I had the pleasure of speaking at the Public Charter School Alliance of South Carolina Leadership Summit this week. What a wonderful compliment to their annual state charter school conference! The two-day summit was targeted at new school leaders, business managers, and governing board members. It included intensives in business finance and operations, fundraising and marketing, speeches by legislators and the state superintendent on the status of the charter sector in South Carolina, and demystifying funding formulas. The summit ended with a leaders roundtable to discuss the use of research and data in charter schools.
The summit gave me a deeper awareness that:
the power of an emerging charter support organization to serve as a convener is essential to growing a high quality charter sector in a state;
the need for consistent and focused networking opportunities for new and veteran charter leaders and board members is invaluable;
awareness and engagement of charter school stockholders in federal policy development and implementation is critical;
business bootcamps that provide useful resources and tools in finance, operations and communications can never be offered enough.
Kudos to Mary Carmichael and Carol Aust for putting on one heck of a summit. The attendees that I spoke with during the reception appreciated the opportunity to go more in-depth and have access to their peers outside of the state conference. For more information, click here. Photo: Taishya Adams and Carol Aust of the Public Charter School Alliance of South Carolina at their Leadership Summit




