Lisa DiGaudio, Founding Board Member, New Dawn Charter High School

In this blog post, I am going to talk about writing the full charter application, which is the next step after writing a successful prospectus. After some nail biting, we were invited to submit our full application, and this time around, full adherence to the New York Stated Education Department guidelines on submissions had to be followed. The full application, the narrative being forty pages in length, and attachments to support the application following that, was our time to show the review committee that we had the necessary tools to run a charter school. If our application wasn’t accepted, that would be it. Eighty applicant groups submitted a prospectus. Out of those eighty, thirty-six groups were asked to submit a full application. The odds were getting tighter and tighter. Every word on the page mattered!

In keeping with our group dynamics, we all took the prospectus sections that we had helped Sara Asmussen, our lead applicant, write. This part of the process was so important for a number of reasons:

• First, you really had to make a decision about what the instructional program was going to look like.
• Second, you needed to be certain of your school calendar, the budget and staffing, as well as have a viable school model that will be sustainable over the life of the charter: five years. This application would be our contract with New York State, should it be accepted as a school.
• Third, you needed to be aware of so many other elements of the school that are outside of your comfort zone. That meant being involved in the community you were seeking to open in, understanding the dynamics of the neighborhood, obtaining letters of support from the community that showed our commitment to building a true school-community partnership. The month was filled with community building, meetings with key people who would support the mission of our school.

Hours and hours were dedicated to writing, editing, and meeting with others to get the word out about our school. This was one of the toughest parts of the process. Looking back, I wished that we had the "Online Hotline" through the Network of Independent Charter Schools! Advice on putting all of these pieces together would have been really helpful. (So if you’re thinking about starting a charter, take advantage of the hotline!)

The first part of the full application is the narrative. (You can read our full application at http://www.p12.nysed.gov/psc/documents/combined_redacted_new_dawn.pdf.) The narrative first addresses any issues raised by the review committee from the prospectus submission. In our case, because we were building upon the successes of the JVL Wildcat model, we needed to specifically clarify how we will be different.  The next part is the description of our instructional model, beginning with our mission and vision, as described in last week’s discussion of the prospectus. The next part, which is a key differentiation from Wildcat, is our implementation of the PICCS School Improvement Engine (SIE) from day one. The SIE allows us to create a data culture in our building right from the beginning, garnering our own baseline data and growing the longitudinal data as we progress from semester to semester. Key factors include a curriculum mapping system, data analysis reviews and Professional Learning Communities (PLC’s), which will help unite our staff in working together to brainstorm best practices that can be replicated from classroom to classroom.

With the aid of the SIE, our instructional program can effectively reach our target group of students (the over-aged and under-credited of Sunset Park, Brooklyn). The features of our model include a robust Social-Emotional Curriculum through Advisories. The Advisories will act as a safe haven for students to share their feelings, learn how to cope with the stresses of their lives, overcome academic failures by regaining confidence in reading and math, as well as receiving health services at the school based health center through Lutheran Hospital (one of our letters of support).

The other key pieces of our program include internships and classes at the Borough of Manhattan Community College’s campus (they are a partner in our application). These two elements of our program give our students real world experience for life after high school. Internships that provide them consistent feedback and training on a real trade will allow our students to continue with that path after graduation, with experience and support from their mentors. College classes will give every student the real college student flavor, in addition to the preparation of the rigors of college level courses (as illustrated in the Common Core standards, in addition to the PARCC exams to be implemented through NYS in 2014).  A sizeable chunk of the application is dedicated to instruction- just about fifteen pages. This should be evidence on how important the instructional program of a school is. Without it, nothing else really matters.

Following instruction comes all of the elements that make instruction work: the calendar year and daily instructional schedule (important to note the daily PD embedded in the schedule for the staff), and the target population. Here, the projected enrollment over a five year period is laid out; including approximations in ELL and Special Education percentages. (These percentages can be projected based on the current data for the community you are targeting. It is important to use that data and reference it in your application. It also demonstrates your knowledge of the community and the commitment to helping ALL student groups achieve.) Accommodations and levels of support to these populations must also be illustrated here. For New Dawn, the implementation of the workshop model is a clear cut way to differentiate instruction and provide numerous opportunities to place students in the driver’s seat of their progress. The workshop model supports transparency between the school and the student, and encourages an open dialogue about the trials and celebrations of a student’s academic journey.

The final pages of the instructional program outline assessment, accountability measures and interventions. This is paramount to the success of any instructional program. Using measures that support professional learning communities, curriculum mapping for a consistent core, action plans and professional develop need to be fully developed and easily defended to anyone who should ask about your plans. It’s great to come up with a fabulous idea that would make a fabulous school, but you really need to have the goods to back it up. You need to not just write about these programs, accountability measures and interventions, you have to prove that you have used them, are fluent in their implementation and able to trouble shoot as part of the learning curve of operating a school. If you can’t write and then do it, then you need to find someone in your group that can. A charter would never be approved without this level of competency from the founding group.

The next section, governance, describes the founding group and prospective employees of the school. The roles and responsibilities of key positions are outlined in this section. It is also in this section that the expertise of the founding group be explained. A founding group that lacks experience in running schools and the programs of the School Improvement Engine may raise red flags at their capacity to actually run a school on their own.  I’ll be talking about all of these positions in later blog entries, but it bears mentioning here. A good mix of expertise in all areas, business, law, teaching, administration and real estate make for a strong board.

The remaining pages of the application need to showcase the fiscal strength of the school. Budgeting is just as important as the instructional program. Without the money to buy everything a school needs…desks, chairs, computers…books…you can’t open a school. This means showing a budget that reflects five years of projected staffing, insurance costs, professional development costs, materials, food, transportation (if applicable), and a building. This is the downside of the charter world, asking for shared space with a DOE school is a recipe for disaster in some cases. The schools can rally entire communities to block this, leaving the charter school without a home. On the other side of this, without shared space, you will need to include a LARGE amount of money (at least a million dollars) towards a private building. And with private buildings come more insurance, build out costs (not all buildings are move in ready) and the rate of inflation and interest over the life of the charter. This is a significant cost, and if you recall my first blog, where the advice I received was to have two million dollars ready to go, well, that’s not that far off. 

We’ll get to the attachments in the next blog installment. I am sure I have given you a lot of information to mull over (and be nervous about). This is by no means an easy decision to make. Opening a school is going to take every minute of your time, and then some. Your responsibilities to an entire community to create a GOOD school is astounding. It will literally take your breath away. The most important thing to take away from all of this, from writing all of this down in an application and creating a system for students to learn is where to place your priorities. A good school puts the child first. If you can always keep sight of that simple statement, children first, then you will be able to do great things. I am a firm believer in action, but with action, you need to take small steps first. Read, use the hotline, ask us questions. We are here to help you achieve your dreams too, as it means more children will be helped to become successful.

###

This blog post is part of the Charter Notebook, sponsored by the Network of Independent Charter Schools, a project of the Center for Educational Innovation - Public Education Association.

The views expressed in Charter Notebook blogs represent the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Center for Educational Innovation-Public Education Association or the U.S. Department of Education.