Peak to Peak is #1 in Colorado and #29 in the Nation!

Peak to Peak Charter School in Lafayette is the best high school in Colorado according to Newsweek's ranking system this year. No other Colorado high school made it in to the top 100 nationwide, but Peak to Peak came in at #29!

One might consider this old hat for the people from Peak to Peak who every year get ranked among the best in the nation by various measures. Believe me, they're very happy to get this recognition and accolades for their student's achievements!  But the culture at Peak to Peak is different than the neighborhood high school.

At P2P the mantra is, "it's about getting a little bit smarter every day!" There is an intense focus on student academic achievement. Yes, the school offers extracurricular sports and clubs, but the real competition is in the classroom. In the classroom there is learning from bell to bell. The expectation is that teachers start their clas period with an activity that preps the students for the lesson that day. Students should be in their seats and ready to engage when the bell rings--or else they're late.

P2P has a culture of continuous improvement. This doesn't stop with the students' learning. This is also about the adults. P2P started a Center for Professional Development because their value for improving the adults in their school system is very high. Everyone should be improving!

The culture among the leaders at P2P is that new leaders are always in the making. In addition to growing up their own from within, the school raises up leaders to go to other schools and also works with other schools to raise up their own leaders. This is done through a combination of coaching and training. The clear message is: when you get better, your students will also get better.

P2P started in about 2000 with a handful of parents who wanted a better education for their own children. Even back then, state charter school leaders affectionately referred to the founding group at P2P as the "overachievers" because they were at every event, learning as much as they could and asking lots of good questions. P2P doesn't do things the easy way and they don't rest on their laurels. That's probably a key to their success! And well-deserved recognition for the hard work and dedication they put in to their student's academic achievement!

Put the School First: Advice, Part 4

I've seen it hundreds of times and it never quits! People who step into leadership at a charter school to satisfy their own personal agendas or bolster their egos. Worst of all, in almost every situation, it's the students that lose.

These are the people who get on a governing board and immediately start making significant changes to the charter school in order to put their mark on it. Or the administrator who thinks that he/she is irreplaceable and stirs up parents to help reinstate him/her as administrator. Or the administrator that develops factions among the staff and pits the entire staff against the governing board. Or the parent that gets recognition for leading a parent revolt against the governing board and attempts to recall board members. I could give countless examples--all without resorting to a fictitious scenario. These are all true situations. In the end, it all boils down to someone's ego getting fed.

What's the right thing to do? Focus on what the students of the school needs. Pretty simple, right? Not for a lot of adults, sad to say.

First and foremost, a public charter school should make sure it's providing the best education possible for students. This means not only a focused, rigorous curriculum, but also exemplary teachers and a culture of continuous improvement where everyone realizes they can do better.

People become complacent. They rationalize why test scores are falling each year. If parents like the teacher or lead administrator, they make excuses and justify their belief that as long as their child is happy and safe, slipping academics is acceptable. Even worse is when the administrator clearly doesn't understand how to raise student achievement through high expectations, staff training and instructional coaching, but instead makes excuses, or worst of all--blames the students, or a group of students.

When a governing board member or an administrator is faced with a tumultuous situation, he/she should do some soul-searching about what is the best for the students in the long run. That may require that board member of administrator to resign and let someone else step in to lead the school. But ultimately, everyone, should put the needs of the school first--in front of personal agendas.

Use Data: Advice,Part 3

Data should drive everything in a school. Too often school leaders react to a comment or a small group of parents who are complaining about something when they make decisions. Instead, facts should drive decision making.

The governing board should use a "data dashboard" to monitor the key indicators they watch to determine if the school is on track and performance is at the level they expect. This might include student academic data, financial figures and student enrollment. There are several key indicators that show when a charter school is entering what is commonly referred to as the "death spiral." This is a decline in student enrollment that eventually causes the school severe financial hardship and/or closure.

As a public school, it's important for school leaders to constantly monitor student academic achievement data. This means not only the CSAP/TCAP data, but assessments that are given more frequently throughout the school year such as NWEA/MAPS, DIBELs, or formative assessments developed by the school or district to measure subjects not tested by CSAP/TCAP. Usually the school administrator monitors this data and uses it to drive discussions with staff, but it's also important for the governing board to completely understand trends that are occurring or if certain subgroups of students are struggling. It's wise for school staff to do an annual workshop on student achievement data for the board. This could be done in conjunction with the development of the annual Unified Improvement Plan before it's submitted to the authorizer.

Having the actual per student revenue on the dashboard is important because it explains why public schools are all tightening their belts over the past several years when the State Assembly is making budget cuts. Showing the Per Pupil Revenue over the past several years is a very powerful tool to explain the school's financial situation to parents.

It's important to align the board's dashboard with their strategic plan. Because the strategic plan is the board's way to implement the school's vision and mission, everything should reflect the same focus and direction. The strategic plan should should progress based on specific measures. It's also a good idea to communicate once or twice a year about the strategic plan and board dashboard to the school community so that others understand how the board monitors progress. It also conveys what the board deems important to monitor.

Making decisions based on data is a solid way to make decisions. That means it's important to have enough data to make decisions. This data might be in an annual survey of parents or staff or even students. But data doesn't lie, even if the message isn't what was expected. Every charter school should have a broad set of data that they examine at different levels and to different degrees. Having the discussions about what is important to monitor and how that data should be obtained and analyzed is vital!

Principal Reports to the Board: Advice, Part 2

Principals should provide a written report for the board at each regular board meeting, usually once a month. In between those regular reports, the Principal may choose to email the board with important information that needs to be provided in a timely manner.

The written Principal's report should be brief, not more than a page or two, and focus on board level information. Delving in to too much detail leads to a natural tendency for board members to get involved in day-to-day operations and so care should be used to keep the report high level.

The report should have standard categories such as academics, highlights and upcoming events. Because these reports are public information, and generally provided to the public via a board packet link on the school's website, there should never be confidential information included. If the administrator needs the board to get involved in a particular issue or situation, this monthly report is a great to place to bring that to their attention. This could be anything from needing board members to participate in graduation ceremonies to something that's come up with the school's charter authorizer that is the responsibility of the governing board to address.

Each regular monthly board meeting should include a section of the agenda for reports. These should generally be in writing and the board only asks questions. The individual presenting a written report, either from the administrator or a committee, should never have to verbally present the same report to the board. Meetings are much more efficient when board members only ask questions about a written report. Because written reports are usually submitted to the board a week prior to the board meeting, the Principal should always be able to bring additional information to the board's attention during this portion of the agenda.

Selecting a Charter School Attorney: Advice, Part 1

When I'm visiting charter schools I often get asked for advice. This includes everything from how to handle a particular situation, where to find specific information or how to improve school governance. There are some things I regularly repeat such as get good legal counsel with charter school experience. It's important to find an attorney with knowledge about education laws and charter schools specifically. But beyond that, you want someone who will be an advocate for your charter school and is willing to step in on your behalf. This is especially important when negotiating the charter contract, but it also applies to student discipline issues and disagreements with the authorizer.

Some charter school attorneys have strengths with particular issues such as Special Education, facility financing or negotiations. It's important for charter school leaders to check out attorneys before making a commitment to hire. In addition, get several recommendations from others within the charter school community before making a decision. People have different experiences with their legal counsel and so it's important to hear a variety of perspectives. This way you can make a decision based on what's best for your particular public charter school and your particular situation.

Note: This is the first of a new series I'll be doing about the standard advice I give to charter school leaders. 

Why You Should Join a Charter School Board

There aren't enough good charter school board members out there! Repeatedly, I hear stories from charter schools that don't get enough candidates for open board positions and there are also endless stories about board members who have ulterior motives.

Being on a charter school governing board is difficult, especially if you're a parent of a student in the school. That means you'll have to remember to represent what's best for the school as a whole and not your own individual child. Further, you'll need to differentiate what "hat" you're wearing--and keep the roles separate--especially when you're dealing with school administration. Being upset about how your son was disciplined should never become part of how a board member evaluates the Principal.

In the past several years, there has been a trend in Colorado for more community members and business professionals to sit on charter school boards. This is very helpful, especially when they bring needed expertise such as legal or financial expertise.

A good charter school board member volunteers a lot of his/her time. It's obvious that an individual serving as President or Secretary would have additional time commitments, but all good board members should plan on attending the annual Board Visit day, assisting in writing reports or communications with the authorizer, promoting the school through networking and attendance at public events and periodically attending the authorizer's board meetings. All board members should monitor their authorizer's board meeting agendas to keep abreast of issues they are dealing with that may impact the charter school.

The types of board members that charter schools DON'T need are those who want to change something. Having change as the primary motivator will probably become very frustrating when change takes longer than intended or others within the system don't want the same type of change.

It's common for new board members to report that the first year they just feel like they're on a perpetual learning curve and they don't get comfortable with board responsibilities until the second year of their service. This is why having two to three years terms is wise. Moreover, terms should be staggered so that not all of the school's knowledge leaves the board at the same time.

Being on a charter school board can be very rewarding! It's great to watch a school system improve and to get to know individual students for whom the charter school has made a huge impact on their lives. Check out your neighborhood charter school to see if they have any openings or if they need a committee volunteer.

What's Wrong With Not Knowing What You Don't Know?

The majority of charter school governing board members in Colorado are well-meaning parents who get involved in their child's education by serving on the charter school's governing board. The rest are community members who are giving of their time for altruistic reasons or simply to build their resume. Either group of people, while attempting to do their very best, often don't even know to look out for things they don't know about.

Take for example, a mother who serves as a Board President and the board decides to terminate a Principal. Soon her children are being cussed at on the playground and her children's classmates are saying mean things about her to her kids. On the surface it would be easy to try and defend the Board President's position with a strong rationale for why immediate removal of the Principal is the best thing for the entire school. But the legal liability of talking about personnel issues leaves the Board President without anything to say--to her children or her (former) friends who side with the Principal.

While drastic experiences like this can be a great learning opportunity, it's best to be able to reason through similar scenarios before they happen. This is what the Board President's Council is about. The next meeting is this Friday, Oct. 21st, 9 to 11:30 a.m. at the Colorado School District Self-Insurance Pool.

For any type of personnel issues the best response is no response. It's impossible for board members to explain their reasoning, which is exactly what upset parents push for. It's even more difficult when the upset parents are friends of the volunteer charter school board member. In fact, the board member's family often suffers from the thankless job of being a volunteer board member.

This potential conflict for parents is why many states have predominantly "professional boards" without any parental involvement or else only one or two parents on the board. But board members who aren't prepared for a personnel termination can easily get the charter school into trouble by talking about the issues for a termination.

There's a Board President's Handbook that every charter school Board President should keep handy for easy reference. It's a compilation of years of questions that have been posed by Board President's and ideas for how to address various scenarios.

Wondering how to cut off a disgruntled parent who takes up all of the Public Comment period at every meeting? Is the meeting getting heated and you don't know how to get the board to return to the issue at hand? Do you think your school is doing just fine, but then find out the school's School Performance Framework (SPF) is in the Priority Improvement category? These and many more practical resources are in the Board President's Handbook.

Why a Job Description is Critical for a Charter School Administrator

Charter school leaders, rarely comfortable being put in a box, use a variety of titles for their number one administrator: Head of School, Principal, Executive Director, and Director are just a few. For this post, I'll use the term "Principal" to talk about the lead administrator.

Charter schools use a variety of structures to meet the school's administrative needs. Some charter school governing boards have one person report to the board (considered a best practice) and some have two or more. This means that unless there are clear job descriptions, it's difficult, and sometimes impossible, for administrators to know what is their responsibility.

This is also true when the charter school governing board has a very involved President. Having a board member do some of the functions commonly delegated to the Principal presents problems. Once the Principal's job description is established, and a Principal is hired, there shouldn't be any deviation from that outline of responsibilities. If a board member temporarily assists the Principal with a responsibility, it should be clear to all involved that the board member is doing it as a "volunteer" without board authority to lead or make decisions.

Many administrators are wary of charter school governing boards, especially when they don't have processes and policies established such as the job description, Principal evaluation form, and Principal evaluation policy. Not having these things appropriately documented shows potential Principal candidates that the board hasn't reached a level of capacity to successfully lead a charter school. Since it's hard to find a really good Principal, boards that fail to develop processes and policies are often left with less-than-ideal Principal candidates.

It's common for there to be confusion about what is the Principal's role versus the governing board's role. Here is a worksheet to discuss the various responsibilities and note who is responsible. Having roles clearly defined, and documented, is a way to mitigate potential conflicts or miscommunication.

Because charter schools are so unique and utilize a variety of organizational structures, school leaders need to take the precaution of documenting as much as possible before the first Principal is hired.

Where the Charter School Board Should Focus

Most charter school governing boards spend the bulk of their meeting time discussing budgets, facilities, logistics and policies--the "business" side of a charter school. But the focus should be on student academic achievement. A good barometer for how well a governing board is doing with implementing its vision and mission is to consider how much meeting time it focuses on student achievement.

Oftentimes a governing board will be focused on the immediate needs of a charter school such as calming parent concerns or addressing facility limitations. But the most important reason to have a charter school is to make sure students are learning and able to move to the next grade level or graduate with the skills and knowledge necessary for a successful future.

Almost all of Colorado's charter schools have student academic achievement in their vision and mission statements. However, the amount of time boards spend on discussing or implementing this aspect of the school's purpose can vary significantly.

At each year's strategic planning session, the entire board should discuss the vision and mission statements. Each board member could talk about what word or phrase stands out to them the most and why. Each board member should explain what their personal vision is for the school and how it does or doesn't match with the school's vision statement. Another useful approach is to have the board distill the vision statement down to a slogan or phrase that best describes their school. For example, some schools use the slogan, "First Comes Learning" to communicate the school's primary purpose and to use as a filter for all decision-making.

It's wise for charter school board members to periodically reflect on what unspoken messages they're sending to school staff and stakeholders. If verbally board members say they prioritize academics as number one, but then don't reflect that in their work, it means little.

The Creep (Yet Again!)

In 1994 when we were starting one of the first charter schools in Colorado, the district tried to say that we needed to use a lottery for enrollment. We vehemently objected to this. We contacted our State Senator who ran an amendment to the Charter Schools Act that says, "Enrollment decisions shall be made in a nondiscriminatory manner specified by the charter school applicant in the charter school application." Thus, the charter school used a waiting list for enrollment.

In about 1997 the U.S. Department of Education, which administers the federal Charter School Grant Program, began requiring the use of a lottery in order to get the startup and implementation grant most of the charter schools are dependent upon. The charter schools in Colorado that used a waiting list met with a representative of the U.S. department and explained why it didn't want to switch and couldn't be required to by state law. The feds were undaunted by their arguments and began requiring a lottery for all public charter schools receiving the grant. At first it was just a requirement and monitoring for enforcement was not required. It's now required for state's who provide subgrants to ensure that an equitable lottery process is in place for enrollment.

Not long ago the charter school governing board, at the school where the founders fought for the right to do a waiting list, decided to have the district do their enrollment. Parents selecting a school in the district list their options, ranked by priority. The district tells the charter schools which students they will be able to enroll the following year.

How does creep happen? By others becoming involved who don't understand the history or the philosophy of charter schools. They don't know what battles are worth fighting. And quite simply, they may have a different viewpoint. Many new charter school governing board members don't even know what the essential charter school philosophies are. Although many can identify choice or parental involvement, rarely do charter school board members understand the critical need for autonomy or complete control over finances and employees.

Creep doesn't happen by leaps and bounds. Instead it happens gradually--over time.

The Creep (Again)

A couple of weeks ago I was in a meeting of charter school business managers and an attorney was speaking about charter school employment issues. It happens that this attorney has been involved in the charter school movement since the very beginning in Colorado. He made the assertion that charter schools have an obligation to put the interests of their school before that of individual employees. This ruffled some feathers in the room.

The charter school movement was started by people who believed in at-will employment, the polar opposite of general public education, which is largely influenced by the teacher's union and their interests. In fact, many district administrators don't know a world that's any different. Everything they do is influenced by the collective bargaining agreement. They can't change the school calendar without getting approval from the teacher's union. They can't ask a teacher to do detention after school without it being a teacher's union issue.

But the exact opposite is true in charter schools where all employees are at-will in nature. Principals serve "at the pleasure" of the Board and can be terminated with a simple, "your skills are no longer needed at our charter school." There are no guaranteed terms, such as a year-long contract that would require a "buy-out" if the employee is terminated early.

So why were some of these business managers reacting to the attorney's statement that the needs of the charter school should take precedence over the needs of teachers? Because 18 years after the first charter school in Colorado, a vast majority of people who now work in charter schools COME from traditional public education. The union philosophy is embedded in their thought processes. And they can't see life being any different.

To be clear, the discussion was not about the value of classroom teachers, the appropriateness of their salaries nor the attribution of salary to the number of days worked.

The questions posed by the attorney were:
1. should the charter school knowingly generously, possibly over-compensate, an employee upon departure (voluntary or forced); does this meet the fiduciary responsibility required of charter school leaders?
2. have charter schools stayed true to the original charter school philosophy based on at-will employment?

For years I've talked about bureaucratic or regulation creep, meaning top-down requirements to in some ways have charter schools conform to traditional public schools. This is probably most evident in the vastly-more-sophisticated charter school application process that has developed over the years. The difference between what is required of a charter school applicant today is night and day different from 1993 when the Charter Schools Act passed.

One can wonder if this "creep" is improving the process or simply hindering it. Are charter schools going to gradually become the same as any district-operated public school system? Using the metaphor of the frog placed in a pot of water that gradually gets hotter until the frog is boiled, will charter school leaders even notice when they no longer operate with autonomy?

Management Company Issues Discussed at Today's HB 1412 State Advisory Committee Meeting

Today the HB 1412 State Advisory Committee for quality standards for charter schools and charter school authorizers met at the Colorado Association of School Boards meeting room. The morning began with representatives from the charter school management company community providing public testimony and participating in a general discussion about key issues.

EMOs, or education management organizations, are generally for-profit. CMOs, or Charter Management Companies, are generally nonprofit and include schools that replicate, oftentimes under a single governing board. The discussion included both types of management companies.

Since Colorado has more grassroots startup charter schools and fewer management company operated schools than other states, there has been some negative perceptions created over the years. Many of those issues were raised today with very little consensus, if any, on what could be done to mitigate the misperceptions in the future.

Some of the issues were:

* How to prevent a charter school from getting into a contract with a management company that has a "poison pill" that makes it nearly impossible to "fire" the management company and still maintain a charter school.

* Which entity should hold the assets?

* Both the charter school governing board and the management company should have separate legal counsel and negotiate an "arms length" agreement.

* There needs to be more training information available for new charter school boards and charter school authorizers so that people are aware of what needs to be discussed because oftentimes people don't even know what questions to ask.

* Relationships are important and not just for the charter school and the management company, but also the authorizer and the management company.

* A certain level of academic achievement is required by the charter school contract and it implies that the management company is responsible for producing a certain level of academic results or else it's the company's responsibility to make necessary changes.

* Transparency is vital, especially as it relates to financial arrangements.

The next committee meeting will be on Feb. 2nd and there will be a public hearing on online education issues. Today's committee also established a timeline for its work, which primarily is a report to the legislature with recommended legislation or state board of education rule changes. The committee report will also outline a proposed implementation plan for the recommendations.

What is Normal?

I was just at a charter school where we had a discussion about "what is normal"? Oftentimes, charter school leaders and board members don't know what it's like at another charter school so they don't have a perspective of what "normal" is. They don't know if what they're doing is routine or extraordinary.

The best way to cure this problem is to get out and visit other charter schools! This applies to governing board members, principals, business managers, curriculum directors, teachers, and simply: everyone!

One of the best parts of my job is that I have been to almost every charter school in the state and get to see the incredible things happening at these schools. A lot of what I do is spread the word to others who may be struggling in a particular area or need an idea for how to handle a situation. Many of these best practices are on the CDE website: either in the eguidebook of best practices, the administrator's handbook, or the governing board training modules. The charter school community is very open to sharing, without reservation, and so there is an ideal climate for gaining from each other's experiences.

Charter School Administrators Meet

Today was the school year's second Administrator's Mentoring Cohort (AMC) meeting. The morning's training and discussion focused on administrator/board relationships and the resources that are available for board training. Oftentimes when the charter school governing board is having problems the administrator is helpless to intervene. In Colorado, there are a number of training resources and people to assist available through the League of Charter Schools and CDE.

Many of the participants in the AMC have established mentor/mentee relationships. These teams met together briefly today in order to plan their next meetings.

Administrators had a lively discussion about safety plans and different ways to do safety drills. Several administrators talked about how they create an obstacle for staff and students to encounter during a drill so that they learn to think through and problem while in a stressful situation.

Charter School Board Presidents

Friday there will be a first-ever meeting of charter school board presidents. Charter school boards are where the buck stops and board presidents are the leaders of that group of visionaries who lead the charter school.

The board president has many responsibilities including leading meetings, being the primary communication hub between the administration and board, setting the meeting agenda, authorizing contracts, enforcing bylaws, and ensuring the rest of the board is adequately prepared. Until now, many board presidents have been without a resource in which to rely when those odd scenarios arise.

What should the board do about an administrator who is insubordinate? Does a group of employees all need to be invited into a board executive session if they will be discussed? What can be done about a board member who doesn't prepare for meetings? Who speaks with two board members who continue to cross the line in airing their differences during board meetings? The board wants to interview a prospective principal candidate, can they do that in executive session?

These and many more questions are answered in the newly written "Board President's Handbook" that will be released this Friday at the first Board President's Council meeting held at Vanguard Classical School in Aurora. The meeting will go from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

In addition to getting some higher level information for governing boards, attendees will be able to problem-solve sample scenarios with others who lead their charter school boards. This "second level" of charter school board governance focuses on all of the unique situations charter schools have faced. It allows charter school leaders the opportunity to think through how to handle a scenario before they're involved in it.

Many people don't know how to effectively handle a situation without the experience of living through it and either learning from mistakes made or else, hopefully, the situation working itself out correctly. The President's Council will offer the shared wisdom and experience of others who have already been faced with many of the dilemmas that crop up in charter schools.

The charter school board president often carries the weight of the school on his or her shoulders. This person inherently knows the vision for the school and is searching for others who can help implement that vision. It's often a lonely responsibility along with the school's administrator. Now these board presidents will have the support of others in their same role.