our sponsoring school district
ORS 338.035 states that the proposal must be submitted to the school district within which the public charter school will be located. This puts a damper on our plans to approach the Lowell School District for sponsorship. If receiving sponsorship from Lowell forces our school to physically operate within their boundaries we might want to think of a different district. Real estate within their boundaries is very scarce and I would prefer to operate in an area with more options. This puts our strategy for ensuring all of the kids within our...
read moreemployee compensation
I found some good news tonight. Charter schools are not tied to the compensation model setup by their sponsoring district! They are free to setup their own pay scales and schedules. We can even incorporate performance pay into our model with bonuses and merit pay. After reading this I’m really surprised that more districts don’t go charter as a way to escape from employee contracts that worked when their funding was higher, but are crippling them today. I’ve made it through the charter school handbook. Now I’m going to...
read morebuses, food, facilities, and special ed
Buses – I confirmed today in ORS 338.145 that charter schools are responsible for providing transportation to students who reside within the school district and attend the charter school. This is to bad. I had hoped we could require the parents to drive their children to school. I feel that the transportation of students to school is the parents responsibility. One thing we might be able to do is to provide this option, but explain to parents the cost saving benefits of not utilizing this service. Food – It is not mandatory for a...
read moreoutlining the proposal
I’ve been reading a lot about the proposal that we will submit to the school board. I created the Proposal page to help us track what needs to be done. For transporting kids to and from the charter school we have 3 options: Use the district’s existing routes. Contract with the school district for dedicated routes. Contract with an outside provider of transportation...
read moreinitial strategy
My goal in starting this charter is to provide a quality education to the children in the community I live in. I was a little hesitant and worried because I thought that there wouldn’t be a way for us to guarantee that all of the children in our community who wanted to attend could get in. If the number of applying students exceeds the cap you’ve set for your enrollment you have to conduct a lottery and not everyone would get in. The strategy to prevent this is to set our initial enrollment cap to be the number of K-8 grade...
read moreSunday night
I got confirmation from Keirsten Cardwell that she would love to help us out. Tonight I read through some more of the charter school handbook tonight and updated the starting a charter school page. After reading through the handbook I think the plan should be to set the enrollment cap to be the number of K-8 grade kids in the Lowell School District. That way if each of them decided to enroll we would have room. Here are some of the things I learned. The proposal is essentially a description of how the proposed school will look once it’s...
read moreDay 3
I updated the web site “fall creek charter” logo today. I think the web site is ready to go. I’ll probably send out the link tomorrow. Yesterday I got confirmation from Jessica Cardwell that she would like to help with the charter school. That’s great news. She will be a great addition to our team! I’m still waiting to hear back from Kirsten, Rick, and Tammy.
read moreDay 2
I got confirmation from Kelly Harris that she would like to help us start the charter school. I also emailed the Garlitz’s and the Cardwell girls. The handbook says that successful charter schools fill a niche in the community. Dionne talked with Laurie and her thought is that our niche can be small class sizes. I agree with this idea and think it will help in our school’s marketing plan. Class sizes are on the minds of all parents right now with some exceeding 40 students. I updated the Starting a Charter School page with a bunch...
read moreResearch Day 1
Today I spent some time researching charter school information. ODE Charter School Page ODE Charter School Handbook The State defines a charter school as “a comprehensive public school operated by a group of parents, teachers, and/or community members as a semi-autonomous school of choice” Private schools may not convert to charter schools. This is an important restriction for our team to keep in mind. All of the members of the team are also affiliated with the Fall Creek Home School Academy which is a private school. I’ve...
read moreAssembling the team
Today I talked with Dionne Plahn, Laurie Cardwell and Cheryl Neet about helping start the charter school. They all would like to help. Tomorrow I’m going to talk to Kelly Harris, Jessica Cardwell, and Kirsten Cardwell. Dionne, Cheryl and I are concerned that we will go through all of this work and not be guaranteed that our children get in, but we think it’s the best thing to do regardless. Right now we have the following team members: Jake Plahn Dionne Plahn Laurie Cardwell Cheryl Neet Need to talk to: Kelly Harris Jessica...
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