Comprehensive Resources to Support English Learners and Students With Disabilities
Charter school leaders always need support to address the unique needs of their students. To that end, the National Charter School Research Center (NCSRC) recently released comprehensive resources geared towards English Learner students and students with disabilities. These new publications are a one-stop round up of the most timely and relevant resources to support English Learner students and students with disabilities.
The resource guides are compilations of materials—such as reports, fact sheets, case studies, and toolkits—designed to support innovative, student-centered opportunities to effectively serve English Learner students and students with disabilities.
The resource guides identify existing English Learner and students with disabilities resources in the field and prioritize those that are most recent, usable, and commonly cited. The resource guides also include materials that explain how well and to what extent charters serve these students. The resource guides draw from key stakeholders and leaders in the sector, including federal, state, and local agencies, nonprofit organizations, and research agencies, that have developed resources specifically to aid charter schools in serving English Learner students and students with disabilities.
These resource guides also seek to maintain a diversity of perspectives and are relevant to multiple audiences, including charter school leaders, parents, and policymakers.
Recent NCSRC Resources
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Report: An Analysis of the Charter School Facility Landscape in Ohio: The NCSRC, the Colorado League of Charter Schools, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools released this report detailing the status of charter school facilities in the state.
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Toolkit: Intentionally Diverse Charter Schools: A Toolkit for Charter School Leaders: This toolkit is designed to help charter school leaders and their stakeholders design and implement intentionally diverse charter schools. Using this toolkit, leaders will learn more about how to measure student diversity, how to intentionally recruit and retain students, how to ensure that diversity is supported and experienced meaningfully at the individual, classroom, and school wide levels, and how to create and run schools that help all children thrive.
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Fiscal Oversight Toolkits: These two toolkits foster proper fiscal oversight of charter schools. One toolkit is targeted to charter school governing boards, while the other is for charter school authorizers. Each toolkit compiles successful practices and recommendations on how to prevent, identify, and manage the common financial issues that charter schools face. The toolkits cover both financial insolvency and fraud with a set of checklists that boards and authorizers can use to ensure that charter school funds are used to best serve their students.
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Case Study: Valor Collegiate Academies: Charter Schools Intentionally Designed to Serve Diverse Students and Families: This case study features Valor Collegiate Academies, an intentionally diverse charter management organization in Nashville, Tennessee, and looks at how the Valor schools serve students, engage parents, and support staff to ensure that diversity is a meaningful, daily experience.
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Webinar: Recruitment for Governing Boards: This webinar is presented by the Colorado League of Charter Schools and Charter Board Partners. Having the right skills, experiences, perspectives, and networks among board members is essential to help the charter school achieve its goals.
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Webinar: Intentionally Diverse Charter Schools: The purpose of this webinar is to share effective, evidence-based practices and school-based examples of how to foster diversity within a charter school.
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Webinar: Charter Schools and Food Services: Options, Planning, and Decision-Making: This webinar helps charter schools understand the options and alternatives involved at different stages of food service planning and decision-making. The presenters share a range of information, resources, and perspectives to support better decision making.
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Webinar: Using Data to Create Positive School Climates and Discipline Practices in Charter Schools - National Research and Examples from the Field: The purpose of this webinar is to share effective, evidence-based practices and school-based examples of how to create positive school climates.
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Webinar: Rural Charter Schools - Building Bridges: This webinar highlights charter schools in rural America and focuses on the role of charter schools in rural communities and their efforts to build bridges with the local public school community. The presenters discuss their respective experiences operating charter schools in rural communities.
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Webinar: The Role of States and Charter School Authorizers in Overseeing Student Discipline in Charter Schools: This webinar presents recent research on disciplinary practices in charter schools and gives concrete suggestions from current and former authorizers on how other states and authorizers can improve their own oversight work in this area.
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Webinar: I Just Joined a Charter School Board … Now What?: This webinar provides a framework and strategies for governing effectively, with real-life examples and case studies throughout that are relevant for new charter board members as well as school leaders and experienced board members.
Recent Charter Sector Resources
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Estimated Charter Public School Enrollment, 2016-17: This report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) looks at data on the number of charter schools that opened and closed in each state that has operating charter schools. In 2016-17, there are more than 6,900 charter schools, enrolling an estimated 3.1 million students.
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Bridging the District-Charter Divide to Help More Students Succeed: Based on six years of research, this report by the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) explores why a growing number of districts and charter schools are choosing to work together, the costs and benefits of different types of cooperation, and the real impacts of successful collaboration on students and families.
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National Best Practices: Teacher Recruitment and Pipelines: This paper from NAPCS and the Illinois Network of Charter Schools highlights seven core practices that are foundational to building a high-quality teacher pipeline and the tactics behind them.
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A Growing Movement: America’s Largest Charter Public School Communities and Their Impact on Student Outcomes: This year’s “A Growing Movement” report from NAPCS shows that the charter school movement continues to expand to meet that demand and that, more importantly, charter schools are delivering results for students across the country.
Events
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June 11-14, 2017: National Charter Schools Conference
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July 20-21, 2017: Arizona Charter Schools Association Educator Summit
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October 9-11, 2017: Pacific Rim Conference on Disability and Diversity
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October 11-13, 2017: Texas Charter School Conference
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October 16-18, 2017: NACSA Leadership Conference