CSDC
Development Services

Start Smart.

Would you like help to start a California Charter School?

CSDC’s mission is to support the charter school system, especially here in California. If you are looking to start a California charter school, we would be happy to help you. We offer a full continuum of services, ranging from self-help resources to services where CSDC gets actively involved in helping your group.

This website has a lot of basic information on starting a charter school:

• What is a charter school, and other FAQs
• An outline of the major steps in starting a charter school
• An outline of a business plan for a charter school
• Sample simple startup budget for starting a charter school
• Sample simple financial plan for a charter school
• Other charter school basics
• California Department of Education (CDE) Charter Schools information, and their resources

If you’ve gone through the above and you’d like additional self-help resources, CSDC has over a dozen publications, several of which would be helpful to charter school developers like you:

• Charter School Development Guide by Eric Premack
• California Charter School Finance
• Start Smart workshop materials
• Petition Drafting ToolKit™
• Charter School Basic Finance and Facilities Planning workshop materials
• Charter School Incorporation Guide
• Sample Charter School Governing Board Policies

Visit our Publications page for more information on these resources.

CSDC currently offers four different workshops that are expressly geared towards charter school developers:

• Start Smart – a free, half-day workshop that provides an overview of the entire how to start a charter school process
• Petition Drafting – a half-day workshop that focuses on the legal requirements and insider strategies for writing an approvable charter petition
• Finance and Facilities – our “Charter School Finance 101” full-day workshop. Most of this workshop discusses charter school revenue programs and concepts. Some time is spent on major expenditure categories and facility information.
• Launch – a full-day workshop geared to people that have (or will shortly have) their petition approved and need to now do all of the tough work of actually opening a charter school. Topics such as education program development, admissions, and business tasks are discussed.
  

Other workshops appropriate for charter school developers include:

• Governance
• Independent Study – for independent study charter schools

Click here for a listing of all of our workshops and upcoming schedule.

Joining Information Services is like becoming a member of CSDC. By becoming a member, you receive 5 hours of CSDC staff time to answer your specific charter school questions, access to an impressive library of sample charter school documents, discounts to our workshops and publications, and regular email updates on funding rates and best practices. Click here for more information.

Development Services is our term for CSDC’s consulting services to groups trying to start a charter school and represent our most active level of support to charter school developers. We can help you as much or as little as you want. Sometimes we work with clients throughout the charter school development process, which is usually approximately 18 months long. Sometimes we help clients only on one piece of the process, like helping to write or review a charter petition or create the required petition financial plan. CSDC team members track their time and bill clients on an hourly billing basis, so you only pay for the assistance you actually receive from us. If you have a sense for how you would like to be supported and on which tasks, we can give you an estimate for how much this level of support usually costs.

The most common tasks people request our assistance on include:

• Writing or reviewing a charter petition
• Creating the required charter petition financial plan
• Assistance throughout the 18 month charter school creation process
• Reviewing the charter school’s business plan
• Creating policies
• Training the governing board

What Our Clients Say...

"We started with the inspiration to build a better school, and CSDC's Incubator Project provided us with the vehicle. From expert help in creating a comprehensive school design, to advice in charter negotiation, to support with budget development, the consultants of CSDC's Incubator Project have provided us with a clear road map to success."
-Kathy Pavlik, Director, Tierra Pacifica Charter School, Santa Cruz

"Being a part of the CSDC Incubator provided us with a superb wealth of services. Not only did we receive the essential tools and knowledge to start our school, but we were provided one-on-one attention from an amazing cadre of experts. Starting a charter school is an immense challenge and the incubator allowed us to start strong!"
-Jenna Stauffer, Co-Founder, Lighthouse Community Charter School, Oakland

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