2025 Conference Postscript
It’s a date!
The 2026 CCAP California Charter School Authorizers Conference will take place June 16-18 at the Paradise Point Resort & Spa, Mission Bay, San Diego. Conference registration, hotel reservations, and other pertinent information will be available soon on the conference page.
The 2025 California Charter School Authorizers Conference was the largest to date! Our deepest thanks to 170 authorizers and non-authorizer partners who gathered in Palm Springs. We were especially excited by the large numbers of first-time attendees, as well as entire authorizer teams, who joined us this past June.
We’re also immensely grateful to all the plenary speakers and session presenters, many of them returning year after year, for sharing their time, expertise, and insights. And of course, please join us in thanking our generous sponsors. Every one of you contributed to the success of this year’s conference!
Check out the short clips below to discover what attendees enjoyed most about their conference experience:
Surprise! You oversee charter schools!
The 2025 conference was a first for Jessica Geierman, director of curriculum and instruction at the Yuba County Office of Education. She had been in the job for just under a year at the time, and she registered on the recommendation of consultant Barbara Mandelbaum, her charter coach, a CCAP consultant, and a regular presenter at CCAP conferences.
Geierman found a lot of value in the information and meeting experts online through the monthly charter chats from the Charter Authorizer Support Initiative (CASI), but she said that connecting with people in person is different.
“Having that camaraderie of being with others and knowing you’re not alone in it, especially when you’re a small office and you’re the only person doing this work…,” Geierman said. “That’s the part I enjoy the most.”
It also led to an amusing and oddly comforting realization when she was in a small group of small authorizers and discovered that, like her, most of them had no idea when they were hired that they would be responsible for charter school oversight. Geierman said it was eye- opening, but also “fun to meet others that also had no idea this world existed—and now are in charge of it.”
Michelle Little is also in the early stages of the learning curve, having recently stepped into fiscal oversight of the two charter schools in Folsom-Cordova Unified School District. She appreciated the small groups at the pre-conference, which allowed people to dive into specific questions.
“We found out that we really should have a stronger MOU,” said Little. “I’m definitely going away with things to work. Also, I think at the end of this I’ll be able to really take the reins and feel more confident in what I’m doing and what I’m asking the charter for.”
Always something new to learn
As educators, we all appreciate that learning is an enduring process. A sentiment heard from many conference veterans is how much new information they continue to glean each year.
“The first year, I hadn’t even started the position yet, and I didn’t know what I didn’t know,” said Brandie Brunni, director of Governmental Relations and Community Partnerships in the San Joaquin County Office of Education. “This year, I now know what I don’t know, and it’s been so beneficial to be able to fill in the gaps and to expand my knowledge base.”
Chris Armentrout, who oversees charters as director of Policy and Planning in San Francisco Unified School District, said he almost skipped the first day of his fourth conference thinking that it was just for the “newbies.” A colleague urged him to go, and he found “a whole world of things that I’m not aware of and need to be doing.”
Armentrout added that CCAP’s conferences and the virtual meetings of the California Department of Education’s Charter Authorizer Support Initiative (CASI) have become a “lifeline” for him. “Without exaggeration, I do not think I could be doing my job without this as my network base.” Having access to immediate resources, monthly chats, the annual conferences, and a supportive network of people “has made all the difference in the world for me to be successful in my job.”
Felicia Olias is another four-time conference veteran. As director of the Charter Office of Fresno Unified School District, she relies on the conference for ongoing professional development and to stay up to date on new policies and legislation.
“What keeps me coming back is the ability to meet with other authorizers, share best practices, and learn, because authorizing is a very lonely position,” said Olias. This past year that information and support was especially helpful as Fresno Unified completed four charter renewals, she added.
CCAP’s Conference Committee is already planning next year’s conference in San Diego, paying close attention to conference feedback received from attendees. One message was how much fiscal professionals appreciated a full program strand. Another that some authorizing veterans would like more opportunities to dive into the complexities. Stay tuned! And don’t forget: the 2026 conference ends on Thursday, June 18, so the Juneteenth holiday weekend starts the next day!
