The Charter Connection - November 2021

Resource Selection
18 Nov, 2021
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A girl in a classroom with the title "2021 Year in Review"

First Things First - Thank You!

2021 was full of challenges and triumphs for educators and students as many of you navigated the return to in-person school. In response, NCSRC spent 2021 digging deeper into our research and showcasing best practices from the field. We are grateful to every reader of this newsletter and everyone who downloaded a report, watched a webinar, explored a learning module, or forwarded these tools to your peers and networks.

If you want to subscribe to the quarterly Charter Connection email newsletter, you can do so here. We look forward to sharing more resources for charter schools in 2022.

But first, let's take a look at some of the most-visited NCSRC resources of 2021!

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Three scenes of children learning with the title "Top 3 Reports"

How Charter Schools Can Leverage Community Assets Through Partnerships
This resource can guide charter school operators in their design and implementation of community partnerships. It can be used by operators in any phase of school development.

You'll read about the partnership-building efforts of four charter school organizations and learn the seven factors that can help you build successful school-community partnerships.

Identifying Indicators of Distress in Charter Schools, Part 2: The Roles and Perspectives of Charter School Leaders and Board Members
The second report in our Identifying Indicators of Distress series can support school leaders, governing board members, charter school support organizations, and authorizers recognize the signs of early school decline before schools spiral into failure. With this new understanding of school failure, we have the opportunity and the imperative as a field to identify schools in distress while improvement is still feasible.

Accessing Federal Programs: A Guidebook for Charter School Operators and Developers
As publicly funded schools, charter schools are eligible to apply for federal formula grants as well as discretionary grants administered by various ED program offices. This guidebook provides basic information about accessing the range of federal programs and resources available to charter schools.

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Two girls talking outside of school, with the title "Top 3 Webinars"

Special Education 101 for the Charter Sector
One goal of the Every Student Succeeds Act is to expand opportunities for students with disabilities and other traditionally underserved students to attend charter schools and meet challenging State academic standards. This 30-minute presentation explains how charter schools and charter support organizations can ensure that students with disabilities are receiving a high-quality education.

NCSRC Summer Chat Series on Community Engagement
NCSRC held a series of three short "summer chats" inspired by our report, How Charter Schools Can Leverage Community Assets through Partnerships. Like that publication, the summer chat series is intended to inspire and support charter schools in pursing and strengthening community partnerships to better serve students and families in their communities. 

Identifying Indicators of Distress in Charter Schools: A Workshop for Authorizers and State Departments of Education
NCSRC hosted an interactive workshop to support authorizers and state departments of education in using its Identifying Indicators of Distress in Charter Schools: Tools to Support Authorizer Data Collection toolkit. During the workshop, attendees reviewed the indicators of distress in charter schools and engaged in a self-assessment of their own data collection and early warning signs exhibited by charter schools in their portfolio. 

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A boy reading with his teacher, with the title "Top 3 Toolkits"

Policy Framework for High-Quality Charter Authorizing Practices
This Framework is a tool for assessing the State policy environment’s support for high-quality authorizing practices. It is based on a review of high-quality authorizing practices by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools. It is also the foundation for NCSRC activities related to quality authorizing, for example, our High-Quality Charter Authorizing Policy Profiles are summaries of states’ charter school authorization policy contexts based on the Framework.

Logic Model Toolkit: A Resource for Current and Prospective Grantees of Charter School Programs
This toolkit is designed to help prospective and current Charter School Programs grantees develop and revise logic models to guide project implementation and monitor progress. The toolkit can help prospective grantees develop logic models as part of their project design process, align project activities and goals with available resources, and display their project clearly in their grant applications. It can also help existing grantees to use their logic models to guide, monitor, and report on project implementation.

Capacity-Building Guide for Founding Native American Charter Schools
NCSRC collaborated with the National Indian Education Association to write this guide, which provides aspiring Native American charter school founders and supporters with perspective on three capacities essential for opening a Native American charter school: founding team capacity, funding capacity, and compliance capacity. It includes case studies of two Native American charter schools to illustrate how each school realized these capacities. Throughout the Guide are resources on school governance, startup funding, and understanding authorizing policies by state. 

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A class of children celebrate in front of a chalkboard, with the title "Funding Opportunities Right to Your Inbox"

In 2021, NCSRC added more than 250 grant summaries to our Funding Opportunity Database. Now is a great time to search that resource to see if there are opportunities that could benefit your program.

And if you want to receive upcoming deadlines, new additions to the database, and spotlight opportunities right to your inbox, subscribe to our monthly Funding Opportunity Digest.

Thank you and see you in 2022!

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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.