winter/Spring 2009 edition of Charter Currents. Schools purchasing computers might consider so-called ‘netbooks,’ a new category of small, inexpensive and easily portable laptop. Netbooks can perform word processing, spreadsheet, email and internet functions, yet can cost as little as $300 plus software. Schools typically might use these netbooks as a primary computer or to augment more...
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Charter Schools Act of 1992
Category: Law and Policy
This annotated compilation of charter school laws is prepared to assist the reader to quickly identify those laws that will constitute California’s Charter Schools Act and several other frequently cited charter laws, as effective January 1, 2007. The Education Code sections included here constitute the core of California’s charter school laws, but exclude many other laws that may also govern charter schools. Though we have...
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Law and Policy Overview
Category: Law and Policy
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Race to the Top Options Improve but Remain Unclear
Category: Law and Policy
by Eric Premack, Charter Schools Development Center. Originally sent to CSDC members on 12/22/09. An amended version of the California Senate's bill (SBX5 4) to improve California's prospects in the federal "Race to the Top" (RTTT) grant competition deleted one major problematic charter element, but problematic and unclear elements remain in both the legislation and the evolving RTTT grant terms. The revised legislation is said to enjoy...
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Race to the Top? Or Grovel for Chump Change?
Category: Law and Policy
by Eric Premack, Charter Schools Development Center. Originally sent to CSDC members on 12/08/09. Two proposed bills and a controversial proposed regulation would heap additional regulatory and renewal barriers on charter schools in an effort to strengthen California's application for federal "Race to the Top" (RTTT) grant funds. CSDC analysis indicates all three could have major negative consequences in exchange for very modest levels of one-time...
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Nonclassroom-Based Schools
Category: NonClassroom Based Schools
Some of California’s most innovative and controversial charter schools provide instruction outside of a traditional “brick and mortar” classroom setting. An estimated percent of California’s charter school students participate in “independent study” and/or “nonclassroom-based” instruction and many more spend at least part of their school day or year outside of traditional classroom settings. The wide range of instructional settings is outlined in a bit more...
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Funding Determination Deadline for New Charter Schools
Category: NonClassroom Based Schools
by Eric Premack, Charter Schools Development Center. Originally sent to CSDC members on 11/25/09. New charter schools that fall into the definition of “nonclassroom-based” must file a so-called “funding determination” request by December 1 with the California Department of Education. The requirement is part of the extensive regulation regime for nonclassroom-based schools. Failing to file a funding determination could have catastrophic fiscal consequences. CSDC urges all...
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Personnel and Labor Relations Overview
Category: Personnel and Labor
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