Oh, thank you. Yeah. >> Borrow y'all's mic for one second to do roll start. >> You're from Hawaii. Um I was well like Thank you for asking.
I screwed up. >> And I'm actually tonight just because if you would have had to add a whole another tape for me. >> No. And I was like, I couldn't play. So, but I was like, oh yeah, there is roll call. You can always
Hi, how are you? How big do you want? They're on to >> It should be gone everybody. How are you going to grab the mic?
All right, got things rolling here this evening. Um, all our work sessions ordered. Can you roll call, please? Barkley >> here. >> Davidson, >> here. >> Here. >> Gordon >> here. >> Green Street >> here.
Sharon, >> sure are you can hear me. >> All right. So, and then of course we've got some some lovely guests here with us today. We have Alex here from taxa which is the Colorado Association of Charter School Authorizers.
It's quite a mouth and then we have here as well council and then guess I'll hand it over to you guys to kind of walk us through your gy. >> Yeah.
First of all, thank you for allowing us to be here. Um, I'll talk about a little bit who we are and why we do these kind of outdoor trainings, but we're very excited for these here. Just a really quick introduction. My name is Mhan. I'm the executive director
of CASA. Um, I have been an authorizer in five different school districts, both Colorado and Florida. Met met Alice actually many years ago working in Florida in the authorizing space. Um, and very happy to continue to work with him. Um, Alex was in my position
previous. So, um, we'll have some great time to connect on what Colorado authorizers needs. I'm very glad that Alex could be here today. Um, and give it to you. >> Uh, my name is Alex Middler. Uh, my job is I'm the executive director of the
National Network for District Authorizing. And that is a group that groups like McKenzie's Mcken uh, CAXa got together and created a national network to support each other. So my job is to help organizations like CAXA learn from different states and bring things together. Um I've been working in the
charter space since its beginning. Um a federal official in state and local level a lot on policy and mostly on authorizing. I chair the board of the Colorado Charter School Institute. So I've been in a suit before dealing with state authorizing and I currently am the vice president of the Boulder Valley
School District board where we authorize five charter schools. So, I have had to make the kind of votes and policy decisions that you have done as well. Um, but we're here today to really talk about what best practices and authorizing. And I just have to say both for the the community and for the board,
um, good authorizing is not a pro-charter thing or an anti-charter thing. It is really a good chartering exercise that leads to transparency and predictability. um improves relationships between charters and districts and can really help uh people
on both the offering side and the charter school side uh collaborate when they need to stay out of each other's way and figure out a good working way that serves the students interest. >> And we will seem like we're going through these slides very quickly, but
if you've already seen the deck, there is a lot of information to this. Um and um just really quick preface um we are here from the support of Colorado fund who is supporting our expansion into
other school districts to provide specific training for school district boards on their role as authorizers. CAPSA as an organization exists to promote best practices in authorizing and we really primarily work with staff. So we're working with folks in in larger
districts. we're working with authorizer staff or school choice experts and then in smaller districts we're we're working with superintendent a lot of the time um in the in the last few years we've realized there's a lot of learning and understanding about authorizing
functions that need staff at the board level and there really isn't a lot of resources and support and training right now existing that is Colorado specific there are national supports we really wanted to be able to come out in this exact situation and be able to look at
your scenario, talk to you about best practices, and then really make it relevant to you. So, um, we are appreciative of the Colorado School Fund for supporting this. Um, but really quickly about CAXA, we do we just exist to support best practice. We are not an advocacy organization. We really provide
a lot of PD. We we provide tools and resources. If you check out our website, we have templates for everything you could think of. Um, and so a lot of times we might work with a school district who has never had a charter school before and they reach out to us and we support them in helping them better understand how to support that
school and um, also go through the responsibilities that they have as an authorizer according to state law. We don't veer from statutory requirements other than best practices that we promote that are also published nationally. So um that is just a really
quick overview of what we are but feel free to check us out on our website. We also in addition to the um training for today we do a lot of networking for authorizers. We provide um space for folks to come that do this work and ask questions because this is a very niche
kind of work uh and it's very very complex as you will find through tonight's presentation. Um and we have done our best to try to bring the most relevant things to you. we feel like from a board's perspective. With that said, um we don't have the time to go
through every single thing that we would like to share with you. So, we want to make sure that our time with you is really valuable. Um and I know Alice is going to ask you a couple questions before we get started just to make sure that we are focusing on the things that you feel like you need the most as a
>> Thanks. Uh let me just say oh by the way um as a work session I really encourage you to uh not be bashful uh jump in with questions or comments um and I apologize in advance I have a chronic cough that is in no way contagious but if I don't
be nervous about it but I apologize in advance that it might interrupt me. Um so the first thing I wanted to do as Mackenzie said we've got slides here that you can use later that cover the whole life cycle of hearts and lots of things we're not going to get to tonight. So my first question to you all
uh to the extent you'd like to share in a big public meeting um how knowledgeable do you feel about charter schools about what they are and how they work on a scale of one to 10 how many people are a 10
>> nine an eight we'll jump to six >> got some sixes fives four lower than four so we're in the four to six range That's great. All right. When it comes to authorizing, as your role as
a district person and authorizing, how many people, we'll start on the other end. How many people feel like they're a one, two? >> Yeah. >> Three or three, four. Anybody over five? >> Okay. So, no more about charters than
authorizing. And there's a lot to learn about. Um, if you look through the agenda, we're going to talk about things like uh the what is authorizing, why matters, what's how the state context works for it. Um, we're going to talk about why board capacity matters and difference between board and staff.
We're going to talk about the charter school life cycle and different things authorizers do throughout the whole time. It's not just about approval or renewal. There's a lot goes on the rest of the time. So, if you think about that, if you look over the agenda, um
there's too much to do. So, if you look over that, what are the things you think you'd like to spend the most time on? Thank >> specifically, there should be a hand out here that just gives like topics. Um if you wanted to look at that, if there's anything that jumps out you want to
focus on, let us know. Sorry, I flipped through the deck before before the meeting. I and I think there's a lot obviously to learn. Even just having the deck I think is super helpful already. Um, obviously we are in a position where we all as a district
already authorized a charter. Um, and so I think the topics that are more focused on the life cycle after um, application and and approval would be more helpful at this time. Not to say that that's not good information to have and to learn.
Um, but since we've already we're already in a place where we have a charter school, I think for me that would be the best. >> Anybody else? The two that stand out to me from here are clarified governance rules and responsibilities and align local
practices with Colorado law and national standards. That sounds uh very similar to what Mackenzie and I were expecting and looking to seren. So that's your work and know that um if you want to know more about parts taxa and land and 48 where I work our resources to go into
more detail and uh responses to start um let's see uh so by the end of the night we're really hoping that we will understand and charge authorizing process in Colorado clarify the board's
role versus staff responsibilities um and other re resources you can tap into beyond just your own staff and board. Um, identify the key decision points across that life cycle and recognize the legal requirements and implications for good board action. So, there's discrete times throughout the whole life cycle
where you guys have to vote. Um, and then uh be able to come in and make uh informed and defensible offering decisions. The boards can always make decisions. Uh, it's good to know those decisions can be appealed. So how you make your decisions is really important
to be able to execute them. Plus, it's also really helpful to make the right ones >> and we will make sure to focus on the areas that you mentioned and just know that going forward as this evening we um have an organization which I'm very
excited that you have decided to become members of. Um we have ongoing conversations about all of these topics all years. So um we also are very receptive to what we might have some small working groups and obviously we can always come back and and focus on a
specific area if you need it. >> We're going to jump right in um because there welcome Alex maybe. >> All right. So so what is authorizing? uh it's it's not approving a school and
it's not closing it. It's the whole process by which a public entity like a school district or in Colorado the charter school institute or a district really reviews the applications and approves an application that organize it and then they establish the expectations of that school through a contract. So
the authorizer is the one figuring out what the school will be accountable for. Then when a school's operating they are monitoring the performance over time and then they uh the main big decision point later is making renewal or closer decisions based on results and along the
way they have to do all that while respecting both the autonomy of the school. So charters the whole purpose of the charter is to be a great school for the community and to do that they want to do something different in different ways. So the authorizer has to be always aware of their potential to get in the
way of the autonomy and the innovation of the school and so they have to exercise some self-restraint in that and at the same time balance that with intense responsibilities of accountability. So they want to have high standards and and good performance however they measure that and think about it for their school or community
and then their primary interest is the interests of the students. Um but and then next to that is the interest of public funds and stewardship and the community's interests. So like anything a school board does, it's really complex, lots of stakeholders, lots of interests, and it all comes up in the
charter space, but it comes up differently than the way you do it for your own schools. Any comments or questions there? Okay. Um so effective authorizing really protects students number one, families
and taxpayers as well. And it also leads to creating a good environment where um everybody can thrive and kids are being well served. The strong authorizing actually leads to clear expectations and accountability. I like to say it makes it all transparent and predictable so
people aren't surprised by what's going on. People can plan and act and take action and they when they're doing good, they can know there isn't some existential threat to them. Uh and they can be confident they can spend most of their time focusing on their students. So transparency, predictability, it also
is the way you get to high quality schools and responsible use of public funds. Without good authorizing um or little oversight, each of those things can go sideways. Uh the other part really is to provide families with meaningful quality options. So I I know
myself as a board member, I'm always like, what can I do? But at the same time, I'm like, well, what are all the different things my families want in my community? So chartering is one of the best ways in Colorado to create alternatives that are different. So families pick the best choice for their kid and uh districts do that with their
own schools. Charter sometimes get really different, sometimes they're just being a little different. That's what communities want. So providing the options um and then having fair and transparent uh standards for performance. A key part is all that autonomy is conditioned on succeeding
both at providing their mission, honoring all their obligations and rights. students rights, public obligations, but also teaching kids well and being a good school. So, you've got to be transparent and fair about that because there are real consequences for the charter if they can't do that. Um,
and then you want to have this whole process build and lead to really evidence-based decisions at the end of a charter term or if you have a long charter contract like you do, at least every once in every 5 years, you want to have a rigorous process of review that's equal in rigor to what you would do
again at the charter term. So even in the long term, you're going to want to be setting yourself up to make a deep dive review of performance every 5 years and to have the tools at your disposal. When you do that, what you get is consistent oversight, stronger outcomes, public trust, and really better charter
district relationships. Um, you can have good relationships because everybody's ignored each other. Uh, and then that leads to things going sideways. um or you can have good relationships uh because people have clarified what their roles are and they know what the expectations are. When you don't do that
right, you'll get uneven quality. You'll get problems with inequity. Um a lot of fights over who's serving whom and which kids are benefiting or not from different things. That's such a core part of the of public education that it's an it remains a core part of cha
authorizing and running charter schools. And then the other thing you lose is trust. And so when you get to a in a situation where uh the board members in the community or the charter school leaders and the charter board are not trusting each other, everything is so much harder to do. So the more above
board it is, the more transparent it is, the more people can say, "No, no, I'm here. We're going to talk about that thing we both agreed to, and that's what we're going to do." rather than having many things going on below the scenes that people can be suspicious of and uh really assume the worst when they
probably shouldn't because everybody on all sides is trying I think I find trying to do what's right for kids and manage a tricky job whether you're running a charter school or a district. >> Any questions there feedback? One thing I realize it's not on this slide that I do think is important for us folks that
like data is there are a lot of research um there is research out there too that supports the concept that strong authorizing does lead to um better outcomes for students in the schools within their purview and we are obviously all here because we want all
of our kids to have the best options possible. So, it does drive a lot of our work and it keeps us realizing how important it is on the authorizer side to make sure that we have really strong systems because we want our schools to be strong for kids. >> And I will add one other thing in our
environment uh especially with districts of this size. When authorizing is done well, it isn't a news item that is constantly distracting you from everything else the district wants to do. So I think there's an opportunity cost to district leadership of not doing authorizing well
because I'm sure there are things besides authorizing that you want to do for the schools you run. And so if authorizing is not working well, it's taking away staff time and board energy and community energy that could be going into making all the schools be better and for you guys pursuing whatever your
agenda is as a board for your own schools. So this is supposed to be efficient and clear space for you to do the rest of the job. Um, so, uh, Colorado, people always say, well, what's the purpose? Why do we have charter schools anyway? It's good to know. Sometimes people oversimplify
that. They're tempted to say, well, the idea is that charter schools are supposed to be innovative so that the districts will learn how to change. That is so only like one 5% of the story. The Colorado statute actually lists 13 purposes for charter schools. So, everybody comes at it with a different
lens of what they want to do. Number one is, you know, you really are improving learning. Uh you're increasing learning opportunities and having special emphasis on new experience for pupils that may be academically lower achieving or need more. You can encourage different approaches to education and
innovation and research based things. You create new employment options for the educators and leaders in your community that they wouldn't have through the normal system. You're uh giving parents more choices. But when they wrote the bill, they also said, "This is how we'll learn how to implement standardsbased reforms and and
figure out how to be based on evidence." They talked about really um creating opportunities for the districts to serve specialized schools for particular problems that they have or to do turnaround of their own schools. So really, you should always know that you can come together and be excited about
what a charter school is trying to do and come to that with really different reasons and they're all legitimate. And so you have to respect everybody else's reasons for the most part undermining. Let's pause there for a little bit. Um, how do those things make you feel? Does that resonate with what you're trying to
do? And what what are your reactions to that foundation? Yeah, I would love to get to a point where we are spending less energy as a board focusing on the charter district relationship so that it's running
smoothly and we know, hey, we have a schedule of when we're going to address, you know, this issue or that thing and we're going to look at these contracts, you know, at this date every year and everyone can just know what to expect and and be prepared so that we can focus
on all of the other issues that are facing the district because right now I think as a board and and as an administrative office even you know there's a lot of energy and and time um being spent trying to figure some of these things out because it hasn't been documented uh in the past and so that's
really what we're looking with for help with >> anybody else >> I think the thing for me is like this is also part of the work that I do in uh in a professional capacity is like understanding like what does good look like so that we can get there and that's like what I'm really excited about for this is because we only know what we've
experienced and I think we've just experienced a lot of turmoil and a lot of friction and so knowing that there's space beyond that that we can get to is really exciting and sounds really positive like hey let's go >> let's get there >> I also think transparency is really
important to our entire community >> yeah those are else >> those are all really core things that authorizing can help I will say are not at all alone. Smaller districts frequently manage their charter schools
with relationships from like the superintendent to the leader of the charter school and they treat it like a small school in a rural community and everything works until there's transitions or until something doesn't work. And so the idea of good authorizing is not to make something a
problem, but it's to create efficient systems so that if something comes up, you can manage them without it blowing up. It's one way to think about it. And there's no reason you can't still have those personal relationships and trust and talk and help each other. All right, Colorado.
Um, little history. Uh, first, uh, law was passed in, uh, the 9293 session. First school opens in '93. Colorado is actually the third state in the country to adopt charter schools. And I think they have a pretty special charter school law and policy and one of the more vibrant charter sectors around the
country with a good mix of quality and innovation and difference and a real balance of a dis a state culture of local control and the importance of districts being connected to their communities and districts having a really important role in authorizing
charter space. So 260 schools 130,000 students you know it's 15% of the students in the c in the state are in charter schools. So, that's a big deal. That's never going away. That is just part of the way public education works in Colorado. And it's um it's a good
thing. I think even as a school board member, I'm I my kids uh didn't go to them, but I love having them in my district and most of my neighbors and friends at least some pine one older charters. So, it's a good thing. Um it can be you can be authorized here by
local districts which do about 83% of the charters currently or the Colorado charters will institute a state level authorizer. Um like I said most of it's done by the districts and then there's unique situations we can talk about when uh CSI uh gets involved and it's driven
by law. Um one thing to know about is key for districts is the concept of exclusive chartering authority. So under Colorado law by default you are the only authorizer of schools charter schools within your jurisdiction. Um if you if someone proposed a charter school right
on the boundary in one district and most kids in the other district you you can have situations where district approves the charter school in the next district over but it's usually just because the building's located across the street or something. Um so exclusive chartering authority means that uh people can't
apply to or transfer their school to the charter school institute unless two conditions are met. Number one and this is what happens almost all the time when it happens is the district decides and says we we allow this applicant to apply to CSI instead or with an operating
school they say we we want to allow the school to transfer to CSI and goes there. CSI operates like uh like its own district like an LEA for legal purposes in Colorado. Um if a district uh is doing a terrible job of authorizing and the state board determines that it's
been unduly hostile to its charter schools, is asking unreasonable things, the state board has a hearing and they can take away exclusive chartering authority. Uh the districts can apply and get it back. U but that almost never happens. Uh the charter school institute got created in 2004 and when they
started they were they it wasn't a default but they changed it so that the districts would have a default of exclusive authority they actually have to get in a pretty bad situation for people to even talk about it. Uh really one of the only challenges we've had in the last 10 years is of Adams 14 which
has problematic issues and lots of issues that are going on and the authorizing part got brought into that I think as much as anything else. Um, but districts do release schools to CSI all the time and there's lots of reasons to do it. Um, they do it when there's a lack of capacity at a district level and
they're just like, "Hey, this is too much work. We'd like to focus. School's going to be there. It's okay. We don't need to be overseeing it. You got more resources. You take it." The other one would be um that there are operational challenges or unique things like there's facilities or transportation issues that
they can't solve and that the school might be able to better solve on its own. Uh there's also unique schools. Um CSI uh recently approved for Jefferson Academy released a school for kids with autism and they actually needed to go to the legislature and change get a line
item in the state budget in order to open under the way we fund special ed. So Jefferson was like, "Hey, we don't have time to go to the legislature for you. Go to CSI and let them have that fight." They did. CSI went to the legislature, got the money, schools open and operating now. Jefferson uh uh uh
county was happy with that school exists. It wouldn't have if the district had to do it. They also approved uh Ute Mountain School uh or the Uteth Mountain Tribe and they actually had to negotiate with the feds without stepping on tribal sovereignty how to apply federal and
state um law to a public Colorado charter school whereas tribal schools don't do that. And so they actually had to go work with people at the federal and state level. CSI solves those problems. Um so the other uh in the past Colorado Springs let a lot go to CSI because there were financial incentives
the way the state finance system worked and they support charters like well school's going to exist. Um they'll get more money we'll get more money if we don't approve it let it go to CSI. No spin off our team. I'm oversimplifying that. Uh but that's was the financial incentive. And then the other there could be local priorities and complex
situations. Sometimes people know a school is succeeding and things get so adversarial and so broken that we'd like to let's just make this go away. Let somebody else solve those problems and districts will release a school that they find problematic knowing that um CSI does have high standards and rigor.
A lot of schools go to CSI to have their closure managed by CSI and the district's like uh we we're not we don't know how to solve this. School is struggling. Let CSI give a chance of trying to fix it and if they can't we trust CSI to close it. So those are the sorts of reasons. Um and at this point
almost all of CSI's portfolio has been of schools released to CSI voluntarily by districts. Questions on that? Oh uh go ahead. I think there's in the next part. Um so you have it by default. CSI cannot act without a district approving
a a sing a particular appro applicant. So they have to do it for that applicant or that school. They may relinquish the applicant or the charter to CSI. And if you relinquish one charter, it doesn't affect other schools or applicants. So you can say just this applicant. So Jefferson Academy still has exclusive
chartering authority, but they let Prospect Academy go to CSI. And then finally, uh charters do go both ways. So sometimes they leave CSI to go back to their district. Uh that recently happened at 12 for a new America school. Questions about C uh exclusive charting
authority. What is just so we're all understanding kind of the dynamic right there. Um I guess what is the major benefit for the district in retaining that exclusive chartering position?
>> Uh you find um the counter to all those good things for the reason they would go. Um but there's different reasons and different circumstances. A lot of times um uh the district has a big strong ownership that these are schools in our community. These are our kids whether they're in the charter or the district
schools. These are all districts kids of Woodland Park School District for example, right? So a lot of school boards and districts have that orientation. They either think they have a responsibility that if there's going to be problems the school needs help with or problems that come up, they want to be the ones making the decisions to
help or what to do. so they have a a a form of control and that can be both like well we're going to help them solve some problems or we want to make sure something that's problematic gets fixed. Um it can also be that uh it really was started by their own educators and their
own community and it had strong relationships and they wanted to succeed. The other would be that they did it in partnership to serve a special population. A lot of charters are alternative education campuses for dropout kids or kids who are very vulnerable. And the charter is an option to do things differently, but the
district is still trying to figure out how they are playing a role in serving all kids. And the charter is killing that niche for them. So it's like this is a special program. It needs to be unique, but it also needs to be matching our values and priorities. The other thing is so that they can make sure that
values and priorities that they hold locally can be relevant. I will tell you as I serve on the Boulder Valley School Board, uh, in Boulder, we care about our discrimination policy a lot and our LGBTQ support is important to the district. So, if someone came in with a school that was and we weren't sure that
they would protect those kids, we would do everything we could as a board to make sure we're in overseeing that school so that the values of my community could be reflected in all the schools in our as a board member. I'd say that those values that you have and your priorities are very real and
chartering is is a way to like give the autonomy, give the difference, but also make sure that your local schools reflect your community's interests and your values as a community. >> That's a heavy thing. What do you how do you guys react to that? What do you think?
Okay. >> Anything you want to add on the ECA front? you council a lot of districts has to think about it. >> Yeah, I think um you hit all of the major points of why we would see transitions or transfers I should say. Um but personally being an authorizer um
in very different districts, small large capacity, no capacity, I think I've seen mostly it come down to capacity issues because as you see this is a lot of work to be a good authorizer and and districts sometimes just don't have the
the structure. Hence sort of why CAXa partially exists is we come in and help in some of those gaps in in certain situations. But um a lot of times in my experience where I've seen a district really hold on to a school versus letting them go to CSI is because they really truly believe in that charter's
mission and they know it fills a niche they can't fill just like he said. So um I think it's it's more about the perspective and the approach of the board really. It's time to when that occurs. Um, and a lot of times it does happen quickly like we have a school, we
don't know what to do with this, we don't want it to fail. Here you go. Um, so those are the things I've seen. >> Yeah, I would add one more. Um, we this is a technical legal detail, but districts and the CSI have a different standard of appeal. So when you make a
decision and and someone appeals it to the state board, uh, pretty much all your decision making and the merit of your decision is reviewed by the state board. When CSI reviews is appealed to the state board and they can be appealed to if you deny an application or try to close a school or change their contract,
their standard of appeal is an arbitrary capriccious standard. So if you're dealing with a really ligious school and you think they're really problematic and you trust CSI to like see the problem and solve it and be hardosed with them, CSI will have an easier time implementing accountability and
oversight than the district will if they're going to appeal it. So, I've seen people with an application coming in who are like, "Oh, this one's really tricky. This I don't trust these fishy people. We'll turn it down, but they'll make a fuss and the state board may make the wrong call. Let's let it go to CSI." They're going to turn it down, too. And
when they turn it down, it'll be sustained on appeal easier than for us. >> So, that's like that's a very unique situation. Does come up sometimes. >> And I think it's important to note too that we work really closely with CSI. They are a member of our organization. They are an authorizer in the in the in
the state, but they also exist solely to authorize, right? They're not a school district. They're not doing all the other 500 things that school district is doing. So, they have the capacity, time, attention, resources to essentially make model practice. And so, they we work a
lot with them because they have vetted a lot more things than some districts have been able to do just because that's right. That's their sole focus. >> Yeah. and they um I'm proud to have served on their founding board and chair the board for a while. Um and I think they've established rigorous processes.
They care a lot about transparency and justifying what I do to their schools and they also are supportive. They're trying to make an applicant that needs help get to yes. Whereas a district like we don't have the ability capacity to help you figure out how to solve this problem. CSI owns that as part of their
mission. So I think it plays a really valuable role in Colorado's education millu um and a specialized one that's that's that's relevant in different communities in different ways. Like for some districts it's that threat of a hammer like don't get get your act together or somebody else is going to do
it for you. In other places it's like wow we got this really tricky problem um who can help us fix it and CSI is a great partner for that. Um you if you just asked politicians generally or you know people who are hardc for in their positions on charters they would tell you how evil it is to have a
non-district authorizer or how districts should do it all or how districts don't do anything and that's just really doesn't capture the nuance of how Colorado works. >> Um Alex you guys you guys are going to talk about the typical process for the initial chartering of a Okay. I think my
question fits right over there. >> All right. Uh, do you want to get another go? >> Sure. So, we're gonna talk a little bit overview on just general governance of charter schools. Um, which I mean sometimes it's hard to explain. Um, when you're working as a charter school
within school districts, right, charter schools have their own governing board. They are independent nonprofit boards. Um, and they are right, they are the little mini school district of their charter school. They are in charge of um the oversight, the school leader, the
management, the hiring, the firing, um all of the programming. They are ultimately the responsible party as the other signer of the charter contract with you all. So your charter schools board is ultimately the um responsible entity. Um, and that sometimes does get
convoluted um, when you have a really really active um, school principal or leader who's really been in charge of like the founding and the application and that's how you're thinking through. Um, sometimes that can get convoluted. So, we like to make sure that folks understand that the clear role is the
agreement that the school district has is with that nonprofit governing board. And so part of the things that we we will talk about when we think about new applications or renewals is we talk about things in threes a lot in authorizing. So educational,
operational, and financial when we're looking at schools and how they operate and within that operational bucket. governance is a huge area that we look at um obviously in the new application phase but it's also an area that should be really paid attention to well during
the oversight process renewals etc um because again they hold the responsibility for the ultimate um success of that school and they also are um you know in charge of complaint management they are the folks when I remember many days sitting in the authorizing office getting angry parents
calling me about their charter school I'm like they report to a different board we unfortunately don't have the ability to intervene in that particular scenario. So, it's important to understand that because it is unique for charter schools. >> Oh, and let me add one point on that too is that like your board has a
superintendent and staff and you try to stay out of each other's lanes. In most cases, the governing board of a charter school should not be making all the hiring and firing decisions the school leaders should. Um, and they need to not be doing the day-to-day operation of the school or else it can it can become
highly political at the school which can make it pretty dysfunctional. Same way if schoolboard members made every single hiring decision here, you'd have people lobbying you for a job, right? So that's not healthy or good. So charter schools need that same uh separation of roles between their governing board and the
school's leadership. >> Thank you for clarifying. I think um in that statement around the hiring firing mostly obviously about the school leadership um which is established from day one we do have a reflection pause but I'm going to
>> um so when I go into the school board's role >> um yeah so a key part is that school board um >> matters a lot yeah Um and uh
the school boards determine whether the charter schools open, continue or closed. They make the high stakes governance decisions affecting students. Um and the strong board really gets at academic, financial, and organizational standards. They are making, this is key in Colorado, they're able to make
decisions that withstand an appeal and legal scrutiny. If you're trying to do something in one of those high stakes decisions are addressing a problem and you will are likely doing it in a way that will lose when the school appeals on it then you might as well not try. So you have to have the board capacity to
conduct itself and do its work in a way that they can protect their decisions and their jurisdiction. Um and they need to protect taxpayers and the public uh through accountability. And they need to, you know, really ensure they've got innovation and choice being supported
and also creating effective and good relationships that are stable and transparent and predictable between the charter and the school. So those are all like the goals of the board. And I will also say as a as a fellow board member, you are also responsible for trying to
keep your community together and to conduct all this in a way that people feel good about their community. They're not moving out because they're fighting over their schools. They are staying enrolled in your district as a whole because they'll be there eventually and they want them to all succeed. So like the board really is like any other
really intense thing. You're managing this for the good of the whole community. >> Can I add this? >> Yeah. Um, I think it's, you know, I work with authorizer staff on a daily basis from all districts across the state and the common theme that I hear from all of them is we can see we can do everything
by the book. We can do cross our tees, dot our eyes, but we don't make decisions. our board makes the decisions and there is a very clear gap in a lot of districts that I work with where the staff might have all the training and knowledge and expertise in all the things we're going to share with you
tonight but when it gets to a decision point it's really difficult to bring right an entire board up to speed on all of the things that are involved in those decisions which really is the reason why the process is so important when there
is a really strong authorizing practice in place in a school district, a lot of those questions and those gaps start to disappear because everyone understands what the expectation is. Everyone's versed in it. They know why we're doing it. Um, and I always I always feel like
this is a very one of the most important slides because it's why we're here is really to just make sure that we're we're trying to do our best in filling the gap and just that general understanding um because of the weight of the work on the staff which you can see on your um on your checklist. There
is a lot of responsibilities that do fall on that dayto-day. >> Yeah. And and I would add another um well, let's go forward. We don't have enough time to get into all of this. Um so the board's legal authority is there to approve a charter policy. So your own
district has its own uh LBD or LBDR policies. Probably CASBY has a model which I will say is totally inadequate to quality authorizing. So if you just use the CASBY model policies, you're not in a good spot, I would suggest. and that there are other model policies to model on. So like all the other policies
you develop and approve and update regularly the you develop those policies and then not just the the charter school policy but other policies affect it depending on what waiverss you might have and which ones still apply or even how your own systems work. So you as you update your other policies you need as
an authorizer you need to start thinking well how does this policy affect the charter does it or doesn't it? If it does indirectly how does it do it? it affects it directly happens if you do it. So as board members uh I know that the methology can not be fun for the
community kind of boring but they're really powerful and that's a key role you have in authorizing as well. >> We will talk about >> yeah and then there's the actual approval. Uh people sometimes think that's what authorizing is you authorized it meaning you approved it.
That's the approval is its own thing. Then there is the thing after approval and before opening uh charter contracting goes on uh where you negotiate a contract and execute it and so you have to vote to execute it. You the board will direct their staff to
negotiate the contract. So that's part of where the careful resolutions passed to approve something or renew it gives you an opportunity to say hey superintendent uh please negotiate this detail uh with the with the charter now. And then the the staff will negotiate it and it comes back to you and you and the
governing board of charter both approved final contract. And then uh the next big decision point comes at renewal um uh or if short of when we have long charter terms rather than renewal like in your case you'd be dealing with revocation.
So the board could vote to nonrenew a school at the end of their term use the term revoke when they vote before the end of the term to close a school. Um, I will add too that when Colorado best practice frankly in the country is to have 5-year charter terms and to use longer terms only with successful
existing schools uh for a particular reason like they're going to get uh bond authority and they want the money. Yours is in a district school so the longer term isn't helping them raise bonds. Um, and the 30-year terms and the 10-year terms are problematic in terms of best
practice because honestly people there's a lower standard of underperformance to revoke a charter. You revoke a charter when it's in crisis, when it's uh mishandling funds, um, when you really need to act. And when you come up for renewal, you can really say, is this in
the best interest of the community? Is this working? Is it fulfilling its mission? Is it implementing its program with fidelity? Um so uh it is problematic to have a charter term of the length that you have um to be straight and best practices for shorter how you in the meantime uh lots of
people do longer charter terms and the solution to that that people use around the country and this is actually required in federal law if you get a federal charter grant is that every 5 years a school would still go through a rigorous review process that is equal in rigor to what they would have done at
the end of a charter term. So, uh, just because you have a long term, you you you have a different word for a renewal process that you would go through, but you can still use that higher standard, uh, periodically. It doesn't just disappear for a generation.
Um, and then you make the closure decisions, um, uh, if you do have to close it, uh, which is never things that people want to do, but sometimes it's definitely what's best for kids. And like other hard decisions, uh, closing the charters is jumping the boards have to do. um not something you want to do,
but I'll tell you as an authorizer, one of my greatest regrets is having not closed one of the charter schools that's been operating for the 20 years since I approved it. Um and I had an opportunity to close it and it has struggled and not done great by kids for two decades. So often people say, "Oh, that's the
hardest decision." I'm like, "No, I regret that non-decision more than anything I've gotten off." Um uh so anyway uh staff conduct all the analysis and the oversight and they make recommendations to you and they inform your decisions and then you have to
vote. Um so let's go through those roles. I gave you a handout which is sort of a table format of the same stuff. But as you go through the life cycle I will add this table format which I'm sorry the audience doesn't have but it breaks out staff role, superintendent role.
>> You can put this up on the website later too. the board role and the DAC role. And what you'll see is there's very few X's in the board and a ton of X's uh for the staff and a lesser amount for the superintendent. And there's a few specialized times the DAC the district
accountability committee weighs in. Uh one of them is required in statute. So if you get a charter application, the DAC reviews it. An optional option that districts do, some do, some don't, is to have the DAX renew uh review schools for renewal as well. Um, I think probably more districts than not don't have a DAC
involved in renewals. In either event, you need your DAC to be trained so that they also conduct themselves appropriately and that they're not making political decisions, but they're really weighing in based on their other intense roles that DAC fulfills. Um, I'd bring your attention to uh that there is
the collaboration between legal counsel and leadership and the board to create the policies and not just the charter policies that almost all of the application review processes, not the board. So, you shouldn't be being lobbied by a charter applicant to say,
"Hey, I need you to approve my school." you should not be part of that because you are acting in a sort of quasi judicial role to make the approval decision after the rest of the stuff has come to you and you have a body of evidence to make the decision. Um, smaller communities that can get gray,
but in best practice you really do not want to have board members having pre-decision making about a charter application or a renewal decision. That's not something you should be lobbyed about as individuals. You should have your staff have a process that is providing you recommendations that also
gives the applicant and the school opportunity to respond to findings, make their own case to you directly. So that's all appropriate, but then there's inappropriate ways that it takes place. So you want to protect your role there for that. Um uh in a contracting again
uh when you'll make a charter contract districts we can talk about this later in the life cycle but you can put conditions in a contract uh and if you put them in unilaterally they can also be appealed to the state board. So you have to act with care in how you forward
a condition or a concern. And that's why I say like the you you do the review and staff tells you, "Well, they could succeed, but we're really concerned about special ed." And so you could say, "Well, we want to approve the school, but we're really are concerned about the special ed program was poorly specified
and the budget and staffing didn't work. So we want to make sure that before they open, they open the first day able to serve the kid with dyslexia or a kid with Down syndrome." Um, and so then you would go into the negotiation of the contract and say, "Well, here's what we really need to see to demonstrate that you are ready on day one to serve all
our kids." So then if you did that wrong, you could end up in front of the state board arguing that that was an inappropriate condition. We once had a district that approved a charter school that said, "Well, we'll approve you as long as you raise $500,000 by June 3rd." State court through that condition right
at reasonable. That's not based on evidence. You're just setting up an obstacle. They don't really need it. So, and we've got other places where um people will say, uh, we insist that you follow our non-discrimination policy and we're not going to wave that. And people are like, well, that's not that's a
unilateral condition. Districts will win on that. Right? So, there's things in the record of appeals that can touch on that. So, you want to handle those, right? If you turn to the other page, second page, you'll see um a lot of the uh
the oversight and monitoring. Again, there's not as much of a role for the board there, but you do want to have a system in which you're getting regular information throughout calendar on things going on at the charter so that you are up to date on it and your staff
is bringing to you things that might need your attention. There should be an required in statute is an annual report on performance of every charter school you might oversee. A lot of districts in Colorado don't do this, but it's really key and it builds to your body of evidence for lots of decisions. So the
board should be insisting that it's superintendent and staff create that report. The charter school and the board should and the staff should be involved in a process of gathering that information, producing that report and that's what produces that transparency and predictability. Your role as a board
to insist you get it and then to consider it. You don't act on it every year. You don't take any action but it builds that evidence and it builds the transparency and trust. Um, and focus is on the outcomes, not the little things that are not in the board's responsibility. >> Another thing I'll just
>> I think there's a question there. >> Well, I I did notice the the annual reports and I was just curious, what would you consider um best practice as far as to be included as part of that report? >> Yeah. Yeah, >> we do have a slide on that later. Okay.
So, I might table that just because there's a lot in there. But, um, my comment is sort of related to that. I think the annual report and Alex is right, there are a lot of districts that don't do it >> even though it is required. Um, and the thing that I have seen when I'm working
with districts that don't regularly do that practice, a lot of times there's commonality with not having transparent process, not having a good relationship with their charter, not having the ability to have that trust, um, and knowing nothing
about your situational background on that. I'm just doing that because when you have those opportunities to do more regular updates or you're receiving more regular updates, it's a natural process that you're working with the school, right? Instead of just at these touch
points. And so, um, districts do them in many different ways. Some districts will include the charter in that process and say, you tell us what we would like to, you know, report on. And some districts are very district only. They say, these are the things we want information on, and this is what we'll we'll talk about.
So, we'll talk about what's best practice in that um when we get into that life cycle piece. I do think it's important to pause here though because you have this handout. We have simple assignments. Um I think it's always a good place to just reflect on our
current practices of separation of duties. So, especially in a district like yours which is smaller and you may not have a dedicated person that's doing just operating which is very uncommon by the way and it is best practice. So, it's a little bit difficult to manage
that, right? Um, what are some of your just initial takeaways from seeing this and reflections that you might have? >> Wow. I mean, just looking at all of these X's on the staff list, I mean, it is a ton of work on the district staff
just to have a a charter school in the district as part of the district. And I think I don't know that people realize that. But I want you to know that I like I know our our staff is doing a lot of work, but just seeing this person it's like everything is on the district staff
to be responsible for it and I think that that's a lot. >> I I have a related question to that when um when it's it talks about that five up to 5% admin fee, would this be some of
what that is intended to cover the job that the staff has to do? Gotcha. Okay. >> And I would distinguish also there's things not on this list about the services that a district provides to a school. So it doesn't say provide transportation, provide school lunch,
provide security, um uh all those other things that a district may do. Those are things that are done uh that they get described as being done on a fee for service basis. So uh districts will say, "Hey, we we know we've got the transportation to drive in all the communities. you you give us back 2%
because that's what we spend on transportation and we'll pick up your kids too and they're all coming to the same place. So there's there's additional things that districts and charters collaborate on. Um like uh often districts will insist and sometimes these fee for service things are built in there those would be
conditions in a contract like uh I've seen districts where they insist that the charter school participate in the district's emergency response systems. It's like, "No, no, you need to pay for the same radios, have the same meetings, have the same plans cuz we can't have two different plans uh in the event of a
bad situation." Um, so that's the kind of thing that's not in that list and is not in the 5%. Um, and that but those are things you can put into the negotiations of a contract or ideally work out in a way where everybody's happy and you're also being efficient and helping them provide services they
couldn't do on their own. So, they don't have a kitchen, they can't do it. you can, you know, that's the kind of thing districts charge for in everybody's >> and we CAXA does encourage all of our districts to make that very transparent with their schools. So, you know, the statute is very clear about what can be
included in that 5% um and up to an actual amount. And then there are specific mentioning if we're working with, you know, nutrition services for example. Um, uh, we encourage a lot of our members to have those costed out however they do it and it's negotiable,
right, district to district. Um, but at least have that sort of menu, right, of things that you can or will offer at a charter school. Um, and not all of those obviously are required that the district offer them, but if you do, there should be some kind of transparent agreement on what the costs are.
>> Yeah. One of the things we suggest is um like a a separate that on an annual basis clarifying like here's things the district will do. Here's the things you won't do. Here's how much we'll charge for you. Here's the condition for participating in it. And then because it's not in the charter contract, it can be updated on an annual basis. And the
district when expenses go up and gasoline is more expensive can adjust the price accordingly. And then people true up those things transparently like all your, you know, all your stuff is so transparent in Colorado public education finance that people can see it all. So there's no hiding. You just got to
figure out what you're coding how and and then work it out. Um, ideally I would add one of those expenses I think is really pretty key though. Um, McKenzie alluded to the charter liaison or the charter contact in the district. In a bigger district like Denver,
there's 12 or 18 people in a charter office. In our some of our biggest districts like Jeffco and Dubco, there's one or two people. Um you uh districts that once they get up to like five to seven charters start having a full-time person. Um but even when you don't have
a full-time person, you want a point of contact. You want a charter liaison that the district identifies and that will be um in your case, I'm sure a part-time FTE. In some places, it's like it's too way too little. They'll be like, "Oh, it's 0.5.05 05 like 120 of their job is
to be duplication. That doesn't work. It needs to be um similar to the kind of FTE you might put into your central office and administering and supporting your own schools is the way I would think about it. And that I'll tell you um when I I worked at the National Association of Charter School
Authorizers and we were trying to figure out how to identify the most important best practices and we hired Mackie Raymond from Stanford University's Hoover Institute who runs Credo which has done the most important national studies of charter school performance and we said hey we got all this data on authorizer practices. You've got all the
data on charter school performance. Let's put them together and see what other practices matter the most. The number one thing that was correlated with charter school performance was identifying a charter gaison. The authorizers that didn't have one had lower performing charter schools. And
it's not just because they closed the bad ones. It's because they had someone to help solve problems. It's an ombbudsman for the charter school to the district. It's the person who knows how both work and it's the person who develops the expertise in all these crazy things. I will say because CAX has
been around, you have more people all over the state who can do this. tax can do these things for you uh under contract for some of the tricky stuff, but there's also really trained people who've done it. Um so identifying that person um letting the chart school know that's the person and having them have
some consistency is a really powerful thing to up your game on authorizing. >> So would a lot of these staff responsibilities fall under the liaison responsibility? they would probably drive her on it, but
you would also disseminate the tasks without the throughout the stack. So a CFO is doing the finance, not the liaison. The operations person if you have one is doing the facilities issues. So you want the whole team doing it. Um you should tell them you're a rapo uh
story for systems. >> I've been suckered into all the districts I've worked in never had a leazison and they brought me in as the first one. So, I've been in a unique situation to start a charter office in every district I've worked in. And um so
I I feel like I have a little expertise in cleaning up the mess, if you will, if you appreciate that term, in the fact that a lot of the districts I came into, they're hiring a leazison because they have a charter school. It's not they're like waiting for the new applicant to
come. So, a lot of the districts I worked in had schools operating for a very long time and no one had ever looked at them once. Um, and that's problematic in itself. But I will say that um what I have learned in that role
is there nobody can understand all of these things at the same time, but there needs to be someone who understands enough about all of it to connect the people that do. And so my role as an authorizer liaison in the smaller
districts I worked at worked in was having enough skill set to read a charter contract or do a site visit and say that seems problematic to me on a special education lens even though I'm not a special education expert. Let me call the special education expert and
then they take it from there. But without that person to really be able to see those things from face value, things go through the cracks all the time. And that is what I've seen the most is just not having that one point of contact. The other thing I would say arguably is
the most beneficial part of having liaison is trust and transparency because a person cannot call you one day, you the next day that you know and you're going to get different answers. When you have a common person who's that, it's their responsibility to
exercise all of these things, then you know that there's at least consistency with communication with your schools, but also um communication within the district. When I worked in um I was the charter school, first official charter school person in Aurora public schools,
um they uh had amazingly talented folks in the district, but nobody was pulling all the pieces together. So, it was just messy. Um, it wasn't that they are a bad authorizer, they just didn't have a really good communication mechanism. So, um, that's really what it comes down to.
And since we're on the topic, because I don't think we have this listed here, um, he mentioned CAXA providing that support, just so you understand what we do. We don't u, we're not a consulting agency. We are a support organization, nonprofit, but we do offer um support on
a consultant basis for districts that are in a particular scenario. Um I think 11 different school districts last year on a very niche problem. So we had one district that was going through their very first waiver process. They never established waivers. They didn't have
their policies listed out. So we came in, we established the process for them, we coached the team, and we left them on their way. Um, we've also had a year-long um, relationship with Park County, your neighbor, um, in helping them manage their renewal from A to Z,
um, beginning to end. Um, so that's an example of a more intensive support structure that we've had. And then our most common service that we provide is like for new applications or renewal applications. We will come in as an external expert to review the documents
um, or we will provide recommendations on practice. Um, but we do not actually as an entity provide any direct recommendations for boards. We provide you with all of the best practice and tools and reflection. So, just to give you that background, maybe you have this
later in the slide and I missed it in my review, but what would you say are like the qualifications of a strong um charter school liaison? Right. You said you kind of have to have this depth of knowledge on a lot of issues, but so
like how do you how does someone train for that? What things would you say we should look for? >> We didn't I didn't grow up saying this is what I need. >> I don't authorize um I would like to hear your answer. I have a point of thought, but you you've done the
authorizing voting. Um I I will say that the authorizers who thrive in the job and who create good relationships and make it work for all parties are sympathetic to the school succeeding. Their job is to help the school succeed
at some level or another. They also speak school district and know how districts operate. And it's one thing to like be a school leader. It's another to know how districts work. But often you know school district former principles do know everything about how a district works. In a bigger district they don't.
So depending on the environment it'd be a different person. So um in a lot of cases it's a former charter school leader who's and people go back both ways. So a district person will take over the principal ship. Principal ship will come work at the district. So that knowledge of both sides is really very
helpful when it happens. Um, many of them have experience as educators, but some of them have spent more time in the public administration side and they know how to handle like strategic planning and KPIs and stuff and it's not education that's their expertise, but
they have a good team to support them. So, it's pretty context driven, but I do think you want someone who has broad knowledge, really good communication skills, but also knows how to handle um a complicated or conflictual situation
when it's necessary. So, if they don't want to be around conflict when it happens, that's not going to be fun for them. Um because it will happen. And I will add when everything's going well, if you're a great charter applicant, approving it is easy. If you're a disaster, it's easy to close it because
it's going to close anyway. The the art of authorizing comes with everything in the gray zone and otherwise you're like supporting people who are excellent or you are like boarding the door from people who are so incompetent you want them away from kids. So the the real meat of the work is when something's
messy. Um anyway, so someone who's good with mess, someone who's good speaks district, knows schools, um and is good at communicating and builds trust by having followth through. Like the more someone talks to a district and someone says they're going to do something, but
they don't, the more someone from a charter school says they're going to do something, but they don't, like they have to have the systematic skills to not just lose stuff. >> Yeah. And I would add two things. So being in the role from my experience I would say um
you have to be able to do this work without um I always say walking tight road maybe not the best analogy but right you're you're literally in between the relationship of a separate entity and a school district you really need to
understand the dynamics of both of them but at the basic core you need to be a good person that gets along and that can understand At the end of the day, we're here to make sure that we have good options. I think you cannot function well in a liazison role if you have too
many feelings one way or the other. It is practice-based. Um, and someone that's able to see through what sometimes are incredibly difficult conversations. Um, I have closed personally over 10 schools in my career
and being able to talk to a mother suffering going through like having to find a new school and then turning around and talking to my superintendent like you have to be able to focus on what the goal is, right? And not get into the weeds of the things going on
around you. Um, and that's it's difficult, but um it's also why we exist to help train that. Well, and let me add one more thing. Um, the the liaison is an agent of the district. So, there's
parts of this that are based in contract law and there's parts of this that are based on performance management. And so, your liaison is working in the interest of the district and they are doing so because the district has an interest in the school's success, right? So if
someone is in that role, it's pretty key that the district's perspective is is job one, but their job is also to educate the district and the leadership and the board that in order to pursue the district's interest, they need to pursue good authorizing so that they can
make sure the school is succeeding and deal and know whether it is or not and be able to address the things. So I I don't want to sugarcoat that it's that the job is in between but their purpose is to serve the interest of the district and making that succeed. >> Do you find and maybe it's different
district and and size u but that in in keeping in mind the not maybe not being too emotional about any of the decisions, right? if you if you can be um but find bringing in an outside person maybe someone from outside the
community so they don't already have >> so I have unfortunately gotten too many requests to handle closures over the last five years because personally one of my skill sets is not getting involved with the election >> and districts that I have worked with
that have hired us as an external agency it's better for everyone including a charter because there is not that you know this side versus that side or I live here and I know all of these people and there's
feelings involved. Um I have found that and maybe you can I don't know if you can speak to experience at a role but um we had an experience last year where we came in as a third party and ran the entire renewal process for Boulder Valley um as a third party and it was
interesting to see how much more um content and really good conversation came out of that process because it was removed. The district was not asking the questions. There was a third party. I have I have no staking in meeting. I don't know anything about the piece of
Boulder. I'm coming in just asking what I know needs to be asked. Um and that was very successful and I do think that we continue to be brought into these situations. I will say mostly more difficult situations because of that. But I do think there's a value added
that >> um let's move uh we'll start talking about some of the the life cycle process. This is a graphic. Uh it's a little confusing. >> Hard to read. Um but it it shows things throughout the charter life cycle and
whose job it is. So here the the district staff responsibility is in green and the board is yellow and the schools are blue. So really the charter schools writing the application. Uh the board established the charter policy that goes that sets up the charter
application review process which is done by staff not the board. Um the V board then weighs back in to approve or deny. Um but then the staff is the one doing the contract negotiation. The charter school is responsible for opening the darn thing and operating it. Once they
do the board, the district does take on a lot of roles. So the support services, oversight, monitoring, doing those annual reports, running a renewal process. The board then is going to get all that information at different times and different processes. And like during the renewal process, they can lead to
having to make the decision to renew or non-renew. Uh and if they do renew, it goes back in the contract gets negotiated. If they don't, you're managing a closure. Same with the revocation. They could look at the oversight monitoring, find something so severe the school needs to close uh before it charter term. They can vote to
revoke. So this is just a good sense of the key points in the process where the board um has to weigh in and that's in statute and that's your obligation. Um so you don't have to do this from scratch. Uh one thing to know is that
there are authorizing standards and we are not making this up. Uh just for the back of back of the envelope um charter started in '92. Uh we have back the envelope about a thousand authorizers in the country overseeing our uh nearly
8,000 charter schools. Um I would argue a bunch of them are pretty big places like Denver with a large team or CSI with you know 30 people on staff. Other places it's 0.2 two of an employee, right? Around the country, there are probably I've estimated about 10,000 people whose job it is at some level or
another they'd have if someone said, "What do you do for a living?" Oh, they'd have to say, "Oh, and I'm also a charter school authorizer as part of my job." So, we've been doing this for 30 years, 8,000 schools, probably another 16,000 applicants. So, there's just a lot of experience. The National Association of Charter School
Authorizers has created or NA, I used to work there, directed their policy agency. um they created authorizing standards which are pretty much the gold standard for how to um do this work. Uh a lot of states have adopted them in policy. Uh Colorado was adopted its own
version like many states do when I uh was working on the CSI board. I ch co-chared a task force in Colorado in 2012 uh with Donad from St. train and a bunch of other people and we establish the Colorado standards for charter schools and authorizing. Those are
adopted in state board rules and they parallel NA for 95% of the work. There's two things that NASA thinks are important that Colorado stakeholders said we're not going to do that now or at least we said those are advanced standards for people that want to do it. One was helping applicants uh and
recruiting applicants for charters. The district said that's not our job as an authorizer to help someone apply to us. if you come to us, we'll give you a fair hearing, but we're not responsible for making applications appear. Uh, and the the other part is is really sort of establishing that there should be an alternative for the district. Colorado
districts will always politically fight and say, "No, no, we should probably be the only ones." So, those are the two standards that Colorado said, "Nope, we don't want those." But otherwise, you track Knack's standards very closely. And that's a good thing. Um, those those standards are supposed to be applied by
the state board when they hear appeals. And so I've always pushed and been frustrated state board doesn't do this explicitly, but when they make a decision on um a contract condition or a non-renewal, they're supposed to check in and say, "Tell us the process you use
to reach this decision and judge it against the standards that they've adopted in the rule." Now, people will badmouth state board and their appeals process. And I think that's wrong. I think they judge them on their merits and they follow the law. But I'd love them to look more at those standards. And I encourage all districts to anchor
their practice in those standards because not only is it good practice, but it gives you a good um foundation if you ever are in a conflict about what you've done. Um yeah, that's enough there. You can look at them. The the key to them is like the triangle, the
threes, but the strong authorizing really ensures rigor. It does maintain school autonomy, and that can be hard for people who want to fix things, but then you're a safeguarding student in public interests. So those are the three principles and then there's standards that touch on all the aspects of the
life cycle of the charge. Um do you want to talk? >> Yeah. So um like mentioned they have the core principles and so the first one is maintaining high standards. So NASA will always promote in Colorado that the
standards that we have for approving charter schools are high. when you look at research, um, if you don't have a strong application process, it's much more difficult to close an operating school than to fix the issues at application.
Um, and they're very clear most of the time to be able to figure out how to remedy those. So having that really high expectations for new applications is super important, but then also the high standards for a school once it's already in operation. They should know what they are. You should know what they are. that
should be reflected somewhere in the contracting phase. Um, and there shouldn't be really questions about that. It becomes tricky when that has not been established or there hasn't been a lot of paper. Um, and then the other kind of pieces here is just making sure that with those high standards, um,
we talk about it off record, but it's really we're exchanging the high standards for giving more autonomy. So the school is getting that additional autonomy as a charter school that the school district schools may not have. But in in um uh going back and forth on
that, you want to make sure that you still have those high expectations so that it evens out. Um, I didn't really focus on this, but just in this la latter part of a life cycle, unfortunately, if you get to the point of any closure or replication, um, if
you have those high standards in place, then it makes those closure decisions a lot easier and we're making sure that schools are not continuing to operate if they are failing kids. >> Nope. >> Um, the second one is the autonomy piece. So, this is right there. core
acre of charter schools being able to have the autonomy away from some of those district practices or policies. Um and so part of the work is we always want to continue to remember that that is an essential part of a charter school and the way that they are um designed
and so there are things in our practice that we want to continue to support and honor that. Um, a lot of it comes with, right, having the expectations, being really clear, and then it's easier to say, "All right, you got this, right? We know that
these are the expectations. We don't have to worry so much about, you know, what's going to be going on in your school." Um but also it um one of the things that I used to practice on a regular basis when I was in an authorizer role was I would sit down
with my team and we would annually go through our oversight practices and we would say do any of these things we're asking the school to do create undue burden on them? Are any of these things not statutoily required? because there
are a lot of districts who may have a list of all the things that they're requiring their schools to do every year or they're doing multiple visits in their building and um we want to always remember that autonomy and the preservation of that is one of the key
pillars. So we do um I always used to encourage my team to do that check like are we just asking to ask or do we really need to know this information and I would add one other element to the having clear expectations for the outcomes is that you can relax if the
outcomes are being achieved. If you know the students are learning and all the schools are welcome and it's succeeding then there are things you might if you didn't have insight into outcomes that you want to make sure your new process was correct. So if you are explicit about outcomes, you have insight into
the outcomes, then you don't need to know as much about what they're doing because they prove that the proof is in the pudding, you know, literally. And so that's a key thing to know. And then the other part of this is that when there is transparency about those expectations and charter schools know they're hitting
it out of the park, they don't stress about the rest of this stuff. When people don't know they're standing and they feel vulnerable and they think renewal is an existential threat when in fact they're a great school, then they people are really defensive and people don't communicate and they stop
collaborating. But if people know the school is knocking it out of the park, like I always in Boulder, we have five high performing charter schools. They've been part there for 25 30 years. As a board member, I always start these process like, you know, I I look forward to the school continuing to serve in our community. I see no real problems here. let's let's use this as an opportunity
to talk about how we can support you and what what you've learned in the last few years. So good authorizing leads to uh people relaxing their defensiveness, letting their shoulders down, talking about how they can improve things and still gives you the power to act when
you need to, but lets you not pretend that you need to be acting on everything all the time. Um, I worked for a superintendent who made a comment that has always stuck with me sort of related to this, which was, "It's not my job to make sure that the school is successful.
It's my job to make sure that they have an environment where they can be." >> And I thought that was really powerful. It speaks to some of this because at the end of the day, a separate entity responsible for those uh making those um metrics and whatever outcomes you set.
Um but there still has to be an acknowledgement of the preservation of the autonomy that they have. Um the last principle in that in that triangle is the protection and the public interest. So as a school district board you are ultimately responsible for protecting
student public interest and some of those things are making sure that the options that are being provided within your purview are quality options for students. Um, and a lot of this tends to get focused on financial um, things and
operational pieces, but um, I hate to say I've been in so many scenarios um, of I will say not in the state, but of really really uh, horrible things happening at some of the schools I worked with that just no one ever paid
attention to them or there was no oversight. And the things that I was able to observe in a site visit was this cannot continue one more day. And so those are that is where that piece comes in as far as principal of the school district being able to at the end of the
day it's on the district's board decision to approve that school and have it continue as an option for students. >> And he mentioned um site visits a couple of times. Um do you is there a best practice as as toy
or timing of those things. >> So, it's not a requirement. Um, and we don't have a written best practice on site because it's going to maximally have >> it's in their principles and standards, but not the frequency. >> It can also be conditioned on what's going on at the school. So, if a
school's been doing really well, then the frequency is not as high. If there's been a a recent problem, a lack of transparency, an issue, then you're likely there more often. And then it also depends on the relationship between the school and the type of authorizing.
Authorizers make a conscious decision about how much they're going to be supporting a school's quality. And some authorizers really uh very procharter ones and districts who just care about quality in general, they will say, "No, we're here to be an ally to you and help
you succeed." Um, and if if that's welcome and people want to do it that way, then a district has a lot of resources to help a school solve a problem. And so they'll be doing more school and uh visits the same way they would in their own elementary school if the principal was struggling something.
>> So you can have an authorizer make a decision to orient themselves that way. And some very pro-charter authorizers, big national ones do it, some districts do it, and others will be like, you know, we think it's more important that you have your autonomy. we're too busy with our own knitting. Um, so we're just
going to take care of our accountability and oversight functions. So that's a that's a conscious decision and it's conditional. But you do want to I like to say build the whole thing reverse engineer from needing to make an important decision later so that you
have the capacity to revoke a charter if you need to and that you have the capacity to make a good decision during renewal and and set yourself up. That's why the annual reports are so important for renewal because you're setting yourself up for later if you need to being able to make a good decision. So
site visits are one of those things like they set you up in later to know what's going on if you do it right to match the way you want to treat your charters and they want you to treat them. And if there's a a greater risk, like if you manage federal grants, you know, they deal at all with like what's the risk of this grant and so this school may be at
a higher risk than another and you want to be there more often either to support them or to make sure they're not going off the rails. >> Is that fair from your experience with your places? >> And then would you normally coordinate those like, hey, you want to come over on this date at this time kind of a thing? >> Yeah. And I I always tell the story
because I've told you I was in districts where I was the first person that the a charter school had to deal with or work with from the districts, right? And in the beginning it was always why are you here? What do you want? What are you looking at? And in every place I've been to, it always transitioned within months
to can you come again because the amount of uh coordination collaboration on the site visits or even just the daily communication so many issues were avoided because we had that regular opening communication. I knew when I walked in the building, you probably
need to a you know fix your issues with your nutrition services. that instead of the district finding out through a third party and then sending a notice of concern, the liaison is working with the nutrition services department and figuring it out before anything bad
happens. Right? So, it's kind of a avoid some of those those issues. Don't for not gonna go there, but uh all there's a lot of these obligations are all these are specific parts of the law
where a school board has an obligation that you can't delegate to somebody else. >> And we did um already talk through the handout. I think we were going to talk through some of the handout um as far as delegation and goals, but I think we'll move forward and come back to that if
you have some other questions. In the rest of most of the presentation, we do talk about separation of goals within each piece. >> Um, >> you want to go? >> Yes. This slides are
>> Yeah, here's a few. Um, there's just a few things in Colorado law that I think are useful to know. Uh, these this isn't relevant to you now, but if and when you have an application in history, some charter districts have refused to receive the application or act on it. that is treated as denial, then all the
implications of a denial like appeal come into play. So you can't just say we refuse uh we're not going to take any applications this year. Uh you can refuse to review it if you find it to be incomplete. So if someone submits an application that is doesn't have five of
the 12 items that it needs, you can say you're not complete. We're not going to waste our time reviewing this. Um uh but you do have to do that part. Um uh just so you know who can appeal um and this is you can appeal a denial of an application, a unilateral condition
of a contract or a non-renewal. So those are the three things that the state board can be asked to weigh in on when interestingly enough it's not just the applicant in school that can appeal. So, if you think uh this applicant is so, you know, they're not going to bother to appeal and it's clear they shouldn't be
approved. Uh in particular, like Colorado League of Charter Schools can appeal on their behalf. So, just a thing to know. It almost never happens. The Colorado League of Charter School has challenged exclusive chartering authority on behalf of schools because the schools were afraid of retaliation. That's why it's in statute. So, the
schools are afraid if they sue their district, the district will do something mean to them. and they're challenging exclusive authority because the district's been acting inappropriately. So, it's not just the applicant of the school. Um, when you have an appeal, uh, it's limited to the grounds for the
denial, you specify it in your resolution. So, in order to deny or non-renew, uh, you pass a resolution that says we hereby approve it, um, but you need to meet this condition. That goes in the contract. or you say we are denying this
application because we found A, B, and C to be weak. The the grounds that will be focused on in the denial or in the appeal are those things that you put into the resolution. So that's the part that will be argued about by lawyers in
appeal. But um and the standard of appeal once it gets there is a pretty vague thing I've underlined under here. Um the board the state board and you should be focused on a decision the board will state board will be judging whether it was contrary to the best
interests of the pupils school district or community. So as board members you're very much used to trying to reconcile all the things and figure out what's in the best interest for the community. Um that's the same thing that's true for all these charter decisions. Now uh the
appeal will be based on how you interpreted that and what you meant. So like if you think the best interest of the community is that there not be any charter competing with you like that will lose on appeal right. So there's a 30 years of experience of the sort of arguments people have made like we don't
like classicalmies just recently got overturned you know by the state board because it's a very viable functional high quality school law right so uh those these those are the key questions and if you can frame what you're why you
denied them and tie it back to those that standard then you're on more solid ground for any of those decisions and that's why you should reverse engineer your processes to understand how a school or an applicant is doing on those things.
Um uh here's an also a really important part I think to school boards once the appeal happens while they're asking about the resolution and the findings that you had. It's not just the resolution they look at. So all your correspondence, your conduct behind the
dis, your test, the testimony and the response during public meetings, what the DAC said in their review, all those things are part of the record. So if you're saying that you, let's say you get an application and you deny it because they have no special ed program, they haven't found a facility, and they
don't have a quarter of the enrollment they need. all totally legitimate reasons to turn it down. But most of your aboard meeting was about how you hate private school choice and charters are privatization and all this other stuff that's political and inflammatory.
Uh your that bad school that you don't want to happen will be arguing about that in front of the state board instead of why they didn't have a budget, why no one wants to go to their school and why they don't have an idea how to serve a kid with disabilities. So this is where board training and DAC training I
believe is really an un is a is a vulnerability of the districts and I um I believe often the districts get this training uh from their legal council right but they should also be getting it as part of just on boarding and when you go through a renewal process or an application review it's good to step
back and say okay let's let's be clear and focus everybody on the criteria that's in front of them the evidence that's in front of them and the question that's before And to the extent that it gets political and other stuff is coming in, that's all at the expense of the interests of the district making the
right decision and it is empowering a bad applicant, a school that needs, you know, to be dealt with because something's problematic. So that's why it's it's in your interest to help like not have those application decisions one-on-one with people before it comes
in and to go through the formal process. The other thing is you'll have like one board member say, "Oh, I really love this. I don't care that they don't do X and someone or I think that's good enough uh off the record somewhere or on the record." And then that that exchange becomes one person versus the other four
members of a board becomes the talking point used by their lawyer during an appeal. Uh, I will say people underestimate how often the state board gets it right in my estimation and that the people that work uh at that prep the state board,
the attorneys that argue on both sides are pretty experienced usually and that um the the state board is pretty reasonable in how they judge that standard and the evidence they want to see for it. Um, and uh, there aren't I
there aren't that many cases I go back to in the last like five or 10 years. Haven't been that many fields period, but there haven't been that many where I went, "Oo, I'm not sure that was the right call." As an experienced authorizer knowing some of the situations, right? Um, let me So on the
appeals, uh, you must act on applications. Anyone can appeal, not just the applicant. The appeal is limited to exploring the specific grounds you make you use to uh base your decision on the E list in your resolutions but your entire record can be included um uh in that and that the
ultimate standard is whether your decision is contrary to the best interests of pupils school district or the community. Um uh let me stop there. That's a a lot there have discussion or comments on that.
So appeal are appeals typically just for denials or or revoking or are they also for if there was a renewal but it was the process wasn't done right. >> Right. So the third one they can do is for that unilateral condition so of a
contract. So if you if the board says um if you want to open you need to raise a half million dollars this summer then that can be appealed. And so, but that's how often contracts are where lots of issues are dealt with. And so, when you go through renewal, that's an opportunity to say, "Hey, you've been
doing poorly on serving students with disabilities. We are going to insist that you use more of our services and that we're going to charge you more because it cost if we increase the level of service that we provide, it's going to be an expense to us." And we insist on that as one of the resolutions
because we have four OCR complaints in the last year. That's a reasonable district position. that something board might decide during the renewal process and they would direct their staff to negotiate the contract to put it in there. The school may still feel like they're doing fine and they don't they're those kids are okay and they
dismiss the issue. They could appeal that to the state board and they're being renewed. No one intends to but the district is trying to address a problem through the contracting process. So that can be appealed uh as well and that's more likely to happen in um like the
applications are relative like when an application is weak you should know the state board's going to back you up and and if an application rocks and more families want to be at it than you can imagine and they've crossed all their tees you should know you probably lose on appeal like it's again it's the messy
stuff where this stuff matters the most >> I think in simple terms it's denial of new application and replication of the current school and nonrenewal and unilateral conditions in any contracted phase. That correct? >> Yes.
>> Is that correct? And >> it's council. >> Okay. Um, I I had a question and maybe maybe you guys don't know, but in um uh when the the board that was in place reviewed the application for um um our
charter school, the initial application, they um they denied them and instead of they did not, to our my knowledge, go to the um board to get to appeal that >> um the state board. yet they became a a
contract school and people ask me all the time what is a contract school. Do you know that? Can you answer that so that I can answer people better? >> Sure. Um a uh a contract school does not
have the legal infrastructure and statutory stuff behind it of our charter process. Um it is however a way districts have always run lots of different things. And so like uh Boulder Valley we have an ongoing contract for
like 20 seats and a residential drug rehabilitation program to also be teaching those kids while they're there. And so districts have the authority to contract with other people to run an educational program or in fact a school to do something for them. that's been in the news lately with the erosce of
course. Um but there have been contract schools uh for a very long time in Colorado and it's a mechanism districts use to do something with another third party. Usually it's sort of a niche purpose special population um or uh like
they are dealing with a um particular student conflict issue like mental health or substance abuse or pregnant and parenting teens or something. So uh but that has grown over time to be used for more educ.
Um so we are seeing people do more like homeschool enrichment programs as a charter excuse me as a contract school or a contract program. Um and then what ends up it ends up becoming under not charter appeals processes but it's dealt
with as um sort of contract law more than anything. And then the district's still responsible for its students who are in the public school district maintaining their rights and privileges and um and access to services. And that's where uh it's likely to get gray and conflictual in Colorado in the next
few years based on some of the stuff that the EROS has done for example. Does that answer your question or come close? >> I think so. And it was done through erosis rather than than our >> I don't know yours. I don't know yours. Yeah. So Boseies do contract schools. Districts do contract schools. Denver
did it quite a bit for a while. Okay. >> Um so it's a normal thing that districts have done for a long time. It's being used in new ways now uh for the kind of stuff you're talking about. Okay. Now, can a uh authorizer contract a school
outside of their district or >> uh you'd have I believe there are ones where well certainly uh and certainly they can in special education environment. So, one of the things people do is out of district placements in private schools for special education
purposes and those don't need to be located in the district. But if you were trying to operate contract schools all over the state of Colorado as as Woodland Park. I think you'd probably have other districts um complaining about it. I I I don't think I can legally answer that appropriately.
Uh and it'd be a great question for your other lawyers. >> Uh let me let me just briefly say what's in in the statute about access to facilities. I know your charter is in one of your facilities. Under uh Colorado law, um the issue of whether or
not charter schools are located in the district building tends to be an issue of sort of local decisionm and that tends to be more impactful than what's in law or policy. Uh in Boulder, four of our five charters are in district facilities. that's happened at
different times despite politics in Boulder, but just generally when buildings became available and our charters were successful, it was really hard for anybody to say no. Um, so it tends to be a local political decision. The only thing in law that's really discussed about it is that you uh are
not obliged to give a facility to a charter, but you also may not charge them for it once they're in it, and that uh you should really you can charge them for maintenance and operations costs, but not rent in any appreciable way. um and that uh you're sort of expected
to disclose vacant property, but vacant and underused property is a point of contention for what counts as underused for sure. Um and that most of the conflict that we see between charters and districts is basically contract disputes. Um, so it's really pretty good
to as a board be making your decisions about what's in the best interest to the community and the district and its pupils and to have an orientation that's considering the whole community and what they want and safeguarding again public interest. So if you've got a multi-million dollar investment in a
facility, you want to make sure it stays within the control of the district in the long term um because that's something communities paid for. So that's a form of protecting the public interest. So those are the sorts of things that come up. But you should also know that next to startup cash, facilities problems are the biggest
obstacle for charter school success. And that whenever a charter school is spending 15 20% of its money on a facility, it's not spending 15 20% of its money on kids. So, it's in your interest and the district's kids interests to not be spending money to
landlords that they don't have to um if you want to keep it in the community and education kids. would that normally fall under a board responsibility or staff responsibility in uh decision- making and kind of that um like facilities use
agreement type situation as as far as who's responsible. >> I believe the board should be the one making the decision and providing direction for how they want to proceed. I think the details of that facilities use agreement is definitely something that their council and their staff should be, you know, drawing up and that
those should be clear and there's, you know, models to work from around the state. There's uh something like a quarter of Colorado charter schools are in district facilities. So, there's a lot of uh facilities use agreements out there. There's a lot of history of negotiating this. One of the things you
can do I find interesting um Denver did a unique thing uh in that they were giving a lot of facilities to charters 10 years ago and they were um encouraging their strongest operating CMO charter management companies like Denver school of science and technology to open more campuses but they
conditioned all those on each of those schools operating an intensive learning center for kids with severe or moderate disabilities because they'd identified that their charter sector had some kids with mild disabilities but not those with moderate to severe. So they said, "We will only give you a building if you promise to become one of our intensive
learning centers. By the way, we'll throw in the next quarter million a year for you to operate it, but otherwise we're not going to give you a building." Um, so conditioning facilities use on other priorities, whether based on your charter sector or your community's needs, is something that's been fair
game in Colorado for a long, long time. Again, you you don't want to spend your community time fighting about this stuff and you want to find a solution that is getting the most of the resources spent on kids learning and that is protecting
the community's assets and resources. >> This is >> Yeah. >> What is what is you guys need for a um comfort you guys on through? I am okay. But if anyone would like to run out,
>> I need a minute. I can just step out, too. >> We're fine. Keep going. I'll step up. Okay. Yeah, cool. Um do you want to pause here because the the rest of this presentation is very um day-to-day operational life cycle information.
We're going to go through um more in depth. We're going to go through new applications. We're known. We heard that and we will skip. We have two case study discussions for tonight that we think are very helpful with boards, but we will probably skip the first one because
it's about a new application um and move to the renewal conversation if that's more helpful for you. >> Um but again, this this portion of the um presentation is a lot of a lot of detail. So, I want to make sure that you feel like you can stop and interrupt at
any point and ask because we don't we don't know what painoints are necessarily. So if you want to dig into anything more, >> so we'll go start uh talking through the life cycle. So Alex talked about the oversight. I mean the big picture,
right, of who's responsible for what, but in in really really high level, this is the cycle. So you're getting a new application um to your district. You are uh going through the re review process. You're if you are approving that school, then you're moving into a contracting
phase. Then there is this usually year or 18 months here for a period of pre-opening which we will refer to in the presentation as year zero. Um for schools which has its own responsibilities. Um and then we have school openings. Once schools open you
have the oversight monitoring responsibilities. Uh we will talk about annual reports and um best practices for that. And then um all of that culminates usually then whenever the term ends for your current school um then you're going through some kind of renewal process
making a decision to renew or not renew. Um and then with a currently operating school if you need to at any point do a replication and then closure process. I don't necessarily think we need to cover this information.
So, don't want to be too wordy. I do want to keep this light, but I want to make sure it's really relevant for you. So, I think um this is a really good place to start this chart that Alex gave out um for just getting into the nitty-gritty when we talk through the phases of the life cycle. But I think
big picture, we've talked about board responsibilities um and we've talked about all of the separate functions which we'll go through in detail, but the board really big picture, right, is the legal authority for those key decision points and the staff is doing the day-to-day
conducting analysis, evaluation, monitoring, etc. And we hope communication and le what's the proper word doing that um providing that connection piece but every single phase of a
charter school's life cycle is distinct and each one of them requires a different responsibility from the authorizer. So, this is why we have these parsed out in this presentation because again, why would a board take the time to really go into understanding
all of the nuances of all of those life cycles? Um, because a lot of times the staff is handling that day-to-day, but without understanding what goes into it, you hopefully throughout this will better understand what questions you might have or places that you want to dig into deeper as you continue to
improve process. Um, all of the rest of these slides too will have a se a separate section on the bottom that we try to pull out the information we're sharing to what is really the most relevant for a school board member. So you'll see that at the bottom of all
these slides, but essentially for just high level your role is to make those high stakes decisions. Um, one thing that we uh promote through all of the things that we do at CAXA and obviously for authorizing the state is every decision should be based off evidence
and have some documentation history of how you came to that decision. And that can be really hard when you haven't had those processes in place over time. So, we'll talk a little bit about how to kind of make that um catch up in that area. And then the other thing is uh
boards really provide that consistency. So, um, weigh the process. Some districts or when I talk to a charter school operator who's maybe thinking of applying somewhere, they'll say, "Well, we know X district really has it together. They've got a process. We know what to expect. And this district, I
don't we don't even know who to call." Right? So, there's going to be differences across the state. One of the things we want to try to always promote is when you have strong processes and they are aligned on best practices, it's consistent for you, but it's also consistent for the charter sector and
operators who are wishing to open schools in the state. So really high level again, you have this handout, but I think these are kind of these big uh bucket areas. So in the application review, we're going to talk high level. the staff is really the ones
doing they're reading the application line by line. They're doing the review based off of an evaluation template um with rubrics and their scoring. Um this is most of the time too when you would include a we do have a best practice of
including an expert external reviewer in new application um reviews but also very helpful in renewals as well especially if it is a long term where you haven't had a ton of time to do that constant oversight. Um staff is doing the
interviews. They're also doing all the due diligence on the end of making sure that the actual process meets statute. Statute is very specific about how to do new applications. Um the board is taking all of that information from staff and they're taking recommendations, reviews,
documents. It's this body we call a body of evidence that the board then considers and then makes a decision to approve or deny. So really the board's role is that approval or denial in the new application phase. Um what then when you get into that
contracting phase and the pre-opening um the staff usually is the one to work with legal counsel and liaison between the school to start getting the words on paper for a contract. U make sure that the things are put in there that or
they're they're facilitating conversations right between the school board and the district board getting those contract terms set up. the board that is obviously making the vote to approve or not approve those charter contracts and those conditions. So if you're getting a new application or you
have a renewal application and your staff is providing um they may provide a recommendation of conditions um for example when I do um external reviews of new applications I do not provide or I should say CASA CASA does
not provide recommendations to boards to approve or deny applications but we say if you are going to approve here are the conditions we recommend you put in the contract. contract or here are things that you need to figure out with the school before they open. And so those
are things that staff can work through um and the board then can think about and figure out if they're going to vote on it or not. Um and then as far as that also includes pre-opening phase. So there are tons of benchmarks that schools have to meet in that pre-opening
phase to be able to open on time. We'll talk about that a little bit more later. Um oversight and monitoring is really really heavy on staff. Um it is constant and depending on how many schools you have, right? And times that by all the things that you're monitoring, uh
depending on what situation your school is in, if they've been established for a really long time, they're operating great. They're maybe not so much on the radar radar versus a school that's in year one. You know, you're really tracking to make sure that a school's meeting those expectations. um feel like this, you know, more of the
research, but if a school's going to fail, they're going to probably fail in the first few years. Um >> well, and I would add one thing. Well, two, I would add two things here. It's good to know charter schools are not released from a single federal rag regulation or constitutional obligation.
So, everything you have to do as a district because of federal law or the constitution holds for your charter schools. So, uh, superintendents and principles know what that means in terms of reporting, uh, and getting federal money. So, all those things apply. Um,
most state procedures that come with categorical funding still apply. The obligations that come with grants still apply. So, there's just a lot that is part of public administration that remains in place for charter schools. I will say often um big districts and
small both uh do avail themselves of some specialized authorizing technology platforms. Um uh there's a few out there that are pretty widely used that then create an automatic you know portal that reduces the burden and then you can you know copy the calendar that a bigger
district created for all those federal and state requirements and it's easier and it's all there. So th those things, you know, cost a couple thousand bucks as opposed to a staff person putting a quarter of their job into it. So I I suggest you explore those options if you want to do a lot more and you don't have
the staff to do it. >> And that makes the schools tend to be grateful for that as well because it makes their job a lot easier. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And um we have worked with all but one I would say with the major players in that space and so um we have
in some instances come into a district and set that up for them um which is really the most labor intensive piece of it but then it's the um I have uh never been able to do my job without that support because it really is like half
um for the amount of tracking especially if you have multiple schools it takes a lot of tracking out of Um, so back to oversight monitoring. The board should be uh involved in the sense that they're receiving reports. So they're understanding. They're not caught off guard when you get to a
renewal and all of a sudden downloading years and years of information. Um although that can happen. It is common. Um but as far as just general oversight, the board should be receiving regular reports from whoever that particular person is or staff person. Um, and then
when we get to renewal, um, staff is working to compile the story. Like I call it the story because it's a record of what the school has done over the term of their charter contract. So, um, over the last term, uh, whatever the last renewal was, the staff's
responsibility is to collect the information that should be used in making those decisions. I know I mentioned at the beginning of this presentation, we always be careful what information should we include in that, right? Um, and so it needs to be aligned
with the contract, the outcomes, the expectations that you establish up front. Um, but that information needs to be presented and put together in a way that you can digested and say, yes, we can see the track record here or we can see improvement or we can see not, you
know, going away. um and what has been done about it. And so the board's role then in that position is to make that one vote which is renew not renew or renew with conditions. >> Can I add something here? Um
uh one of the things that people who support authorizers nationally talk about is decision alignment. And by that I mean the district made a recommendation to do one thing and the board voted to do something else. That's not always wrong. I will say as a person who's voted on lots of charter schools
over my years um and sometimes that's because of information that people are not allowed to disclose. As a board member, I'm sure you've done it for very long. You end up in executive session getting a briefing on something of a
nature that you are legally legally wise not to talk about in public or that your insurance agent would tell you not to talk about in public. So like there are things that are part of a board's decision-m all the time that are involved in protecting the public interest and the interests of the
district and the community where uh all the stuff that's in the charter school record may not be inclusive of everything that's relevant to the district. So that's why having good legal counsel, talking to them appropriately, protecting privileged information, uh having your staff and
your liaison understand the obligations under uh under labor law under your district's policies are pretty key. Uh and sometimes those are not very often, but that's behind the scenes in uh a
difficult charter decision. Um, a lot of times that stuff, uh, depending on what's going on will become public. But there I'm certainly I get lots of briefings at Boulder on stuff that I'm not at liberty to discuss in public. Um, so that can be part of it and that is something you should know about and um,
trust your counsel and uh, rely on them to advise you. >> Thank you. And lastly, we um you know, never want to get to the point of closure, but if that were to happen, um closing a school is extremely demanding
on all parties. Um mostly the students, right? And so staff's managing closure process, rehoming students, doing all of the the tasks that are involved in that process and the and the board is in involved in the voting to actually do
the closure or initiate the dissolution. >> Oh, can I add something? Let me add one more thing before we go into the discussion. Um I think something uh public doesn't always appreciate or that people running schools and in the charter space don't recognize is the
importance of the role that boards play in their community as honoring and celebrating and keeping people excited about what's going on in their community. So, uh, I'm they don't let me sit next to the dis anymore in
Boulder because I weep too much when students share super cool things. And so, on the video, they don't want me all tearing up all the time. I have to sit farther away from where the kid speaks. Um, but you do these things as a board that celebrate wonder and curiosity and
achievement and bring a sense of community. And I encourage you strongly that your board responsibility is to include your charters in that and to bring them in and to celebrate them and to build community and to support all your kids and all your staff. So that
doesn't go up on these lists very often, but it's a real board. You know it as board obligations. That's something you do and you shouldn't drop the ball on the charter space. It it leaves bad feelings like you know when you celebrate one you celebrate the librarians but you don't celebrate the you know you know you've got to balance
the celebration and you've got to create the honoric opportunities for everything you want to honor or else people you know they get grievance to you about it don't celebrate it have fun uh make people cry a break here for discussion but we are
going to start going through those phases one by one Um, are there any big questions you're walking into this with that you really want before we start? I think my
um is more of a like elementary building block question of just the chartered contract like what is the binding document? Is it the document that is in
the board packet on the day that they vote to charter or to approve the charter or is it a ongoing contract? I like you understand totally understand. Do you want to answer that?
>> Let me start with anybody in um the charter in some states the charter application is the key thing. Not in Colorado. In Colorado, the thing you voted on to approve them is not your contract. That's the second part is once you approve the charter, then you begin
uh negotiating the contract. The contract is in fact the charter. It's a charter contract. That's what it that's what it means. And that charter contract spells out the things that are material about what the school proposed to do. It spells out the roles and
responsibilities of each party, the obligations that they have, the ability to intervene, the remedies they have if something is problematic, um the ideally they include the mechanism by which both parties would agree to modify their
contract as needed. Um the role that other things like policies and legal changes play as it evolves. Um how otherus relate to it. So it's a very important document. Um, I will add that one of the things CAXA has produced are model charter contract templates um that
I recommend districts starting from um they're still different like uh districts will have different orinian or orientations and approaches. So, it's not all the same one, but they really are the key thing that you're coming back to. And those that's the thing that
you have the most um it it disciplines you to not step on their toes operationally and autonomy wise, but it also empowers you to be able to act when you need to. Um so, you know that this is how we'll handle special education. This is when we will do the true up. Um
this is uh when we this is here's the tiered interventions we will take if something goes offline or becomes problematic. You know start with a notice of concern and then we'll insist you have a plan then we'll put you on probation. That tiered ladder of interventions is in the contract.
Ideally the performance expectations are in a contract too and they're spelled out in a way that is robust to how the state assessment might change in 5 years or something. but you will spell out like you will have this level of growth and this standard of achievement that's going on. Um so there's there's a lot
that goes into it. It's a really important document. It's more important than the application. But I will say one more thing. The the idea of the charter school is not just that they're approved and then there's the contract. They are accountable for creating the program you
approved. So there has to be fidelity to what they said they were going to do. Sometimes a charter school will get into trouble financially and they'll be like, "Well, we can still operate. We've got, you know, we only have 60% of the kids we thought, but we can still make the B budget balance." That's not the issue. The issue is, can they provide the
educational program that they promised in the contract? So, even if they can keep the doors open and the lights on, that doesn't mean they're fulfilling the program. So, the contract ideally is spelling out what was material in the program, too. So anyway, there's just a lot there and that's the document that
matters and that's the document that should be most carefully uh developed with your council and staff based on the input from the district board and then that comes back to you and before you sign it, you need to understand what you care about in it before you vote to approve it.
>> Right on the map. Um, I say I've been in situations where it's really really impossible to nominate a school because um, we had a school that opened as a STEM school or applied as a STEM school and and eventually STEM was you couldn't find STEM anywhere in that building and
it was really a financial issue that caused them to have to drop back on the pro programmatic offerings. So, we went forward and the community was not happy either, right? And said we we were promised a STEM opportunity. We don't have this opportunity. So, we tried to
make the argument for at least renegotiating with the contract, but because it wasn't spelled out in our charter contract that they would be a STEM program school, they ended up being able to continue to function and just were just a typical, you know, no focus
type of operating school with no kids. Um so it is really important and um the importance of the application though I always uh provide if we're if we're giving recommendations or support on that new application piece or even at
renewal um if the school is submitting in their renewal application or their new application that they are going to be a STEM school let's use the same example then the outcomes or the measures should be agreed upon at that phase with the school and put in that contract so you're able to say that Yes,
there's some there's some kind of teeth behind are they actually delivering on the promise cuz sometimes that can get lost in a contract. >> And I will add one other thing. This is about we're getting out of the cycle, but when you come to contracts, the renewal exercise, people often think of
it as, well, this is thumbs up or thumbs down, life or death for the charter school. Like that's almost never the case. Like we don't close that many charter schools. renewal process and updating a contract is a check-in period in which the charter and the district are resetting things and the school come
that's when a time when the charter would come in and say well our community really didn't like STEM as much as we thought we couldn't get the internships but here's what we're doing instead we'd like our new vision for the next 5 months 5 years to reflect this new approach so renewal or contract updating
in your case with with such a long term is an opportunity for both parties to come together and say, "What's the school doing now? What does it want to do? What has it done well that it wants to make sure to do more of? What did it originally propose that doesn't make sense?" And they people realize that's not really what they want to do. Same
way for the authorizer to come in and say, "Well, in the first four years, like again, we've determined that you aren't serving kids with moderate disabilities very well. We want to create a new relationship with you where we partner with you more to do that, make sure kids are served." So, think of
renewal or contract renegotiation as a reset. And that process is letting the district communicate what they found to be successful and what they found and celebrate and what they found that could be better. And the school is coming in and say, "Hey, we've been really frustrated by transportation. You guys,
we have to have your calendar and snow days. We don't want your snow days anymore." Whatever it is, the school can bring its its achievements and frustrations and adjustments just as the district can. So the renewal process, I like to say, is more about that than it is about thumbs up, thumbs down. Um, and it's a great opportunity. If you've
built over five years of annual reports and negotiation and transparency, that's not a surprise. You're like, "Hey, we've we've noted this thing. You fixed that. We want to make sure you stay on target with like let's say your governance practices weren't meeting open meeting laws, right? So you're like, "Hey, we
really need that to be better. we're going to put that in your contract that we need X, Y, and Z for governance and open meetings. Then they fix that and you can, you know, change it the next time and renew once you build the trust back. Anyway, so I just say that contracts are an opportunity as well as
like a cudgel. They're also a place to articulate both sides interests, which is what contracts are for, right? Can you speak um specifically to the waiverss part of the contract
because you mentioned like they can't wave federal regulations but there are um state and even our district policies that can be waved. How is that in part of the contract process or renewal
process? say that it's really complicated. Let me just let me start with that. Um, speaking from an authorizing perspective that's doing the work on a day-to-day basis, if you've got, let's say, you have five schools in your portfolio, they all have different lenders for
different policies. It is really, really difficult to manage all of that and track all of that. It's even harder. Want aids hasn't been set up from the beginning because you have to go back and sometimes schools don't even know what their waiverss are. the district doesn't even know if the waivers are off
record. So, it's really just again cleaning up that documentation. But I think the waivers um are typically included as part of the charter contract that are um waiverss from state and district policies. So, if there's not a
some charter or some school districts will take all of their policies and say these are ones that the charter school can wave. these are ones that are not legable and these want these are ones that are not applicable to charter schools. Um and so it at least helps the
process when a charter school is getting those established. They know they know and the district knows okay these are the things that this charter school has in place as far as a waiver goes. So that's documented in the contract. Um and it's the same for state. Do you think that? >> Yeah, I would just say like the you see
those lists that districts generate of and they're not the same polic like uh Boulder Valley I think has 422 policies at this point, right? So it's just a ton of it. Um and we spent a lot of time striking policies lately because they're out of date and not using them. So there's reason to not have policies
apply, right? You all you wish you could do the same thing and it's as you as a board will be culling that list over the years. I suspect what districts will do is we'll say here's the ones we will not wave like Boulder won't wave its discrimination policy for example here's
the ones that we insist you wave like they have a policy on principal evaluation doesn't apply to the charter so they want to make sure you're clear that they're not involved in your principal evaluation so they insist you wave principal evaluation policies then they'll have others where they may wave it depending on your replacement plan
and so that should be part of an application process And that should be part of a renewal process. Um, and it should be part of the contract negotiation process. The other thing that happens is that policies evolve. And so you want to be able to understand
how different policies affect your charters differently. And when you're updating policies, know that this will or won't affect the charters or if it does, does it make sense with their governance and legal structure. So it's it is complicated. One of the things that CAXIT can share are those other
districts lists of what they put in each of the categories. And then >> yeah, they're very similar from most places are the same. Um, and then the other thing is that you can figure out how serious the replacement plans are. People talk about replacement plans, but often it's an issue of saying, well,
this is what we're going to do instead to address that concern. So like on the issue of principal evaluation, um, that can be something the district has set out in policy. It's the way they work. It's their HR system. The charter says we're not going to do that. But the district has a right to say how are you going to evaluate your school leader? We
need to know how you'll do it and we want to hold you accountable for evaluating your leader because that's a core part of school quality. So that's where you want to not just wave everything cart blanch unless you're comfortable with that. But you want to be really intentional about it. And this brings us back to that issue of your job
is to protect school autonomy and public interest, right? So part some of those you want to wave because of autonomy some of them because you don't want them in your system so you insist they don't participate in your system because it's you want to keep them separate and then others are ones where it's like no this is an important value for our community
it's reflected in our policy and we want it to be for all our kids so we want it in all our schools >> if um if things change right you were talking about how um you know policies sometimes change at the district level right and so a waiver wasn't necessarily
included did in the contract originally because it it didn't matter at that point, but because of the change, now maybe the charter would want a waiver is what is the process to adding waivers that aren't already part of the contract?
>> In my experience, that's been one of the things that's been negotiated in in the renewal process or if they revisit the contract otherwise because they need to change something. So >> require the contract being kind of looked at as a whole. >> Uh yes, but you could specifically go
back and say, "Hey, we want to this these new these new laws came in where the district now has policy authority over X like early childhood is added, you know, in Colorado." So a district now needs to create a bunch of early childhood policies. So the charter
contract 15 years ago never anticipated universal public early childhood. You create them as a district. It affects the charter. Does the charter have to follow them? Not I mean I uh this was a good one for your question for your council, but the way I read the statute
is a policy applies unless it's waved. So if you have a new policy that applies to your schools, I'd argue it applies until you decide to wave it. Um not the other way around. Like you're not asking for the permission to adopt a new policy. Your obligation or authority as
a policym body is to create new policies and amend them. You're not asking a charter for permission to add a policy or amend the policy, but once it's there, it's part of the millu of the things you're negotiating. Does that does that address your question?
>> And does that make sense for the help you're giving? >> Yes. And I would say in my experience in Amora, we had nine schools at the time and things would happen like that where every single contract then was have some portion of it that wasn't applicable anymore because of a waiver. So, we
would, you know, it depends on the contract, the way the contract was written for the district or the school to be able to reopen it for amendments. Um, but we actually would just do like an annual review of our contracts to see if there was any updates and we would do across the board charter school
amendments if they obliged to them just as process-wise, but I think it can be done many different ways. Yeah. >> And and a charter contract should anticipate that that's an ongoing process by a policym district court. I went ahead and skipped through to
action the contracting section. So in your I really apologize realizing that your uh presentation doesn't have page numbers. So I apologize because there's like a Would you mind if we just take a quick >> Y
but like maybe that's a good spot. We also lost another pretty. All right. Okay. Um, let's dive back in. Uh, um, we're
we're happy to follow up later on other parts of the life cycle. Um, but before we dive into the contracting, I just want to say that a key thing to understand about good authorizing is that the individual good practices build on each other. And so I like to think of
it as reverse engineering everything for the tricky stuff you might eventually reach. So you want a removal to go smoothly. If there's a problem, you want to have the authority and the ability to act to fix it. And so how do you do all these different pieces to fit together?
So like in the perfect world when you have 20 people on staff for your authorizing mechanism and you know four lawyers for every stage uh but you still have time as board to hang out with your dog. Um, you would have the the charter application specify what's really
important. Through that review process, you would identify everything that a good school is able to do, but a few things that are problematic. You contract would set up conditions around those few things that are problematic. Um, you'd be able to oversee and monitor them. You'd have an annual report that
tells you how people are doing. Uh, the board would receive that annual report, check in with staff, check in with the school, hear from them. They'd make adjustments each year and things like that. that would be all on a calendar that's workable. Um, people would know it. Uh, if it's a problem that comes up
through the term of the charter, either you have remedies that you can put in place that are transparent and predictable and then they can solve that problem or not. And then when you come up to the renewal process, it goes smoothly, but it has three or four years of a body of evidence of those annual reports. It's seen a track record for
solving things. They know that they've been hitting the performance outcomes out of the park every year and that they haven't really had anything other than a little governance pickup that they fixed two years ago. So, they know that they're going to be renewed and you know they're going to be renewed and you can focus the renewal process on a common
thing you care about or each has a couple of interests they want to talk through and renegotiate. So that so within it if you don't have the big picture um any one of those things can take on outsized importance and be more tricky and complicated or adversarial
than it needs to be and the more they all fit together the more easy they actually are as individual pieces and then that leads to the transparency which I emphasize a lot which leads to the predictability which leads to the trust which leads to making it easier to solve problems. So anyway, that's I
don't want to take one thing out of context compared to the others. How do you guys feel about that? Is that is that over one of the things we're always afraid about and I when you think about talking to uh both boards and small districts is that we're overwhelming
and that there is too much expected to practically do. And people running school systems always know that outsiders expect them to do stuff that they will not get to because they know there's too much other stuff to do. And so they take it all a grain of salt and they figure out in their mind what am I actually going to do next week with
this. So I I would like to pause there a little bit and say what if this feels overwhelming to you and what if this feels like like unreasonable aspiration um or uh or is there a part like who or you know how do I do that make that
workable? We pause there for a second before going into the contract. I would say from my perspective um um we all um we know um I believe the leaders at Maritan Academy also know that that
we that that there wasn't a good job done in the past of um reporting and putting things in writing and making crystal clear you know what the district's role and their in in in some
instances not in all but in some and I But there's a desire on on both parts, you know, to make sure that that going forward is done with best practices. Um it does feel um like it could overwhelm
our staff to get in that position. And you know, I don't know that we've talked about this, but new we have new administrative staff, we have new CFOs, we have new board members. I mean everything is shiny new except our
buildings. Um and and I I think that from my perspective I look at it and I see we need help. Um and we need we need to go ahead and um invest
in the help that we need to go forward with this in a good positive strong manner. um rather than try to fly by the seat of our pants and you know accomplish. That's that's that's my
perspective of what I'm what I'm seeing when I hear you guys talk. >> Yeah. I I think the other piece that kind of goes hand inhand with that, right? Is is not just that the we need to bring in help for capacity reasons. Um but also you you guys kind of alluded
it to it a little earlier where you know there can be some emotions and people get kind of deeply rooted in in their um their own personal feelings on a topic and it makes it harder to look at the situation objectively and make those good decisions. And so I do I appreciate
you guys being here and and you know maybe we'll pull in for for further assistance as we go so that we can have somebody else kind of bring in that outsider perspective and say like okay >> I see maybe why this was done but here's where it could have been done better or
here's maybe how we want to pivot going forward and it and it pulls out that like oh you're just saying that because you didn't like this person or you don't like us or you know and and just kind of have it be that let's just make all of our decisions based on facts and best
practices and so we can just move forward and have those guard rails. >> Uh another resource I would well definitely I don't work at CAPS anymore uh as founder and former edi I'm very proud of what McKenzie is doing but I I do encourage you to work with them. I'm
glad you've joined them. One of the key things about them is the members and that really there are 47 authorizers in Colorado. Is that the right number still? Anyway, there's they share their stuff generously. The authorizers talk
to each other and I I always tell the charter school people this that you'd be amazed at what the district staff will say in behind closed doors in their room when they're talking about their problems. They are so focused on problem solving and they are not ch hating on charters. They are like, well, how do we
solve this tricky situation? and you have professionals talking to professionals, giving each other advice about the unique uh things that there's they're addressing. So, I really encourage you to lean into CAPSA. Um they have the networking is really good.
If you have a particular problem, you can convene a call with three or four peers and talk it through. And again, for my my friends in the audience from the charter side, that is helpful to you. You want them doing that. That will be good. um and they will do a better job the more they plug into their peers.
And then the other part is that there are templates for all this stuff. There are model contracts, there are site visit rubrics, there are everything for an application to renew. There's a whole handbook on how to handle a renewal. And you can customize that to your situation and your resources and your scale. Like
there are there are other one charter districts, small rural communities that are doing a good job of this and figuring out which of these things Alex McKenzie recommend that they can do. So you don't have to even make those decisions on your own. You can ask the peers that >> we're big believers in not recreating
things that don't need to be recreated. And actually I believe you may have gotten your first Cassie email today because we do have uh membership questions like if a district has a question about particularly we send it out to only paid members of our
organization only authorizers receive that. we all share what we do and then what's really helpful is then you can take that back to your board or when you're having discussions and say eight of the 12 districts that do this do it this way you know you have like a little
bit more context um so it's really really helpful >> um so we'll go through some of the we started on the contract we are going to go ahead and skip the new application process piece of this we know that's not currently relevant to you but It's
obviously there for you if you need it. Um, and we can and will happy to support you if you ever do receive a new application. Um, so I think it's just important to reiterate, Alex talked about the application really then transitioning to the contract. So just
being careful about what you're keeping from that contract or sorry from the application to make sure the school continuously lives up to the promise it made to its community and why you in the first place. Um so some of the things that uh staff again talking about roles
um staff is going to be working with the school and probably your legal counsel and a lot of times CFOs are involved or operations folks in getting the language right in the contract that process right back and forth between the school and the charter I mean the school and the
district and then you are voting on the actual terms again I don't know without seeing your contract currently what the mechanisms will be to reopen it, but you should have the availability to do that if you are not able to do it during that renewal time, but we always really
really push for contract um discussions during renewal. It really is a reset opportunity, especially for long-term contracts. Um so approval again on for implications for boards when you're approving the um application it doesn't
mean that every single thing in that application is getting approved because it doesn't always all translate into the contract. So there may be some things that you're like generally we like this concept or there maybe these little finite things that need to be fixed but a lot of times those can be fixed during
the contract phase um or during that pre-opening phase which a lot of times is easy. I will add sometimes when people write the charters they are using aspirational language about things they hope to achieve and you would never want to path decision based on the fact that
they're going to they don't understand how the Colorado growth model works and they're talking about a level of growth that no school in the state achieves but they wrote that in the application. So, it's incumbent on you to have be a reality check as a district and say, "Well, I know you wrote this, but we can't possibly hold you accountable for that because we'd have to shut you down
next year, right?" So, people writing applications will say very aspirational stuff that you don't want in the contract. But then they'll say other really poor stuff that you don't want to neglect in. So, that's that's where council and experience can help. >> Yeah. And then I think on the other side
of it, we talk about like elements of a strong contract. You also have to be really cognizant of the language you have in there as a district to allow yourself the ability to do the oversight that needs to be happening. Um so you know define metrics, timelines, reporting requirements. We don't like to
talk about all that compliancy stuff, but it's also our obligation on the school board, right, to make sure that we're protecting public interest and that's how you do those things. So there does need to be some kind of team contract around um the I don't really see the frequency quite often in there
but what you're looking at and why you're looking at it for what reasons um is typically in there in some in some way. Again as a member of our organization you'll see a lot of example contracts that you can take a look at and I would say it's really different
from district to district. Very very different >> and it's evolved a lot over time. uh contracts are now longer than they used to be and one of the things is always like how do I make this simple and narrow it down to what's appropriate because you can add everything under the sun to it. You don't want to do that.
>> Alex, what would you say if you've seen a lot of different contracts in Colorado specifically, what would you say are the most uh imperative sections for a strong contract? >> So I I do think defining what is the material part of the provisions of the
application that are material. So, you want to know the stuff that you can hold them accountable for and the stuff that they um really believe, like we say, you you've approved them based on what they proposed. And it's not just they exist as a school. It's like, do they deliver what they proposed? Um because when
schools start to struggle, uh that's the stuff that becomes hard to do. And schools will be able to keep the doors open much longer than they can do the program they propose to do. So that's you want to define what that is without being crazy about it and holding them to everything they they envision in the
application because they'll envision stuff that's not realistic. That is not a reason to turn them down. But you would never want to hold them together because you also want to give them the autonomy also means the autonomy to adjust things and change things as they evolve. So a school will never open
their doors having it all work and having it all work the way they think is the way they should. So they will evolve and you want flexibility, but you also want to be able to have what was material so that you're not arguing that a later board after you is holding them accountable for some rinky thing they
wrote into an application 15 years ago. Right? So that's pretty key. Another part is to define um the obligations of each party. So with enough specificity to anticipate all the things you need to do. So if you think through all those tasks you need to do, you need to make
sure that you have the authority to do all of them and they have the the obligation to respond, right? So without spelling out everything that's possible, you want to make sure that you have the authority to be a good authorizer and that they have an obligation to um respond to that just as they have a
right to expect what they want to get need to get from you uh on what basis and um uh so that you know what you're eligible for. I mean, it's it's pretty standard contract stuff, but it is what is what is the purpose of this? What are you going to achieve? What am I going to
do for you? What are you going to do for me? What do you what are you obliged to do when I need it from you? And what am I obliged to do for you when you need it from me? Those are really pretty key stuff. And then you want to create in the appendices or the exhibits and stuff that deal with your policies and your
waiverss or your fee structure. And you want to give flexibility so that you can update those things from year to year. So you can't anticipate like I said the price of gas or diesel in 10 years. So you don't want a contract that says this is how much
transportation is going to cost forever. You want to have an exhibit that says each year we will share with you and we will negotiate an MOU which dictates the services we're providing that you're paying for and um along the way we are going to insist that you always pay for this service because we always want them
in our securities. So the exhibits are really pretty key and then but giving yourself both parties to continue to negotiate those but still have have teeth so you're not renegotiating the core parts to it but you're renegotiating like the angle price point or something.
Um, I would love to put you council on spot for uh any questions or feedback you have on anything you think should be in a charter contract. >> You put me on contracts in general of having exhibits that are valuable and structured that
are consistent the review process. Yeah, I I think that's key to make it work. Like when it stops working, then you're dealing with bigger conflicts. So, you want to be able to address the ongoing challenges that come up that both parties will have so that people don't
have just building resentments or frustrations. So, you want to ne be still negotiating how you work together the whole charter term, not just once and then walking away from it and saying that's the way we're going to do things forever. But you really want those roles in there and you want to have the authority to
act and they need to also protect their autonomy. Anything else to add? >> No, just a couple key points from this slide just talking about things that we see are common pitfalls with contracting. Um, you know, having this really vague uh measurable performance
outcomes. So this can become tricky. I think specifically when I have seen it personally with like a very specific school law for example. So um I tell the story probably that is a good example having a charter school that was for
pregnant parenting teens. um we collaboratively worked with them to say what are your expectations right like it's not just what we want to see on on a particular data point or we don't want to just reflect what the state says it's
appropriate we want to know what is it what does success look like from your model's perspective and what how does that protect your autonomy and also keep you accountable and you know we had a that school said we actually want to track the birth rate of our students
babies because we know that that's going to be a direct correlation of how informed they are, how healthy they are, if they're coming to school, if they're getting resources, and that's something that we would have never, right, ever thought of putting into contract. But that was important to them. I bring that
story up because it was a lesson for me in understanding that they are unique by design and there's part of our job to preserve that and part of that is encouraging them to be part of this process. So, um it does get a little
murky though when you don't really have clear um language in the contract about what you are what you're looking for. So when you get to a renewal, if you don't have a clear written outcome uh list or things that you're supposed to be expecting, then it does become really
gray. Um and then then enters all of the other things. We talk about the emotion, the you know, all the other things that really don't have a place in the high stakes decisions of the new school. >> I will add one other thing. Um speaking of the exhibits that should be
referenced in the contract but not part of the contract. What standard practice uh in good authorizers is to refer to performance frameworks. So they will have an academic a finance and a governance and operations performance framework. The last one is two together. So they'll have these three performance
frameworks and they will say you know you will perform at the level that that is determined by our framework to be necessary. then that framework can be established in district rule or policy or district procedure and it's flexible. So most of the academic performance
frameworks are based on basically the the um the state's accountability system and what goes into those reports. The financial framework is based on seven or eight measures that a CFO can pull from an audit and say here's uh here's the measures that are all early indicators
of financial distress and we'll find them in the audit from uh these seven different measures. So there's a financial framework and then the governance operational framework would be well what's how late is the reporting how many non-compliant things do they have did they respond in a non-timely
way when there's a problem. So these frameworks are another level of the good system. That's that's really one of the most important things for really holding school accountable. But you don't want the you don't want a PDF of the framework in the contract. You want to say we will be using the framework that
the district shall update that is based on the state's accountability system for academic performance and then use what's a very common framework amongst Colorado school districts that use it and it looks a lot like the state's birth. Um the finance one is pretty cut and dried. you see the same ones used by the
districts that have followed Knax's lead and it's pretty effective. So I think that performance framework is another key those three performance frameworks another key element that's referred to in the contract but not embedded in it. >> Um so just key implications here we have
about pitfalls is your contract is going to help you eliminate all the issues that come typically later when you're renegotiating way down the road. Right? So, it's it's important to invest in that contract upfront to prevent some of those major issues there. Um, we don't have any more
slides on contracting, but I know it's we have a lot of questions about that. Is there anything else you're curious about with contracting before we move into large sites? Um I think earlier um Alex you you made a statement and I I
can't um I can't quote it but it was something about um expectations that that that charter because charter schools have some autonomy the the expectations can be set there
there are some expectations that are set higher. Um is that what you said? Was it something if you could elaborate and help on that area? >> Sure. I think the classic example is that the charter school that doesn't meet those expectations uh can be
closed. And the standard for a community closing its school because kids aren't learning is is different. Like if you have a school that's struggling as the Woodland Park School District, you will spend a decade trying to figure out how to improve it. At the end of a chartered firm, if the charter has not performed
acceptably, it's very appropriate to close it. Yeah. >> Gotcha. >> And that's because they had more autonomy to get there. And the whole goal was a promise that they would succeed. >> And if they knew from the beginning that if they weren't going to succeed, then they would close. So that's the difference where the standard for the
charter is higher because they've been given the autonomy to their model. and you've allowed them that autonomy because their proposal was sounded so good and it was so promising that they deserved that opportunity to give it a try versus a neighborhood school where
that's got to be the people are going to be in that neighborhood and that's going to be the public school for them. So, you're going to roll up your sleeves and continue working on it. Um, and you may not give them the autonomy, but you're also going to go do the work, fix it. So, you're not you can't fix it. So, if it doesn't get fixed, closing is the
consequence. Y does that make sense in terms I understand. Yeah. Thank you. >> And that can affect not just the performance but other things too like okay you're not you have waved X and Y district policy and you've said you have a replacement plan but the outcome that
that policy was designed to address is is in the negative and you have failed to achieve the outcome of a policy that you waved. So then that's a consequence where you found in your governance, you know, framework or compliance framework, you're like, "Wow, you're not, you've
actually had six OCR complaints, which is more than we've had as a district in two years." So whatever you're doing with your autonomy, having waved our policy is not working and you don't deserve the autonomy anymore. So that's the kind of thing where there's a higher standard where again, you wouldn't close your school because of four OCR
complaints, but you might get a new special ed directive, you know. Um just like in terms of recapping a little bit of the contract section as a whole, um there's been mentions of lots of different types of agreements like charter agreement, facilities use agreement, waiverss, exhibits, all these things. Could you just kind of maybe
briefly touch on like the general scope of the agreements that are of most often in place between district and charters and what the general cadences of reviewing them or should it all be almost the same in terms of like >> you know the the we're talking about
like the five-year renewal or revisiting period and like how does that align with a facility use agreement versus a waiver versus other exhibits because that's one of the things I think is just understanding the appropriate and relative terms of the different types of
contracts that might be in place at any given time. >> Yeah. Um that's a great question. Um there there's a core set of them and then there are some that are unique to the circumstance. So a lot of school charters don't have the building. So there's different concerns about managing a facilities, you know,
agreements that when you don't get in the building, but you've got one in it. So the facilities use agreements a key help. The performance frameworks tend to be really key uh for holding schools accountable. The uh discussion of the waiverss, what's waved and what's not is
almost always there. The reference to how the fee for service services are going to be adjudic or figured out. The process for how the finances are going to be administered and managed. probably don't want in detail in the contract
that you're going to update district financial procedures >> and special ed. Yeah. I one of the things I find one of CSI's best practice that I've been trying to get Colorado districts to emulate is they have a special edou and they specifically talk about special ed. Um it's so important
because charters are part of the district's LEA or our our unit administrative unit for special ed purposes. So you're on the hook for that and the schools and the whole access to the school is based on the same way uh it's not it's different in a single
feeder pattern district right but like the placement of a child the services that they're getting there these are really complicated things that are not they're still applicable to charter schools and they are worked out in different ways in Colorado districts so that's one where I wish more districts would do a specificou about special ed
that also allows them to adjust that if things aren't working or things are Like when we renewed some charter contracts in Boulder this year, we um were having great success with peakto peak on his special ed and they wanted to make sure that they had that they gave us less
money and had more responsibility. And at some level our CFO was like, "Well, maybe we should keep the money and do the services." And our sped team was like, "No, no, no. We they're doing a great job. We can't do it. Let you know uh let them pay us less and make them do it so we can clarify the obligations around special ed again when we renew
the contract." I would have preferred if we had an MOU so that discussion could have been ongoing and adjusted sooner and then they want to do that with multil- language learners where they don't have such a big track record. I mean they're I love the school but that it's different in special ed than it is for English language and so a different
sort of contract artifact makes sense if that if that if those examples help. >> And just to confirm like some of those are completely separate agreements and some of them are extensions or additions to the original chart, right? like an exhibit would be and or an amendment
would be an addition or um >> so everything starts with the charter contract. I think the like the model contract that we have or can provide is really >> structurally basic, right? It has all the pieces that you need and then I
think districts take that and take the pieces that really matter to them in in their context and create exhibits that are attached as part of this. So it starts all with that ma main charter contract and all the things he listed
are I I see most commonly as exhibits attached. Um but some of them need to be separated because they are going to change every six months or something like if it has to do with um like the fee documents I know annually are
renegotiated typically or the um facility use agreements like those things might change. So if they are attached to that main contract as an exhibit, there's usually some kind of uh language in the contract saying that you can open those pieces up at any point or
you know whatever the mechanism is for that, but I am not a lawyer. So >> yes, I'm not a lawyer and I don't even play one on TV, but I I will give you a Boulder Valley um story. Uh we have five great charters. We love them. They've been a great part of our community for
25 years. Um, we've also doubled tensions of whether or not they a couple of them have exclusionary enrollment practices like uh they have a preference for founders kids and that has included grant founders grandkids at this point 20 years later. We're like, oh wait,
that's like a private school legacy approach. We don't want that in our public schools. So we had originally written in in the district's enrollment preferences each charter's unique enrollment preferences as part of the whole district enrollment policy and then they we would need to change the
policy and they would reference it in the first contract. Um we recently updated our district-wide enrollment policies to reflect our values better and then when we re renegotiated the contracts were able to say you know we're going to stick to this because this is our moment. There will be no
preferences for um family of founders. Of course, there may be preferences for staff and school because we do that with our own schools and it's a really cool thing to do. But we are going to not do and we're going to no longer have um you know volunteer obligations that are
burdensome for single family, single parents and stuff. So our contract renegotiation and our charter approval, we're able to say we now have this enrollment policy that reflects our values. it's going to happen. Uh 40% of Boulder Valley families exercise choice.
Like we just have a ton of choice. So we have to manage that carefully. So we are now going to when we renew our contracts insist that our charters comply with our policy. That's different than going back to each school and saying we now like to renew the specific enrollment policy you proposed 25 years ago. it doesn't make
any sense now that you're in many the grandchildren of the so that's how a non a policy that's maybe about the charters or maybe not then becomes relevant over time in your relationships with them and by being intentional about how charter policies
and broader district policies fit together you're able to pursue your values the way I think about Sorry. Um, is that responsive? >> Yeah, I think it is. Thank you. >> Um,
the I guess the other part of um contracting is knowing that it's two-party exercise, right? And you want your board under chart school to understand their contract as well as your board understands it. And you want their leaders and administrators understand as well as your leaders and
administrators understand it. Um, so they are important. uh I can't tell you in the flow of a board member how many pages of legal ease you are subjected to in the course of a term as a charter board member. So it's unrealistic to
expect you to be a lawyer and to read every word of 100page contracts, right? So, you really need to um have your superintendent and their staff and your council being comfortable with what they've done and be able to communicate
to you how that negotiation works. And then as board members, you know, you should dig into the things that you care the most about. That would be my strategy as board member. Like there's some things I defer to my colleagues on the board where I know they have more expertise in an area than I do or they care more about something. So, they're going to do the homework. You can't all
do all the homework, you know? So, you've got to have good counsel. You've got to have staff do the work. And then know that it's a negotiation. Like, you're not unilaterally doing this. Two equal parties. You know, once you've approved the charter, it's two parties deciding what they do. And they're going to have things they won't budge on, and
you're going to have things won't budge on. And that's like any other contract negotiation. Like, there's going to be some give and take. I'm going to skip through the pre-opening section of the slide. So, we're going to go to oversight
again. We need slide numbers. Um, so um this is after right we have a school in operation. This is a is such a key element and it is very often difficult to do because of capacity
constraints. Um, and you've seen all of the things that it really takes. But I'm going to just preface this conversation with we have frameworks for this. There are things that have been, you know, we've gone through national practice. We've talked to as many districts as
possible. We have we work with other states to figure out what is the most important thing to be monitoring not to be down a school's throat or be in their business but we have an obligation to be able to speak to their ability to meet
obligations both in the contract but law right so there are things that it says at the bottom of here but oversight is how you it really is the only mechanism for you to ensure that they are upholding their contract it's not an optional think um without that
oversight, it does make those future decisions really difficult, gray, weak, and uninformed because there are there's just not a lot of data established. And as you know, any of process absent kind
of things like that. That's where we get the emotion creep and the community um you know unrest I would say in some of these decisions because I think it's just a natural thing when you don't know what to expect you get worried right or
you're you it just starts going into all these other things that are not factually based so um setting this up is um we have a lot of resources to support you in setting something up this is the one function I would say that is the
most um easily automated. If it is an option for you for uh you utilizing maybe a technology partner or something like that, you still need a person designing it and and monitoring it. But I think there are some things that can be done um to
assist districts that may not have the capacity to do it full-time. Um but just some of the elements I've talked about the three buckets but there should be some key oversight areas within academics the educ educational program at the school uh monitoring the school's
financial health and also financial management so their practices internally how are they managing their funds um and then organizational and legal compliance so things like governance and then actual school operations staffing HR etc all of those things are encompassed in
there. Um, and the way that we do that is through data review. Um, again, that data that you're collecting should never be a surprise to the school or yourself because it should be established in the contract and if it's not in the contract, at least in an agreed upon uh
monitoring framework uh that you have started with that school. Um so and again I um have really undervalued for years the value of having the school partake in the design of that is really helpful. Um you are ultimately
responsible and you will make the call on as far as like what you are going to be monitoring but it is really helpful and powerful to have your schools help you co-design um what what that looks like. Even the with the logistical questions you had about site visits. um
we don't ever want to do a site visit that is going to disrupt kids. Like that's not the goal. The goal is that we do have to have some areas of the of the monitoring is only uh verifiable through observation. So things like instruction and um we're
making sure that you're complying with storing your medications properly. Like those are things you can't do through a document review. So they are recommended that they happen in partnership with the school. Um, and then as far as compliance tracking, typically the best
approach is having in the contract again some reporting deadlines. Here's the things that we expect the school to provide how often and it's established and there's no questions there. It's just an understanding of the um obligations of reporting. Um, financial
analysis can either be um, enveloped in sort of an annual review process, but it is most commonly a much more frequent thing um, either happening by the staff person or happening by the finance department at your district. And they're looking at specific metrics again that
are already established in that contract that we are saying these are indicators of financial um, success or distress. Um, and we also have resources for that too. We actually recently this year put out a resource in the last couple of months that is a support for districts
on financial oversight. So we have some resources in that area as well. Oh, and and I will add on that. McKenzie's been very good at CAXA of um trying to spread the ability of the other district staffs who aren't the CFO not having imposttor
syndrome on financial oversight and management because we find a lot of people who aren't their sometimes the liaison is the district's CFO, their council, their business manager. Sometimes it's an academic or federal programs person who really isn't a finance expert. So McKenzie and Ed Caxa
worked to develop a way to help people get the basic understanding they need to do to at least work with their CFO and school's business officer and know what's going on because there's a lot of imposttor syndrome on this. >> I just want to call out for for you guys
that it is 8:00 and your kindness at 8:00 as a um closing time. I'm not looking to rush, but I also don't want to hold anyone captive. So, I just want that to come out. It's fine. >> I'm good for another 30 minutes if you
guys want. >> I have I have about 15 minutes. >> That's fine. >> Um would it be best if we went through because of your current situation? Do you want to talk through renewal specifically? >> Um or you want to just continue and
we'll just make it a little bit more >> brief. Yeah. >> Or just open it up to general discussion. Dr. ask us remaining questions about >> I'm also interested in the case study >> that you talked about. >> So we don't have time to do the case study.
>> Okay. >> We would love to do that on a on a future event but >> let me tell you a story of the case study a little bit and you can see some things that we hope >> we'll give it to you and we'll give you the clips version. >> Yeah. And we can talk about it. So give
me one copy. >> All right. So, had we had half hour 40 minutes, >> you would have read these two pages, but I I'll give you the cliff notes. Um, you've got Mountain View Preparatory Charter School. That's up for >> Oh, you haven't? Many of you have read it in advance.
>> Okay. So, it's in the packet. And for our audience, uh, how many people read it? Anybody need need a summary? >> I did not read it. >> Okay. Let me give you a summary. We're imagining charter school. It's been going 15 years. uh grades 612 620 kids.
Um it has really high academic performance. Uh that's not questionable. Um some people complain it doesn't serve all the same kids or the types of kids that you have in your district in terms of moderate to severe disabilities. Um and it has minimal oversight in a small rural district uh for the since it
started 15 years ago. Um but they have in their recent renewal process discovered some financial uh reporting inconsistencies but they don't yet know whether those are inappropriate or just you know bad record keeping or no one asked for it. Meanwhile uh the student
services and special education has been kind of a challenging weak point at the school. Um the governance and operations if you looked at it they would say the governing board has been of the charter school has been lacked senior school leader and the school is dominated by a leader who's respected and who everybody
thinks is walks on water and runs a great school but hasn't really been evaluated accountable. Um the community is loyal to the school and the people that go to it think it's great. um and it's been there for a long time. And if the district is concerned about the
financial issues and the liability they may have for um uh compliance issues or legal issues because they're also financially on hook for some things in school, but they haven't done their own job. So, as a board, you've got to decide whether you would renew it, whether you would not renew it, whether
you would renew your conditions, uh what direction you give your staff to try to make that decision. Um, and a few of the things for you to consider as we go into this is what evidence would suggest it's successfully serving these students? What concerns do you have from a lack of
historical oversight? How should the board evaluate the enrollment patterns? Uh, because the districts having decline in enrollment and the chart school does, but not as bad. Um, and the schools perform well academically. You really can't question that, but the governance seems a little lax. So, as a board, if you're dealing with this totally
hypothetical, uh, not anything near you, but plenty of places this happens in Colorado and around the country, this is not at all, you know, inconceivable. What considerations would you as a board bring to your renewal process? What do you think? I mean, based on our conversation this
evening, right, it seems like first you would want to ask for some uh additional information, right? So, can can staff work with their staff to bring in some additional financial information, special ed services information, maybe
do a site visit? Um, and then as part of the contract renewal negotiations, it seems it would be appropriate to add in some of those conditions if uh specific issues were identified to address those and have a
monitoring period to to make sure that those they were in compliance with fixing them. >> Other other ideas? I guess if the if you felt like the governance was that that would you could put in some specific conditions um about
governance about the the um uh leader of that school's um review process and um and then maybe you can even ask hey we we want to be notified when these
particular things happen. um it should happen you know that pieces of it should happen monthly um that you could give I don't know is that is that getting into their autonomy too much to be that prescriptive
I would say like the documentation of a leader evaluation is is a reasonable thing to ask for to try to pursue good governance at school but not telling them how to do it or what to find but say you know you should have a process to evaluate a leader um but they can
figure out this frequency perhaps or you know what goes into that and they certainly want to figure you're not getting involved with their decision-m or compensation on based on any of that. I mean, you know, on the HR app for a second, right? If you were doing a performance evaluation for an employee,
anything that you would use as a determining factor as to whether an employee is still um meeting expectations should be in that, you know, the the conditions, right? So be very specific as possible as to the parameters as to
what you would consider success so that the charter school knows exactly what they need to meet and then anybody looking at the review process knows exactly what processes you're using to make the animation and having the documentation to back it up.
>> Right? And then assume that we're all operating under Colorado sunshine laws and the same that you would treat sensitively they were able to treat sensitively. um and you know maintaining those protections that are necessary you know for all parties. >> The second motive for that question during the renewal is actually getting
to the governance structure. So we see a lot of times like where the school leader just kind of takes over and they are the ones communicating directly with everyone. they are the ones signing things and they go hold on we actually have a contract with your board not with
the school leader and you it can be a symptom then an indicator that there are governance issues. Um so it's not that you care too much about what they're evaluating the principal on. It's that they have an armslength relationship and maybe a process for the hierarchy of
board versus the school leader. And uh I like on the point of asking the staff to go work with the school and get more information. I will say we had a charter renewal come up um uh in the last few years in Boulder where there wasn't enough information. And I moved
that we uh delay the long-term renewal decision for a year so that the staff could actually go through a more thorough renewal exercise and bring back to the board the kind of information I really wanted. I knew we would renew. It's a great school. But we had lost the
opportunity to have that reset and find out what they need because people assumed the school was doing great, which it was, but then you're like, well, we never have that depth of that review. So, I moved that we delay the full renewal for a year and school was
happy okay with that. We they knew we were pretty clear in signaling that we had no intention of not renewing them, but we were just going into a new like we bought half a building for them in a private facility. So they'd have more space and and then we would own it and take care of it. So we were signaling
everything positive but I still said hey hold it we don't have enough information to do important stuff. >> I'm curious just for clarification like when it says you know renewing a charter with conditions like is it the board then that determines those conditions? Is it done through negotiation between
staff? Like how does that typically like if there are shortcomings or changes that are identified like how does that even >> I would say typically it would come from the staff doing the full comprehensive review that may provide recommended uh
conditions. Um but again if there is not staff doing that review it could come directly from the board. Um but I think that's the most informed way to get those conditions because when you really have to go through all that comprehensive information to understand
okay what is really holding the school up from you know getting a clear signal >> and and I would add uh districts vary in whether or not the superintendent provides an up or down report and says uh I recommend renewal with these two
conditions versus let me tell you the concerns we have and the strengths we identify. Um people will just sometimes uh when it's also when it's questionable which way it's going to go the superintendent doesn't want to undermine eventual decision that's that's different than
what they recommending because then they're strengthening the appeal. Um, so there's reasons I as a board member would prefer to get recommendations uh that are yes or no and and these are our three concerns, but uh plenty of districts responsibly say here's the strengths and here's the weaknesses
staff identified. Uh the special ed staff were particularly concerned about X. Um and the uh I superintendent agree that if they're going to continue to operate, we need to fix this. Right? So you might get signals like that. you might get the superintendent and staff and counsel to say, "Here's the language
that you might put in a finding that we could um then use a negotiation that's clear and precise and defensible based on evidence." So many different ways to handle it. Um, but you do eventually want to get to uh the board finds that
the school we we want to renew the school and we direct staff to negotiate in the contract um to address our concern over the record of special ed compliance. Like that's kind of thing that you would do. It may or may not have a thumbs up recommendation from the superintendent. It may not have the
language. It may just be a board you guys discuss amongst yourselves and then you know from the dis you guys will work out language with your council through that clause and the resolution. >> I've seen it work work all sorts of ways in a place like Denver where they're dealing 18 renewals a year.
>> Their renewals are handled 16 out of 17 on the consent agenda. >> Right? And so at scale you're not going to make those decisions. you're going to follow staff and disagree with them in really exceptional cases. In a district of this size with one charter, you can
be really hands-on with your superintendent and staff and counsel on that or still not if you're in the tricky situation and you want to really tighten up the evidence base, whatever you >> um what do you guys >> Sorry, I was just um would that be a
time like if there was a performance um framework in place to revisit it if like to add special education performance measures. >> Yeah. Or that could fall in. >> That's exactly. And you might put it in the compliance version of the issue with
OCR complaints or due process complaints or you might put it in the academic performance framework. If there's subgroups that are really underperforming your own similar subgroups, right, and their IP to nonIT gap is like twice as big as yours. You be like, "No, no, no. You guys really need to do tier one instruction for
dyslexic kids, right? So, you can put that in the academic performance framework or you could put it in a compliance framework depending on what the problem is. Um, and you'd want to adjust that sooner than the renewal if you've identified the gap through the annual reports. So, you're like, "Oh,
okay. Our your gap with IEPs in tier what we consider tier one is worse than ours. What's going on?" Right? And so, then you'd start talking about it. By the time you get to the renewal, if they haven't fixed it, you're like, "No, no, no. really need to take over more of special ed from you because this isn't working for a population.
That would be sort of a trajectory. >> Um, again, people will argue whether that's in your business and you're overstepping and a district will decide how much they want to do those things and whether they want any liability for it anyway, right? So, there's not cut and dry decisions for any of that.
Um, one thing I want to point out is that I understand it's not happening right now, but I think looking forward when you have that more um, when you have an annual reporting structure or some kind of ongoing monitoring, renewals become really black and white. Like they're very easy because there's
no surprises, right? Because you're looking at the same outcomes and and things that you have that you're going to be looking at during a renewal decision. The difference with renewal versus ongoing oversight is the renewal can provide the school an opportunity to
say look at all these things we did and for them to do some reflection and for them to share um I I'm speaking uh based off the CAXA renewal uh model application that we have. It has the school providing reflection on their own
goals, but then it also provides the opportunity at that point for them to say, "But we've learned a few things and here's what we want to adjust going into the next term or maybe we realize this this program isn't working. We're going to try this." Um, so it's not uh necessarily another roadblock. I don't
like to be called that. It's just an opportunity, but you don't have to worry so much about around about around about around about around about around about around about around about all of the um uh monitoring pieces when you have that documented over time. And so um one key thing to remember is new applications,
you're really approving based on future promises versus renewals, you're you should be making votes on history and evidence, not this is what we're going to change. >> These are our new promises. >> Yeah. Um, so that's, you know, I don't want to keep talking with the time we
have, but >> yeah. >> Um, >> well, can I just say that I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you all and you're, as a board member, I think you're asking the right questions and, um, I encourage you to work with CAPSA. They're a great resource. Um, and
I recognize that you have as a community opportunity to build stronger relationships and more trust and, you know, a better environment for all this to happen. And I would suggest that stronger authorizing practices are one of the best pathways to get there amongst the other things.
>> I just really appreciate a thing that I learned tonight was just the value of the exhibits, the attachments that that added to the contract portion. And so
thank you for answering those questions. I'm excited. I feel like we've at least got a base foundation, right? Maybe it's just the first level, but it's more than we had before. And um I I think it it's going to help us tremendously in making sure we've got good relationships going
forward. >> Um we work with some districts who don't want to improve their practice and that's never a good thing. So I would say publicly thank you for taking the first step to um you know want to improve authorizing. We obviously want
all we want all districts to be excellent authorizers. Um but we also acknowledge there are so many different challenges and every district is so different. Um and again I've helped many of them this last year and not one of
them had the same issue. Um, and even if they did, I would not have helped them navigate it the same way. Um, because local context matters. But I do think it is helpful, um, to be able to lean on the support of folks that are not in it
all the time in your context to just give some, you know, high level guidance on finding a good path forward. Um, I want to make sure, I mean, you have our contact information. um our organization, we're accessible anytime.
Um and we do do uh one-on-one consultation anytime you need support, but we also have our monthly calls where we get all of our authorizers on a call where we also partner with the Colorado League of Charter Schools. They come share us Colorado Department of
Education School Choice Unit. I think they're called something else now, but um CDE. Um and then the networking is the most valuable part of our organization. So we encourage you to come to as many things that we offer. Um and again you have access to us at any
point for for support and I think we would love that we'd love to come back and share more or dive deeper into the areas we didn't get to. Um but >> yes >> um just to make sure you know we I know
we're we've um joined as a district. Does that membership extend to the board or is it typically just for administrative folks? >> It's usually just for administrative, but it does not it's not exclusive to administrative and a lot of our smaller
districts do send a board member or their superintendent or vice versa to the the meetings. I added board members. the board members can be really helpful to support um to send us here a clear signal and then they also learn their roles and
then the there's board chairs and superintendents work really closely on this stuff. Yeah. Or other boardrooms too depending on your system. But >> I just wanted to say thank you so much. This was very informative um for both David and myself and um we'll definitely
be in touch about I know that we just joined but other services as well. We really appreciate your time. wanting to be here. >> I wanted to also say thank the donor for us. >> Yes.
I just wanted the charter school 101 and it's really excellent. >> Yeah. >> Um cathedral. This is something that we are piloting across the state um because it's a huge need, but we have lots of
different uh like I said, every district's different. the next the next district we're going to wants us for 20 minutes. Um, so we are for the purposes of growing gifts across the state being able to offer this for other districts. We do um we will probably be sending you
a very very short post survey for feedback if you can provide it for us as we refine this and you can just write email as a referral. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Thank you. to um
go ahead. All right. Motion to work. Oh man, I know we had watch
That's