Innovative Schools

Charter School Governance

Board Training  l  Charter Renewal Support

Our Charter School Governance services support school leadership successfully navigate the charter renewal process and is targeted in two key areas - Board Training and Charter Renewal Support.

Board Training

Through a series of workshops, Boards will improve their ability to provide effective governance and oversight to their charter schools through examining best practices for school leadership and management, considering strategies to ensure school accountability, and strengthening foundations for superior school governance.

Session 1:  Analyzing Current Board Practices

This session is designed to make certain the current Board operates from a common knowledge base and framework, understands their charge as a public body, and functions as a policy-setting, accountable Board.  This will be accomplished by:

• Re- visiting expectations for Boards and their members, and defining Board/Member roles and responsibilities
• Re- viewing your charter school’s mission and accomplishments
• Re- examining your Board’s current organization and operations
• Re- evaluating your current process for Board accountability

Session 2:  Board Operating Climate

Improving school performance must be the Board priority.  During this session, participants will examine data from multiple sources to determine how your Board/Member practices contribute to increasing student achievement.  This will be accomplished by:

• Re-viewing National, State and Local charter school statistics
• Analyzing school, state and national data to assess current Board practice and school performance.
• Re- visiting the accomplishments of your Board and your charter school
• What are the accomplishments of your school model?
• What are your accomplishments with student performance?             
• What are the outstanding achievement indicators for students, faculty, your school, and your school board?
• Re-evaluating your process for Fundraising
• What options are available for your Board?
• What requirements should be in place?
• Re-examining  legal issues
• For students with disabilities?
• For English language learners?
• What services and processes should be in place?

Session 3:  Board Member Recruitment – An Ongoing Process

Your Board’s practice is only as good as the capacity and effectiveness its members bring to the challenge.  This session will target the investment in effective recruitment processes that will promote a pro-active approach to governance, and avoid the debilitating reactive practice that can cripple a Board’s performance.  This will be accomplished by:

• Re-viewing the essential key components of charter board operations
• Board roles, responsibilities, organizing principles and evaluation practices revisited to support aggressive recruitment initiative.
• Re-examining your Board’s current practices and results
• Re-visiting your Board’s composition (quantity & representation), and your process for Board/Member evaluation
• Capacity helps to determine effective Board practice, and accountability helps to improve performance.  An examination of the skill set, knowledge and experience of current members, in order to set recruitment priorities and broaden representation.  Annual Board and member evaluation provides ongoing data to identify Board effectiveness and areas of concern.
• Re-evaluating the quality of your Annual Board Retreat
• Does this process improve your Board practice?
• Does this process improve your exposure to best practices with school governance and oversight?

Session 4:  Charter School Accountability

This session will focus on the essential elements Board’s require to continuously evaluate school performance over time. An annual Board Evaluation’ and School Leader evaluation should result in a strategy and plan for improvement, developed in concert with the School Leader, that includes proposed performance results.   This will be accomplished by:

• Re-viewing your Board’s current requirements and practices for school finance and student achievement
• How often does the Board review school financial and school performance data? How is the information utilized by the Board to affect results? 
• Re-examining the critical relationship between the School Leader and Board
•  Responsibility for the school’s performance is the purview of the Board and School Leader, (though the Board retains legal authority).  Examining areas where advice is welcomed and the Board /or Leader share input, can improve Board practice and school operations.
• Re-evaluating your school’s definitions and expectations for:
• Academic Accountability
• Performance Benchmarks
• Re-visiting your Board’s Policies on:
• School Performance Reports:  On-going training to maximize Board member participation and deliberations in service of continuous performance improvement.
• Board Practice: How does the Board ensure its practice serves the school mission and annual school performance benchmarks. 

Charter Renewal Support

Working with the school’s Board of Directors and leadership team, our charter renewal program supports you with writing the charter renewal document, reviewing current school and curriculum based documents and preparing for renewal hearings.

Innovative Schools’ will provide an initial comprehensive review of the school to identify current school performance and compliance gaps and vulnerabilities. This serves as the starting point for the collaborative work with multiple stakeholders to develop effective strategies to strengthen the school and present a strong renewal application. Key areas of analysis include:

• Leadership and Governance
• School Culture, Academics, and Curriculum
• Compliance and Operations
• Community and Family Relationships
• Management and Financial Integrity and Soundness 

A summary report is provided to the school’s faculty and board upon completion of the comprehensive review. This report will include an assessment of identified gaps and recommended solutions for addressing those gaps as part of the charter renewal process.

Innovative Schools will work with the school’s faculty, administration and board to prepare the application for submission through:

• The development of a narrative response for each section of the renewal
• The development and/or alignment of curriculum documents based on the gaps identified in the assessment
• Proofreading the completed renewal application and making recommendations for modifications
• Formatting the renewal application to meet DDOE requirements.
• Preparing all final renewal application documents for submission; both hard copy and electronic.
• Monitoring and evaluating progress of not only the charter renewal process and application, but also the school’s progress in closing the gaps and vulnerabilities identified through the initial gap analysis. 

Once the final renewal application is submitted, Innovative Schools will support the operating board prepare for their public hearings.  A panel of local educators and charter school advocates will conduct a mock hearing with the Board of Directors in preparation for the Charter School Accountability Committee hearing. The panel will prepare the Board of Directors for the type of questions likely to be asked and offer guidance to help formulate appropriate responses.