Hope Charter Leadership Academy Presents on its Academic Progress

The North Carolina Charter Schools Advisory Board met  Monday, Oct. 9, in the 7th Floor Board Room, Education Building, 301 N. Wilmington Street, Raleigh.

The agenda is available on the State Board of Education’s website under the Meetings tab. The meeting will be audio streamed for those who cannot attend.

During this meeting Hope Charter Leadership Academy presented to the CSAB on steps taken to implement its strategic plan resulting in academic progress for the 2016-17 school year. The CSAB commended the Leadership and Board for this accomplishment and encouraged the school to continue its upward trend in preparation for the next renewal term.

The Hope Charter Leadership Academy Presentation Materials are linked here for your review.

Policy Committee Updates   The Policy Committee, led by Mr. Steven Walker, reviewed information for 3 charter schools seeking Alternative Status for Accountability purposes.     Schools discussed were:   Central Wake Charter High School Commonwealth High School Stewart Creek High School   A review of the submitted information and questions answered by the schools allowed the CSAB to vote unanimously to recommend that the State Board of Education (SBE) approve these 3 charters to be considered Alternative for Accountability purposes.    Next steps in the process, once approved by the SBE, is for the schools to submit their Alternative Accountability plans to the Accountability Division for review. Once the division reviews each plan, Accountability will submit the proposed Alternative Accountability plans to the SBE for its final approval.

Performance Committee Updates

The Performance Committee discussion, led by Mr. Joe Maimone, provided an overview of the State Board of Education policy review work for this fiscal year. 

For this meeting, the CSAB discussed and reviewed several State Board of Education policies and the impact on charter schools. The CSAB  made recommendations to the State Board of Education.

• SHLT-000, SHLT-001– Policy Committee - Recommendation for these policies is no changes at this time.

•  ATHL-000, ATHL-001, ATHL-003 – Performance Committee - Recommendation for these policies is no changes at this time.

The CSAB postponed any discussion or recommendation for SHLT-003 until a later meeting.  

For its November meeting the CSAB will discuss the following policies and welcomes feedback as it prepares to make recommendations. Feedback should be sent to ocs@dpi.nc.gov. 

• DROP-000, SSCH-000, SSCH-006, SPLN-000 – Policy Committee

• CHNU-002, KNEC-003, LICN-004, LICN-005, CCRE-001 – Performance Committee

Charter School Application Interviews     The CSAB committees started the interview phase for 1 of the 29 applicants it recommended during its September 2017 meeting.     The applicant group interviewed and the CSAB recommendation is detailed below:    Cardinal Charter Academy West -  Recommended to the SBE as a Fast Track Applicant The CSAB committees will conduct its second round of reviews and clarifications phase for 8 of 29 applicants proposing to open in 2019-20 on November 6, 2017.  The schools appearing before the CSAB are as follows:    Achievement Charter Academy  Apprentice Academy HS of NC  Hobgood Academy Charter School  Next Generation Academy  Mountain Island Day School  STARMOUNT Charter Academy Movement School East Steele Creek Preparatory Academy North Wake Preparatory Academy Attached below is the approved application timeline and process which details what happens with each phase of the application process for schools proposing to open in 2019-20. Additionally, the Office of Charter Schools will maintain a progress chart on its website to detail decisions made by the CSAB and State Board of Education.    Attachments:     2017 Charter Application Timeline and Process (pdf, 430kb)

Reflections from Alex Quigley, Chair, Charter Schools Advisory Board

This month the CSAB said goodbye to Mr. Tony Helton. Mr. Helton stepped down from the board due to increased responsibility in his role as CEO of Team CFA, a growing network of charter schools serving students in multiple states. Mr. Helton served on the board for the past 2 years and and brought a valued perspective to our decisions and discussions. He always held a high bar, navigated difficult topics with ease, and believed deeply in the power of choice and competition to create excellence in our state's schools. Tony's wit, wisdom, and commitment to serving all kids, will be deeply missed by our board. We thank him for his service to our mission to ensure the existence of excellent charter schools in the state of North Carolina. 

We also began the renewal process and took the first step towards selecting this year's applicants for new charter schools. We had a total of 29 applicants. We look forward to reviewing and interviewing these applications beginning next month. 

Finally, we'd like to thank the Office of Charter Schools for putting on an outstanding leadership conference this past week. Thank you to OCS and all the presenters for making this conference great.  

IMPORTANT REMINDER – EDDIE is the authoritative source for NC public school numbers and demographic information, is used by multiple NCDPI technology systems including; Accountability, PowerSchool, NC School Report Cards, and is used to meet federal reporting requirements.  LEAs and charter schools are responsible for ensuring their data in EDDIE are complete, accurate, and current.  EDDIE is located at: http://apps.schools.nc.gov/eddiedie