A Charter School How-to Guide: 7 Steps to Going Charter

The Charter School system seems like a panacea that can answer all the problems a school may have, but it's not always that way. There are different kinds of charter school hybrids and not all of them may work for every school.

When the Valley's successful Carpenter Avenue Elementary School decided to go charter, it took a lot of discussion, coordination and planning. Here is a compilation of advice from Principal Joseph Martinez, the Los Angeles School Board and the parents.

1.  Figure out if it's good for your school. If,  in general,  the parents are happy with the school, the test scores are fine and children are learning, then it's not broke, so don't fix it.

"At one time, it was thought that charter schools were only for schools that needed to improve their education or test scores, but that wasn't the case for us," said Michellene DeBonis, who was the lead co-petitioner for the Carpenter Community Charter. "We just wanted to have more autonomy with the funds we were getting."

2.  Figure out what kind of charter best fits your school. There are different kinds of charter schools. A school could be totally independent of the school system, which would require the school to find its own buildings, or lease school buildings from the district. There are conversion charters and affiliated charters and pilot schools. Get to know the terms and figure out what best suits your school population.

"We knew we didn't want to get into the business of running a school, like an independent charter would do, and we knew we were too big to be a pilot school," DeBonis said. "We had to figure out what we wanted and which system is the best for our students."

3.  Survey the parents and teachers. Find out what everyone wants, and what their concerns are. Teachers should be on board with the idea. Parents should understand what it means.

"What really helped us was that the parent organizations were very interested in the idea, and all of the teachers ended up being very supportive of the concept," Principal Martinez said. "We could not have done it so fast if we didn't have that kind of support."

4.  Research, research, research! Realize that this is a labor-intensive endeavor and it's going to take more than just the principal and staff figuring it all out. The two parents who co-petitioned for the charter program at Carpenter started the idea in January of last year, and spent most of their Spring break filling out paperwork. This year, the doors open as a charter affiliate. 

"Yes, Mr. Martinez did a lot of research, and yes, we got a lot of support, but there's an incredible amount of paperwork, and it's all very time-consuming," warned DeBonis.

5.  Tell the parent what to expect. A charter school is going to require even more parent involvement, not less.

PTA president Andrew Barrett said, "You have to let the parents know that this is a community project, and everyone needs to pitch in and participate. We're lucky that we have a very active parent base and we have everything you could hope for in a principal, but we may be asking for more involvement as we see what the challenges and needs are, and we may have to ask for more money from the families."

He added, "This also doesn't mean that we will have fewer minority students, or that people from outside the school area cannot come to our school, or any of that other nonsense that people think about when they hear a school is going charter."

6.  Ask for help. Not only will parents at other schools, like Carpenter, and nearby Colfax Elementary that did it two years ago, be willing to offer advice (they all still attend the Valley Gateway PTA meetings), but the Los Angeles Unified School District has an entire division devoted to helping public schools find some sort of charter alternative.

"We don't see the charter system as a threat to the public school system," said LAUSD school board member Steve Zimmer. "In fact, we will help it happen, if it's something that the school wants to do." He pointed out that his colleague, fellow board member Tamar Galatzan, was instrumental in helping Carpenter with their charter application.

7.  Stay tenacious. Like any bureaucratic procedure, there is a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. It can be frustrating, painstaking and irritating.

"I never thought the school board would allow it to happen at first, it seemed like it was going to be a tough, long road," Barrett recalled.

DeBonis added with a sigh, "It's such a laborious process, and you don't get answers for such a long time and you wonder what is going to happen in the next step and the next step, but obviously it's all worth it at the end."

Helpful sites:

• The LAUSD Innovation and Charter School Division
• The California Charter Schools Association
• The Charter Schools Development Center
• The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
• The Center for Education Reform
• The California Department of Education