CASI, the Charter Authorizer Support Initiative, was launched three months ago and already is on its way to becoming the powerhouse of resources, networking, professional development, and collaboration for California charter authorizers. CCAP and the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) were selected by the California Department of Education to receive a federal charter subgrant to partner in this important work of building and strengthening supports for authorizers.

What is CASI doing to reach this goal? Key components of the initiative include building networking among authorizers, with a special focus on rural ones, and providing training and resources. CCAP and SCCOE work with a growing network of county offices of education (COE) that serve a “regional hubs” to help localize the statewide effort in their own and nearby counties, taking advantage of existing lines of communication and hosting in-person training. The list of partner COEs currently includes Contra Costa, El Dorado, Kern, Los Angeles, Mono, Monterey, Riverside, Shasta, and Sutter. Other thought partners include the Small School Districts’ Association (SSDA) and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT).

The first big step has been bringing authorizers together to learn what they need and to share information on hot topics in authorizing. CASI does this through two regularly scheduled virtual and hybrid activities—Monthly Charter Chats and Quarterly Regional Trainings.

Charter Chats

More than 50 authorizers have participated in each of the monthly Charter Chats, which are held on the last Wednesday of each month from 10am to 11am. It’s amazing how much can happen in an hour. The three Charter Chats held to date, have covered a lot of ground, including legislative updates, reminders about upcoming fiscal and administrative deadlines, and burning issues.

Hot topics take center stage during the second half of the meetings during regional breakouts that allow authorizers to discuss challenges specific to their settings and demographics. Detailed information, including videos of each Charter Chat, resources pages, Q&A discussions, upcoming meetings, and registration, is available by clicking the Charter Chat link listed above.

Quarterly Regional Trainings

Building networks of authorizers both statewide and locally is one of the main components of CASI. Professional development is also tailored to meet the local needs of authorizers through Quarterly Hybrid Regional Trainings. These are offered as three in-person meetings held in three regions, as well as virtually. Each regional training focuses on a specific issue. April’s workshop covered annual school performance reports, including site visits, which provide the foundation for reviewing charter school renewal applications.

July’s meetings will address new teacher certification requirements in charter schools and are scheduled as follows, interest permitting for the in-person meetings in July:

• North: July 19, 2022, El Dorado County Office of Education
• Central: July 21, location to be determined subject to interest
• South: July 14, Los Angeles County Office of Education
• Virtual: July 22, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Charter Authorizing & Oversight 101

Additionally, on the theory that sometimes it helps to reach busy multi-taskers with some authorizing duties where they already are for training, CCAP and SCCOE are delivering introductory workshops on Charter Authorizing & Oversight 101 for new authorizers and those who could a refresher or a more holistic view. CASI presented a short version of one such workshop at the Small School Districts’ Association (SSDA) Annual State Conference in March, and a full-day preconference is scheduled for Wednesday, July 22, at CCAP’s California Charter Authorizers Conference. Register here for the workshop and for the entire conference, which runs through Friday, June 24, in Costa Mesa.