Best Practices for Opening and Operating Community Schools

Best practices for opening community schools/community school startup

Source	Title and Link	Description
Vanderbilt University	Starting Strong Best Practices In Starting A Charter School	This report summarizes findings from a study of charter schools in three states and interviews with organizations that support new charter schools through technical assistance, training, and resources in 11 states.
National Charter School Resource Center	New School Development: A Toolkit for Charter Support Organizations & Charter School Founders	The National Charter School Resource Center (NCSRC) has designed a navigational toolkit that contains publicly available NSD resources from across the country. These NSD resources focus primarily on supporting founding groups during Phase I – Planning, and Phase II – Startup of a charter school’s life cycle.   This toolkit provides a one-stop shop for actionable resources that can be shared with founding groups. Founding groups can use this toolkit to research charter support organization (CSO) new school development (NSD) services, find advice from charter school founders, and explore NSD resources to strengthen their understanding of what it takes to open a new charter school.
Fordham Institute	Top 12 school startup lessons, part 1 Top 12 school startup lessons, part 2	The Fordham Institute created a list of 12 tips for charter school startups. The first six tips are found in part one, the last six are found in part 2.

Best practices for operating successful community schools/improving student outcomes

Source	Title and Link	Description
Coalition for Community Schools, Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL), via ERIC	Community Schools: Supporting One Another As A Blueprint for the Future	A report that features the experiences and practices of community schools from across the country during the pandemic. It highlights promising practices and provides suggestions for school-level, district-level, and state-level community school policies moving forward.
National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools	Student Discipline Best Practices for Charter Schools to Employ	This brief guidance document contains a list of ten student discipline best practices for charter schools and ten student discipline mistakes for charter schools to avoid.
Education Next	Inside Successful District-Charter Compacts	An article exploring successful district-charter compacts, the landscape for district-charter compacts, and a few brief case studies that highlight the potential of compacts.
SAGE Journals, Journal of School Leadership	Principalship socialization in charter schools	This study explores the ways in which charter schools manage principalship socialization of individuals as they move into principalship roles. Data were collected from three charter elementary schools in Florida during the 2012–2013 school year. The results reveal variation among the schools with respect to preparation for principalship transitions and subsequent socialization. This study provides a conceptual/analytic framework that can serve as a foundation for future research, which should (1) highlight the practices associated with using socialization as a stepping stone to building-level principalship and (2) compare network-based and stand-alone charter schools with respect to principalship development.
National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools, Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS), National Alliance for Public Charter Schools	Building Capacity to Provide Quality Special Education Services and Supports: A Toolkit of Emerging Best Practices and Opportunities for Charter Support Organizations	This toolkit- designed by the National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools; INCS; and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools- seeks to support charter school organizations (CSOs) support charter schools in their education of students with disabilities
Education Commission of the States	50-State Comparison: Charter School Policies	In January 2020, Education Commission of the States researched and updated charter school policies in all 50 states to serve as a resource to better understand the charter school landscape and variety of policies across the country.
WestEd	Four Domains for Significant and Sustainable Charter School Improvement- A Systems Framework for the Charter Context	This research-based framework is for educators and policymakers at all levels of the public charter school system who believe that improvement is in reach for some struggling charter schools.   The framework is also a resource for a charter school operator that has agreed to restart a charter school and for a charter school board that has identified the need to improve its school’s performance and seeks to intervene before an authorizer determines the need for formal action.

Links to Department resources for successful remote education

Title and Link	Description
Remote Learning Resource Guide	A toolkit designed to be a one-stop shop to help schools and families plan how to approach remote learning.
RemotEDx Exchange	Powered by INFOhio, the RemotEDx Exchange is focused on expanding high-quality and standards-aligned in-person, remote, hybrid and blended education options and resources. The Exchange plans to leverage RemotEDx and other programs to develop a comprehensive peer-to-peer tutoring and technical support; create Ohio Learning Standards-aligned computer science curriculum; and support development of digital literacy, social-emotional learning and workforce readiness skills.