Keyword Search
State Policymakers Charter School Authorizers Charter School Operators What's New  
Home
About the Resource Center
National Resource Center Publications
Resource Clearinghouse
Promising Practices Database
Federal Funding Database
Technical Assistance

Start a New SearchPROMISING PRACTICES: YOUR SEARCH RESULTS

There are 15 Promising Practice Profiles that meet your criteria. Click on the link to go directly to the profile.

Category: Promising Practices in Charter School Finance

Bringing State-Funded Real Estate Expertise to the Charter School Community, The Gaining Ground Facility Development Initiative. Financing to acquire and develop adequate facilities and support ongoing operation and maintenance often is cited as the number one challenge for charter schools across the country. Charter school operators may not possess the necessary financing skills nor have a keen understanding of the legal and fi scal requirements of real estate acquisition. One practical approach to this challenge is to provide charter school leaders with access to the expertise and experience of real estate experts who are knowledgeable in charter school financing. In this promising practice profile, the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights Gaining Ground, a state-funded facility development initiative dedicated to supporting the longterm sustainability and viability of charter schools in New Jersey. Gaining Ground affords charter school leaders in the state access to tools, knowledge, and resources to lease, purchase, and renovate permanent high-quality educational facilities.

Centralizing Charter School Facilities Financing, Utah State Charter School Finance Authority. Charter school leaders often struggle to overcome the administrative and financial burdens associated with acquiring and constructing facilities. In this promising practices profile, the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights how the Utah State Charter School Finance Authority (the Finance Authority) has created more cost-effective and efficient methods to finance charter school facilities.

Developing Financial Benchmarking Tools for Charter School Authorizers and Intermediaries, Volunteers of America of Minnesota and Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Charter school leaders and their authorizers know from hard-won experience that learning how to manage a school’s finances can come with a steep learning curve. In Minnesota and Massachusetts, authorizers are piloting the use of financial benchmarking tools to help their charter schools track financial results, compare performance across different measures of financial health, and improve outcomes through better management.

Diversifying Funding for Career and Technical Education, Central Educational Center Charter School, Newnan, Georgia. Charter schools often struggle with the challenge of securing funding and other resources they need in order to meet their goals. In this promising practice profile, the National Resource Center highlights a charter school's success in partnering with the local business community and technical college to obtain funding and in-kind resources to support its establishment and operations. The success of this practice has been such that this charter school model has received state recognition and support for replication.

Employing Diverse Fundraising Strategies to Support School Expansion, Union Academy Charter School, Monroe, North Carolina. Securing funding for the acquisition and development of school facilities is one of the greatest challenges that leaders of new and expanding charter schools face. In this promising practice profile, the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights Union Academy Charter School’s success in utilizing a variety of fundraising strategies to expand its facilities and operation.

Establishing a Consortium to Maximize Funding for Special Education Programs, Shasta County Charter School Special Education Consortium, Shasta County, CA. Both charter schools and traditional public schools often struggle to cover the sometimes daunting costs of providing quality special education services to students with disabilities. In this promising practice profile, the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights a group of charter school operators in Shasta County, California that formed a consortium to maximize available funding and resources for special education programs. By pooling their special education dollars and jointly managing their special education programs, these schools were able to decrease costs while vastly improving their capacity to offer quality special education services to eligible students.

Funding Facilities for Early Stage Schools, The Building Hope Charter School Incubator Initiative. Securing adequate facilities is one of the greatest logistical and financial challenges faced by charter school developers. In this promising practice profile, the National Resource Center (NRC) on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights the Charter School Incubator Initiative (CSII) run by Building Hope, an intermediary organization that renovates and leases facilities at below-market rates to start-up charter schools.

Leveraging Community Partnerships to Support Charter School Operations, Metropolitan Ministries Academy, Tampa, Florida. Charter school leaders often are challenged to find adequate funding to cover their operating expenses. In this promising practice profile, the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights how Tampa, Florida-based Metropolitan Ministries Academy has overcome this obstacle by leveraging strong relationships with philanthropic donors and community and corporate partners. As a result, the academy annually meets budget gaps and is able to provide comprehensive services to the school’s residentially displaced students and families.

State-Funded Planning Support for Charter School Startup, Georgia Charter School Planning Grants, Georgia Department of Education. Starting a new charter school requires significant resources for research and planning in addition to funding for development. Research and planning expenses can include the cost of developing the school’s model, generating community and leadership support, and submitting charter documents. These costs are compounded by the expenses involved in preparing to open the school, which include acquiring facilities, purchasing supplies, and hiring staff. While each new school receives per pupil dollars to fund general operation, research and planning expenses typically are incurred before operating funds become available. New charter schools often must rely on other resources to cover the costs of research and planning. Some federal and state programs offer charter schools financial assistance with initial startup and implementation expenses; however, in most states, these funds are not available to potential charter school developers that are still in the early stages of planning. In this promising practice profile, the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights Georgia’s state-funded charter school planning grant program. This program supports the conceptualization and early planning stage of new charter school development by providing financial assistance prior to the submission of a charter application.

Strengthening Special Education Finance through a State-Sponsored Intermediary, Minnesota Charter Schools Special Education Project. Charter schools, which typically are smaller and operate with fewer resources than district-run public Schools, often struggle to establish and sustain special education programs that comply with state and federal regulations. In this promising practice profile, the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights the Minnesota Charter Schools Special Education Project's success in providing guidance and support to charter schools attempting to develop effective, fiscally sound special education programs.

Supporting Charter School Business Managers, State-Sponsored Training and Networking in Colorado. Charter school business managers play a critical role in ensuring their organization’s success and sustainability. They monitor compliance with reporting and regulatory requirements and track revenues and expenditures to maintain financial solvency. Yet partly because of the complexities of this position, the supply of skilled charter school business managers is limited. In this promising practice profile, the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights the Colorado Department of Education’s Business Managers Network, a technical assistance and networking program to help charter school business managers build skills and capacity to meet their challenging responsibilities (see Typical Responsibilities of a Charter School Business Manager).

Supporting Charter School Operators During the Budget Planning and Implementation Process, Achievement First, Connecticut and New York. Charter school management organizations (CMOs) seek to replicate charter schools with proven academic models while affording school leaders flexibility. Balancing these two aspects of charter school development and operation is essential during the budget planning process, wherein CMOs face the challenge of providing centralized support to charter school operators without compromising school leaders’ ability to control spending decisions. In this promising practice profile, the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights the success of one CMO, Achievement First, in establishing a budget planning model that encourages consistency and aggregates resources across participating charter schools while still maintaining school-based budgetary control.

Tapping into Federal Programs to Fund Tutoring Services, MATCH Charter Public High School, Boston, Massachusetts. Many charter schools across the nation serve high-risk students who need academic interventions to raise their achievement levels. One popular approach among charter schools is to create supplemental programs that provide students with additional assistance in core subject areas. Creating and operating these types of programs, however, requires extra resources. In this promising practice profile, the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights MATCH Charter Public High School strategy of tapping two widely available federal programs--AmeriCorps and work-study programs--to find personnel and funding for its tutoring programs that provide intensive academic support for students in Boston, Massachusetts.

Using Loans to Support Charter School Expansion, California Charter Schools Association’s Charter School Growth Loan Program. Charter schools can face cash flow problems when the timing of state aid payments is not aligned with their financial needs. In this promising practices profile, the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights the success of the California Charter Schools Association’s Charter School Growth Loan Program, which leverages a unique public-private partnership to provide needed working capital to the state’s growing charter school sector.

Using Municipal Bonds to Finance Charter School Facilities, Walter D. Palmer Leadership Learning Partners Charter School, Philadelphia, PA. Charter school leaders often struggle to find financing for the construction of school facilities that meet their needs and to manage the complex process of putting this financing in place. In this promising practice profile, the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance and Governance highlights the success of the Walter D. Palmer Leadership Learning Partners Charter School in partnering with Mosaica Education, Inc., The Palmer Foundation, and the City of Philadelphia to use innovative financial management strategies to fund the construction of a new charter school facility.