Fostering Collaboration Between District and Charter Schools: A Toolkit for State and Local Leaders
Description
How can state and local leaders facilitate collaboration between traditional public schools and charter schools? This toolkit, developed by the Mid-Atlantic Comprehensive Center at WestEd, helps state and local policymakers learn from documented successes, address potential barriers, and facilitate cross-sector initiatives to improve education quality in both traditional public schools and charter schools.
The toolkit provides guidance, practical tools and templates, and links to additional resources for each of the following five stages of the collaborative process (see accompanying graphic):
- Committing to a Unifying Purpose
- Assessing the Environment for Collaboration
- Planning
- Implementing
- Sustaining Collaboration
The toolkit draws from interviews with experienced leaders in the District of Columbia and Massachusetts, as well as a review of research on collaboration between the traditional public school and charter school sectors and on collaboration in general.
Click any of the five sequential stages below to directly access the section and its tools.
Resource Details
Product Information
Copyright: 2019Format: MS Word, PDF
Publisher: WestEd
Related Resources
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Working Together to Support Equitable Access to Charter Schools: Research and Recommendations
How can states and school districts work together to ensure students have equitable access to available high-performing charter schools? Find out in this brief developed by the Mid-Atlantic Comprehensive Center at WestEd.
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Putting Students First: Profiles of District-Charter Collaboration in the District of Columbia and Massachusetts
This report describes several district-charter collaborations in the District of Columbia and Massachusetts that were designed to improve students’ access to quality school options.
Section I
Committing to a Unifying Purpose
District-charter collaborations that focus on a specific, unifying purpose are more likely to succeed than those that are overly broad. This section describes the nature and importance of committing to a unifying purpose.
The full report is also available online.
Section II
Assessing the Environment for Collaboration
Prior to planning a pilot or formal collaboration, each partnering organization should take stock of the assets it can bring to the effort and should also consider the potential pitfalls and barriers to the effort. This section describes the self-assessment process and provides a self-assessment tool.
The full report is also available online.
Section III
Planning
Joint planning is key to the success of district-charter collaboration. This section outlines steps that are found in effective planning processes and provides tools that can be used in carrying them out.
The full report is also available online.
Section IV
Implementing
This section draws from the central tenets of implementation science and improvement science, as well as current research on effective collaboration, to describe stages of effective implementation. It contains a tool for reviewing the progress of implementation and a tool for taking action if challenges arise or efforts stall.
The full report is also available online.
Section V
Sustaining Collaboration
This section describes key steps, structures, and processes that are needed to sustain the collaboration.
The full report is also available online.
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