Presentation on Charter School Boards in the Nation's Capital

Recently at the DC Charter School Conference hosted by FOCUS, our Deputy Director Naomi Rubin DeVeaux, along with Carrie Irvin of Charter Board Partners, and Amber Northern of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, presented at a breakout session on Charter School Boards. Here is the summary of their presentation: 

Strong Authorizing + Strong Boards = Strong Charter Schools  While the authorizer oversees the entire charter sector, each school's board is ultimately accountable for its success, and the authorizer depends on highly functioning and strategic boards to put this school-level accountability into practice. Moreover, public charter school boards are one of a charter authorizer’s key constituents—board members take action on current and future operations of their school, hold the school's strategic vision, and conduct critical activities like evaluating the school leader and planning for leader succession. In this session, participants will learn what a strong relationship between authorizer and charter school board looks like and ways to leverage that relationship; how to create strategies for increasing board member engagement and the implementation of best governance practices as a way to improve school performance; and what the most important strategies are for boards to hold their school leaders accountable and drive towards top performance.