What's Happening
Here's what you may have missed from NCSRC in the past few months:
Special Education for the Charter Sector
"Special Education 101 for the Charter Sector" is a new primer from NCSRC that explores how charter stakeholders can support and serve students with disabilities. The 30-minute virtual learning opportunity provides the following:
- Review of the major provisions of federal law and their impact on charter schools;
- Overview of the responsibilities of charter schools for the provision of a free and appropriate education for students with disabilities;
- Strategies for providing services for students with disabilities in a virtual learning environment; and
- Additional resources for providing services for students with disabilities in charter schools.
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Webinar: Measuring School Quality
This presentation from the 2021 Charter School Programs Project Directors' Meeting included representatives of the National Charter Schools Institute sharing lessons learned from their National Dissemination grant focused on accountability measures for alternative charter schools.
The session explored a model goal-creation process that schools can use to create school quality measures specific to their mission and vision. It concluded with a charter school, authorizer, and expert panel discussion on measuring school quality, even in the absence of state testing data.
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Federal Funding Guidance
"Accessing Federal Programs: A Guidebook for Charter Schools" provides information about accessing the range of federal programs and resources available to charter schools. Primarily it provides brief and helpful guidance so that charter school operators and developers can identify and access funds available to charter schools.
And if you are looking for additional funding opportunities, don't forget to visit our Funding Opportunity Database, your source for federal and foundation grants.
Subscribe to NCSRC's Funding Opportunity Digest to get a monthly summary of upcoming deadlines right to your inbox.
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State Entity Overviews: Colorado and Maryland
The U.S. Department of Education Charter School Programs (CSP) awards grants to State Entities (SE) that enable them to award subgrants to eligible applicants in their state to open and prepare for the operation of new charter schools and to replicate and expand high-quality charter schools.
NCSRC has developed overviews of two State Entity (SE) grantees, the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) and the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE), to capture key elements of each grantee’s project and disseminate project successes that may benefit others in the charter sector.
The overviews contain information about CDE's Schools of Choice Unit and their efforts related to:
- A training and mentoring program for charter school business administrators
- Equity convenings to better understand and address equity and access challenges confronting Colorado charter schools.
They also feature MSDE’s Charter School Program and their efforts related to:
- Support for start-ups and existing charter schools on a variety of key topics
- School-to-school partnerships among charter and non-charters to promote problem-solving
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Introducing the Safer Schools and Campuses Best Practices Clearinghouse
The U.S. Department of Education has created a new resource to support the safe reopening of schools following COVID-19. The Safer Schools and Campuses Best Practices Clearinghouse is a place to share lessons learned and best practices from the field for operating safely during the pandemic — and submissions are welcome.
Specifically, the Clearinghouse is seeking fact sheets, step-by-step guidance, policies or regulations, ready-to-implement resources, videos or other media focused on safely reopening schools.
For more information on this Request for Information you may also access the notice in the Federal Register. Submit materials to Bestpracticesclearinghouse@ed.gov.
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Questions or feedback? We’re here to help.
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Watch recordings and download resources from every NCSRC webinar at our website.
And if you're new to The Charter Connection, you can find all previous issues in the NCSRC Newsletter Archive.