Founding a DC Public Charter School

Earlier this year, DC PCSB released new Charter Application Guidelines. Our new guidelines were created to improve the quality of applications received by the Board, to yield strong and effective school options for DC students and families.

DC PCSB accepts proposals to open a new charter school on an annual basis. Applicant groups usually hail from different backgrounds, with varying levels of experience and insight. Once applicants submit a proposal, DC PCSB evaluates their capacity to create an effective, high-achieving school through a meticulous review process.

Step 1: Letter of Intent

Groups interested in opening a public charter school in the city may submit a letter of intent to DC PCSB. This step is not mandatory but is encouraged because it allows DC PCSB staff to plan accordingly for the upcoming application cycle.

Step 2: Submitting the Application

About a month after submitting the Letter of Intent, applicants must submit their electronic application. All written applications should be submitted according to the 2024 Charter Application Guidelines. Each written application, with redactions, will be made available on DC PCSB's website for public access.

Once submitted, DC PCSB staff will evaluate the application for completeness. If pieces are missing from the electronic submission, DC PCSB will inform the applicant group about what needs to be done. The group has 48 hours after being notified to ensure completeness and submit final electronic and paper versions of the application.

Step 3: DC PCSB's Review

After an application is submitted, a DC PCSB review team will carefully read it to determine whether it is strong enough to move forward to our next step or whether more clarification is needed. Review teams consist of a lead reviewer, secondary reviewer, special student population expert, finance expert, and a community engagement expert.

Applications are best and most objectively reviewed if they outline four key areas: the proposed charter schools' response to a community need, an education plan, a management plan, and a financial plan.

Step 4: Site Visit

After the review process, site visits are scheduled for all eligible applicants. These include Experienced Operators (EO), which are existing nonprofit school management organizations or charter schools with a minimum of three years of high-quality, externally validated performance data on a specific educational program. Applicants may also be founding groups that plan to contract with an existing nonprofit or with a for-profit School Management Operation (SMO) executive, for academic and/or administrative services. The final group of applicants tend to be conversion schools.

If any proposed applicant group does not currently operate a school, a site visit is not conducted.

Step 5: Capacity Interviews

After site visits, DC PCSB will conduct capacity interviews with grounding group members. These allow our staff and Board members to ask founding group members a series of questions. Topics include the founding group's ability to execute the plan as written; supports for students with disabilities (SWD), emerging multilingual learners (EML), and at-risk students; teacher recruitment and retention; demand for the proposed school; and weak or confusing areas of the application. Transcripts of the capacity interviews will be made public.

Step 6: The Board's Decision

Finally, applicant groups come before the DC Public Charter School Board for a public hearing, which will take place during regular Board meeting times. Public hearings are opportunities for the Board and the public to hear from the founding group, and resolve any unanswered questions. The applicant may provide prepared comments no longer than five minutes, then the Board will question the applicant group about its application, planning process, or any other relevant topic. The public will also have the opportunity to give testimony about the application.

The DC PCSB Board will vote at the public meeting for one of three possible outcomes for each applicant group: approval with standard conditions, approval with standard and school-specific conditions, and denial. More information on the Standard for Approval and applicant decisions can be found in the guidelines.

Founding groups will receive a formal decision letter in the days following the meeting, informing them about the Board's vote.

---

This is an update on our previous article, The Process of Starting a Public Charter School

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.