Crises have a way of revealing exceptional people and organizations. Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, we’ve seen schools everywhere rising to the challenge of educating students in entirely new ways while also meeting needs beyond education. Schools have been community partners in getting meals to families, sharing resources with healthcare workers and first responders, providing mental health services to students and caregivers, and much more.
This is happening in all types of schools, and all educators deserve credit for how quickly they’ve transitioned to a new normal. But as someone who spends a lot of time with school leaders, I’m especially proud of how public charter schools stepped up to help their communities in the past two months.
In some ways, charter schools are uniquely suited to adapt quickly to change and adjust curricula. Innovation is in their DNA. They have more control over their budgets and the ability to redirect resources to where they’re most needed. And since charter schools generally receive less funding than district-run schools, they’re used to using resources creatively, doing whatever it takes to deliver what their students need.
On Sunday, we’re kicking off National Charter Schools Week with a focus on charter schools that are going above and beyond — not just for their students, for the communities where they operate. It starts with education.
When school doors closed, charter schools quickly adapted to the new reality of distance learning. A high proportion of charter schools are in low-income areas where technology gaps are widest, so providing access to computers and the internet became a top priority.
Phalen Leadership Academies of Indianapolis moved swiftly with limited resources to set up a grab-and-go system to give students food and homework packets to help them stay on top of their schoolwork and has been following up by providing hardware for online learning. In California’s Central Valley, Wonderful College Prep Academy charter schools prioritized the distribution of good Wi-Fi connections to students in its largely agricultural region.
Of course, technology is only as good as what it’s delivering. Idaho’s Gem Prep is an established innovator with both online and brick-and-mortar schools. Its leaders understood that transitioning from in-person to distance learning requires special preparation for teachers, students, and parents. They drew on their online experience to smooth these transitions, and they’ve made their approach, including online learning expectations for students, available to everyone, including educators and students outside their network.
Some of the nation’s most renowned charter networks, including KIPP, Success Academy, and Uncommon Schools, also established frameworks and lesson plans for online learning and made them available free to any school, not just schools in their network and not just charter schools. They’re also updating their resources as they learn more about what’s working and what’s not.
Charter schools have also been working overtime to meet nonacademic needs. Common Ground High School, a charter school in New Haven, Connecticut, is relying on its own farm (part of the school’s environmental focus) to provide food to families. Rocketship Public Schools has deployed a CareCorps to survey families every day, identify needs, and then connect families with an array of community resources. At Vista Grove Preparatory Academy in Arizona, school counselors are available for one-on-one online sessions with students to keep them connected to resources they’d normally have on campus.
It’s also worth noting that the charter school experience often extends beyond high school. Many charter grads are the first in their families to go to college, and their schools stick with them to provide support and guidance. As college campuses shut down in March, leaving many students unsure of how they’d get home or find basic necessities, programs like KIPP Through College stepped up to ensure that alumni had help meeting their housing, food, academic, and travel needs.
With a single-minded focus on students and the ability to adapt quickly in a crisis, charter schools are having an outsized impact on the communities they serve. As everyone grows in their appreciation for teachers and schools, we are grateful to be able to count on the continued leadership from charter schools in the difficult months ahead.
Nina Rees (@ninacharters) is president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the former deputy undersecretary for innovation and improvement at the US Department of Education, and the former deputy assistant for domestic policy to the vice president of the United States.
