Upcoming Member Events

Join New York Charter Schools Association in Syracuse, NY on October 24 and 25 for the annual New York Charter Schools Conference. Enjoy two days of informative and engaging programming, including unique workshops and sessions that have been selected with the needs of schools in mind, all while meeting with and learning from fellow school leaders, board members, and non-profit partners.

The 3^rd annual DC Charter School Conference, hosted by FOCUS, will bring together public charter school leaders, administrators, board members, and stakeholders to dive into topics including advocacy, data, development, communications, equity, leadership, operations, and more. Conference participants will spend the day:

• Learning from experts about issues facing DC’s public charter schools.
• Sharing innovations and best practices that are driving student outcomes.
• Inspiring each other to engage in advocacy that strengthens our movement.  
• Building our voice so that together we can strengthen quality public school choices for all DC families.

The conference will feature interactive workshops, inspiring speakers, timely content, and opportunities for discussion and collaboration. Attendees will have the opportunity to choose from a variety of substantive sessions that fit their individual needs, as well as to learn together about issues that the entire DC charter sector faces.

Workshop offered by RootsConnectED at Community Roots Charter School

So often we are asked, aren’t they too young to talk about their identities, particularly race, power, and gender in early elementary school? What we have found is that K-2nd grade students are not only open to these conversations, but that, when addressed at a young age, they are able to continue these conversations as they get older and have a deeper understanding of how their identities impact their experiences. In this workshop we will look at how an anti-bias lens allows for these conversations to be embedded into every day lessons and conversations. Participants will learn from sample lessons that address these issues and have an opportunity to think about the implication in their own lessons, units, and/or read alouds.

Workshop offered by RootsConnectED at Community Roots Charter School

A large part of learning and growing stems from our choices, and children, in particular, are making choices every day. However, what do we do when the choice causes harm? We can either ostracize the child from the community by way of detention or suspension or figure out ways to separate the deed from the doer to allow for a depth of learning from these choices. In this workshop we will dive deeper into what discipline looks like, with particular emphasis on grades k-8, by using a restorative justice framework. This work will be done by considering how race, class, gender, and other intersecting identifiers affect patterns of discipline and how restorative practices can help to create whole communities. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about the fundamentals of restorative justice practices, have time to self reflect on the type of practitioner they would like to be, see an example drawn from the experience in a school and its perspective and rationale behind developing a restorative school community, and consider the implications for their own practice.

This event is organized and hosted by Education Reform Now Advocacy (ERNA).

Whether you’re ready to run for office or hoping to learn about running campaigns in NYC, join nationally renowned political consultant and former Emily’s List senior director Kate Coyne-McCoy and Education Reform Now Advocacy for a two-part advanced campaign management workshop series that will help you sharpen the skills you need to win.

This is a two-day series: November 4th, 5:30-8:30 pm and November 5th, 5:30-8:30 pm

If interested in attending, complete this form and RSVP by contacting ryan@dfer.org.

ABOUT
KATE COYNE-MCCOY
Kate Coyne-McCoy has devoted her career to the pursuit of progressive social change. Having worked her first political campaign at age 12, Coyne-McCoy has contributed to the success of hundreds of electoral and issue campaigns all across the United States. Kate is a trained social worker, an experienced advocate, coalition builder, organizer, recruiter and former candidate for Congress. She has designed and implemented candidate recruiting training and support programs for the nation’s largest political action network, and for the Oval Office program at Harvard University. In the 2014 election cycle, Kate’s efforts contributed significantly to two historic victories: the election of Rhode Island’s first female Governor and the naming of the first Latina Secretary of State.

From 2010 to 2011, Kate served as Executive Director of the National Coalition on Accountability in Political Spending (CAPS), founded by now-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, where she dramatically increased the budget and recruited elected officials to the Coalition. Prior to CAPS, Coyne-McCoy was the Regional Director of the Political Opportunity Program (POP) at EMILY’s List, the largest Political Action Network in the United States. Kate recruited, trained, and supported potential and elected pro-choice Democratic women candidates at the federal, state, and local level.

EDUCATION REFORM NOW ADVOCACY
Education Reform Now Advocacy (ERNA) is a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization that partners with Democrats for Education Reform to support high-quality public education for all children. ERNA works to advance policies and practices that open the doors to equity and break down any barriers to a great public school in every neighborhood. ERNA supports elected officials and candidates who share our vision to prioritize educational equity and excellence. Finally, ERNA is building a national network of progressive leaders and future candidates who share our vision for education reform.

This is an online webinar offered by Charter Support Unit delivered

Despite best efforts, most school improvement initiatives—especially in high needs, disadvantaged schools—fail or show little improvement. And with all the pressing challenges educators face each day, it is easy to get caught up in the day-­to-­day fires and priorities and lose sight on executing on the end goals. Unfortunately, good intentions are not enough when it comes to driving growth. With strong implementation systems and evidence-based approaches, change can happen and schools can execute on their most important priorities. By the end of this webinar, school leaders will know the key strategies to:
Building an instructional coaching program that is aligned to instructional priorities and provides meaningful feedback. Building a PLC based on a positive deviance approach that empowers teachers to find what’s working and to replicate it. Launching an Instructional Leadership Team in order to devise and execute on improvement goals to improve student achievement.

You can view more online webinars offered by Charter Support Unit here.

This event is organized and hosted by the Learning Policy Institute, National Coalition on School Diversity, and Stanford Graduate School of Education and Center for Education Policy Analysis.

Despite a large body of research showing that school desegregation benefits all students, there is a persistent-but-misguided belief that school segregation doesn’t matter. This briefing will share the research on how school segregation affects student achievement, why school desegregation benefits all students, and what policies can most effectively support school integration.

Seating is limited. Please RSVP by Tuesday, November 12, 2019. For any questions, please contact events@learningpolicyinstitute.org.

This is an online webinar offered by Charter Support Unit delivered

The days of “If you build it, they will come” are long gone for charter schools across the country. Schools leaders are having to work smarter to ensure the full enrollment which is so critical to their mission and their budget. Learn the leading student recruitment practices complied from the nation’s top-performing charter school networks, including: setting smart goals, energizing current families, engaging community partners, digital marketing, and ensuring that new students actually show up.

You can view more online webinars offered by Charter Support Unit here.

Join the Coalition of Public Independent Charter Schools at the 2019 Independent Charter School Symposium from November 17-19, 2019 at the Hotel Albuquerque as the organization articulates a collective vision for the direction of the charter movement and all public education. This groundbreaking event will convene school leaders, social visionaries, and policy-makers from across the country in a three-day conference to continue what was started almost two years ago.

The 3-day Anti-Bias and Social Justice Institute offers teams of 3-5 educators and school leaders the opportunity to share in an exploration of the principles and strategies of the social justice work done at both the elementary and middle school level at Community Roots. The Institute will focus both on building an anti-bias lens to curricula and how to develop staff to be leaders in this work.

Participants will be engaged in interactive learning through capacity building, classroom observations, sharing of resources, reflection, and planning time, as well as panel discussions with educators and practitioners engaged specifically in this work.

***This training will be delivered again in May.***

The National Summit on Education Reform, organized by ExcelinEd, convenes the nation’s leaders in education policy to share what works, what doesn’t and what’s next in education reform. Join chairman, Governor Jeb Bush, along with more than 1,000 legislators, state superintendents, policymakers and advocates at the 2019 National Summit in San Diego, California.

This is an online webinar offered by Charter Support Unit delivered

A strategic plan serves as an essential foundation and road-map for all your improvement efforts for your school or CMO. It ensures all educators are on the same page and serves as a “”living document”” that is referenced throughout the year to check on progress and to ensure all initiatives are in direct alignment with the plan. Misalignment or lack of alignment between a strategic plan and additional initiatives not in the plan can lead to confusion among staff, extra burdens on teachers as priorities may conflict, and lack of progress towards student achievement. In this webinar, learn how to start the planning process that will get you to a clear plan that:
Identifies the real instructional needs through data;
Invites internal and external stakeholders to work collaboratively to develop the plan; and
Includes a vision, theory of action, assets (what’s working already), big picture goal, and priority goals.

You can view more online webinars offered by Charter Support Unit here.

This is an online webinar offered by Charter Support Unit delivered by the Diverse Charter Schools Coalition

The public is shining a light on diversity and inclusion in the charter sector. What’s lurking in the shadows is something we’re just coming to grips with – charter school staff don’t always reflect the communities served. How do we begin to change things? This session explores how you can intentionally implement policies that start to crack this nut. We’ll share best practices from other organizations that you can take back to your school to implement tomorrow.

You can view more online webinars offered by Charter Support Unit here.

Institute offered by RootsConnectED at Community Roots Charter School

The New Leaders Institute creates space for leadership teams to be immersed in strong inclusive and integrated  school culture at Community Roots in Brooklyn, New York. Leadership teams will then be guided to use what they see and experience to think about and design for  their own communities and school sites.

The New Leaders Institutes provides 1-1 coaching, coupled with theory and practice in order to meet the needs of its participants. We ask for two school leaders to attend the Institute together in order for everyone to have a thought partner to consult and plan with. Below is the tentative agenda for the New Leaders Institute.

This event is organized and hosted as an independent conference.

The International School Choice and Reform Conference (ISCRC) is an academic conference that gathers scholars who study various forms of school choice, systemic reform and educational innovation. This includes scholarship on how school choice is enacted, the mechanisms that structure school choice programs, and both the individual and systemic outcomes of school choice and reform. To the greatest extent possible, ISCRC includes multiple perspectives. Some of the research is more supportive of various forms of school choice while other research has a more critical stance. Still others favor one form of choice while opposing other forms of choice. They are connected by the goal of using quality research to shed light on how school choice policies actually work.

DCSC will be presenting at the International School Choice and Reform Conference!

If you attend the ISCRC, be sure to attend our breakout during session IV: Charter Schools Join the Fight for Integration: Implementation & Outcomes. This session will feature Sonia Park of DCSC, Priscilla Wohlstetter  of Columbia University, and Sarah A. Cordes  of Temple University.

For more information about the 2019 International School Choice and Reform Conference, please contact Keri Hunter at keri@iscrweb.org or 317-681-0745.

The Diverse Charter Schools Coalition’s (DCSC) Annual Convening brings together 200 member school leaders and partners from across the nation. With this year’s theme of Intentional Integration, you will deepen the practice of leading your school by learning from experts in the movement, examining real-world experiences, data and strategies, and sharing best practices through networking.