esire, ingenuity, and passion are traits commonly shared by founders of charter schools. These individuals come together, usually as small groups of parents, teachers, community members and, sometimes, administrators to create a new school where they have a measure of autonomy in deciding the school's structure, curriculum, and educational emphasis. But they may not, at the outset, have the necessary expertise to make their school viable.

It takes diverse knowledge and technical know-how to launch a successful charter school. To help founders succeed, NWREL's Rural Education Program has developed Charter Starters, a leadership training program including research-based training modules, workbooks, and training institutes addressing key issues of creating charter schools or converting existing schools into charter status.

"We discovered a parallel between rural schools and charter schools," says Rural Program Director Joyce Ley. "In rural schools in our region, educators are frequently geographically isolated, and this often creates a barrier to professional development. Educators in charter schools also tend to be professionally isolated because they're regarded as being different."

Charter schools are public schools of choice, says Ley. Charter schools are granted, by state law or specific charter, waivers from certain regulations that typically bind conventional public schools. In return for this autonomy, charter schools are held accountable for the academic achievement of the students in the school and, if goals aren't met, they face possible suspension or closure.

"The ‘autonomy for accountability' model of school reform grants a welcome amount of freedom to the founders of charter schools," say the writers of A Profile of the Leadership Needs of Charter School Founders, a companion publication to the workbook series, "but it also places a tremendous amount of responsibility on these individuals."

NWREL worked with a team of charter school experts (including founders, operators, researchers, state education agencies, charter school associations, and an attorney) to identify the specific needs of charter founders and to develop a leadership training program designed to address those needs.

"Lack of leadership skills in multiple areas threatens the very foundation, and future, of the charter school movement," say the authors. "Developing strong leaders and founders of charter schools is essential to the future success of charter schools and, more importantly, to the academic success of our students."

Charter Starters training modules include curriculum materials, activities, sample forms and policies, checklists, resources, and references. A set of workbooks provide research-based strategies for effectively starting and operating a charter school. Two companion publications provide a review of leadership characteristics and a guide for using the Charter Starters program to conduct leadership training. Charter Starters training modules, with corresponding workbooks, address these essential topics:

• Start-Up Logistics
• Regulatory Issues
• Assessment and Accountability
• Governance and Management
• Community Relations

The companion publications include:

• A Profile of the Leadership Needs of Charter School Founders (70pp; 216K, PDF)
• Charter Starters Training Guide (171pp, 445K, PDF)

Charter Starter Leadership Training Institutes offer participants guidance in using the Charter Starters program to train founders in the leadership and planning skills they'll need to launch a successful charter school. The upcoming institutes for charter school founders and operators, state liaisons, regional service centers, higher education institutions, and others interested in effective charter schools will be in:

The Charter Starter workbooks are available for purchase, separate from the institutes, individually or as a set. The companion publications can be purchased individually. To order, see the Document Order Form.