Turning a vision for charter schools into outcomes for educators and the students they inspire.
The U.S. Department of Education awarded the National Charter School Resource Center contract to us in 2013, just as our small business’ passion and perseverance in education were intersecting with mastery in the sector. We had reached a place where bringing together some of the best minds in the field was an easy task: we had built relationships in the sector and developed true subject matter expertise in education policy.
That ability to sustain relationships and build expertise on the sophisticated subject matter, year after year, is what kept us on board as the managers of the NCSRC.
View the resources we created including interactive dashboards, collaborative webinars, video case studies, and publications.
Publications
The following publications we authored for the National Charter School Resource Center are organized by subject matter. View or download these publications for your charter school’s needs by clicking or tapping the title of the publication.
Charter School Board Governance
- Charter School Enrollment: A Toolkit for Board Members
This toolkit provides information and guidance on the role charter board members have in supporting student recruitment and enrollment. - Charter School Governing Board Composition: A Toolkit for Board Members
This toolkit is designed to support charter school boards in building the best membership to ensure student success. - Charter School Governing Board Recruitment Tools
This resource provides assessments and sample board matrices for charter school boards to understand their needs. - Charter School Governing Board Primer: School Leadership
This resource provides best practices and support designed to ensure great school leadership and an guidance in developing an effective relationship between the board and leadership. - A User’s Guide to Fiscal Oversight for Charter School Governing Boards and Authorizers
These two toolkits to foster proper fiscal oversight of charter schools. One toolkit is targeted to charter school governing boards, while the other is for charter school authorizers.
New School Development
- New School Development: A Toolkit for Charter Support Organizations and Charter School Founders
This toolkit is designed to help charter support organizations (CSOs) and charter school founders find key resources on opening a new charter school. - District-Charter Collaboration: A User’s Guide
This paper is intended for use by district and charter representatives interested in establishing a new collaboration or increasing the effectiveness of an existing collaboration.
Other Resources
- Students with Disabilities Resources
This compilation is designed to provide the charter school community with access to useful information (such as research, case studies, and toolkits) in support of their work to effectively serve students with disabilities. - English Learner Resources
This compilation from the National Charter School Resource Center (NCSRC) is designed to provide the charter school community with access to useful information (such as research, case studies, and toolkits) in support of their work to effectively serve EL students.
- Charter Schools and Military Communities: A Toolkit
This toolkit features information on charter schools serving the needs of military families and tools to help additional military communities strengthen their local school options with new charter schools.
Webinars
We have conducted over ninety webinars for the National Charter School Resource Center. These webinars have focused on diverse general-purpose subjects like Special Education and English Language Learners in charter schools. There have also been many webinars that provided technical assistance to a variety of stakeholders in the charter school space, especially Charter School Program (CSP) grantees. We have included a sampling of these webinars below.
Video Case Studies
We identified high-performing charter schools and supporting organizations to profile and spread best practices. Each of these case studies includes detailed information about the entity being highlighted and multimedia documentation. We’ve provided a sample of several of these case studies below and you can find the full list of NCSRC case studies here.
Washington Leadership Academy
Washington Leadership Academy (WLA) is a technology-focused public charter high school serving students throughout the District of Columbia. WLA’s mission is, “To prepare students with the knowledge, skills, and habits to succeed in college and live lives of public leadership.” This case study explores how the school uses technology to personalize learning, enabling students to become owners of their learning and growth. Watch one of the videos from the case study below or view the whole case study at the NCSRC.
Deep Community Engagement at the Native American Community Academy (NACA)
This case study explores how students who attend the Native American Community Academy (NACA) demonstrate academic achievement, proficiency, retention, graduation, and college attendance rates that far outpace their Native American peers at the district, state, and national levels. Watch a sample of the video case study below or view the full case study on the NCSRC.
Cornville Regional Charter School: Personalized Learning
This case study features Cornville Regional Charter School (CRCS) and its learner-centric personalized learning methodology. Founded in 2012, CRCS is a charter program located in rural Maine, and the school serves 144 students in grades K-8. CRCS has fully integrated proficiency-based personalized learning into their curriculum. Watch a sample video from the case study below or view the full case study here.
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 (CMO) that operates two high-performing charter schools in Nashville, Tennessee. Valor opened its first school in 2014-15 with a mission to serve a diverse student body and has made many decisions through its founding and operation to achieve that mission. Watch a sample video from the case study below or view the full case study on the NCSRC.