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home » resources » Overview: School Planning and Startup

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 typically require 18 to 24 months of preparation time before their school opens, following the stages described below.

 

Forming a Team and Building Support

Charter schools are typically formed by a team of people who have a variety of professional skills, strong community ties, a significant amount of time to donate, and above all, a resolute commitment to serving students. Many charter schools are started by people who identify an educational need within their community and have a vision for a school that would address that need. In order to gauge support for their school concept, founding team members will need to share their vision with parents and other members of their community.

 

At this stage, CSDC recommends writing a business plan. A well thought out business plan will serve a variety of purposes:

  • ensure that the founding team members truly share the same vision, particularly in regard to the school’s educational program and student outcome goals
 
  • help determine if the concept is viable from a marketing and financial perspective
 
  • serve as a marketing tool for gaining the support of community leaders and potential funders
 
  • serve as a support document if applying for a loan or line of credit

 

Writing the Charter Petition

Development groups that have written a business plan will have a solid start to writing the charter petition. The charter petition serves as a contract between the charter school and the charter authorizer (which is usually, but not always, the local school district in which you want to be located and that serves the grades you want to serve). A charter petition can vary greatly in length, from 30 pages to hundreds of pages. We generally recommend about 50 to 80 pages of narrative, plus significant attachments. At a minimum, a charter petition is legally required to have the following components:

  • petition signatures
 
  • assurances, including that the charter school will not discriminate, teach religion, or charge tuition
 
  • “reasonably comprehensive” descriptions of 16 required topics
 
  • information on how the charter school might affect the district in which it is located
 
  • a financial plan, including startup costs, three years of monthly cash flow projections, and (we recommend five years of) an operating budget

 

Approval Process

Although not required, CSDC recommends circulating a draft of the charter amongst staff from the charter granting agency for commentary and feedback. The charter is then revised into a finalized charter petition, which must be signed by the legally-required number of teachers or parents. After the signatures have been gathered, the charter is formally submitted to the charter granting agency. The board of the charter granting agency must hold a public hearing within 30 days of when the petition is officially submitted and must vote on a granting/denial decision within 60 days of when the petition is submitted (unless both parties agree to an additional 30 day extension).

 

If the charter is denied, the appeal process allows for the charter to be brought to the county board of education and if denied again, to the state board of education. Alternatively, charter developers sometimes revise their charter to address the district staff and board concerns and resubmit their charter at a later time.

 

School Start Up

If the charter is approved, the next step is to prepare for the opening of the school and to complete the myriad tasks that must be addressed before the school actually opens. Broadly speaking, these tasks include:

  • developing the instructional program and purchasing curriculum materials
 
  • establishing the legal and governance structure
 
  • recruiting and enrolling new students
 
  • recruiting and hiring teachers and staff
 
  • developing human resources systems
 
  • securing and preparing the facility
 
  • establishing business and financial systems

 

 

For Additional Information

In addition to providing individual consulting and document review to new charter school developers, CSDC offers a variety of tools to help throughout the process. In the early stages, reading the Charter School Development Guide will provide a solid (and critical) understanding of the charter development process and California’s public school funding system. CSDC’s Start Smart Workshop and the Charter Petition Drafting Workshop offer attendees a chance to not only learn the chartering process but also to ask questions about their particular situation. We highly recommend that you become a CSDC member so that you will have access to the wide variety of tools that we have created for developers as well as phone and email access to the charter school experts we have on staff.

 

In addition to CSDC’s website and the services we offer, charter school developers should also become familiar with the California Department of Education’s website (www.cde.ca.gov) as well as the websites of the district and county offices of education in which you intend to open.

 

 

 

 

Charter Schools Development Center
2010 Charter Schools Development Centerr

 


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