The New Schools Handbook: strategic advice for successful school start-up in partnership with school district officials, staff and community members
May 2002
Robin Lake, Abigail Winger, Jeff Petty
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This primer is for people who dream of starting a new school, a place where children and adults engage in the rewarding work of learning and teaching. Turning hopes and dreams about a new school into reality is a demanding project. It takes vision, hard work, and above all, planning. Wishful thinking and good intentions are no substitutes for realism. We also believe this primer will help school districts that are interested in developing new and more autonomous schools. The demand for new schools is great. States and districts are increasingly searching for creative new ways to serve their student populations through smaller schools, community-based learning, and thematically centered schools. Even more directly, charter school and school contracting initiatives provide an opportunity for converting existing schools or starting new ones that often have autonomy over budgets, staffing, and educational programs. The best new schools demonstrate how focus, teamwork, expertise, and adaptability increase student achievement. Population growth, pressure to reduce the size of large, impersonal high schools, and state accountability plans that require new options for rethinking failing schools all add to the pressure to cultivate new school options. This guide provides an overview of the school development process from start to finish and includes an appendix of additional resources. It should be helpful for anyone starting a new school, whether it is a private school, a charter public school, or a district magnet school. But we’ve paid special attention to the unique challenges of starting a new school within the traditional school district structure, where building political support, negotiating agreements with district personnel, and navigating rules and regulations can be daunting tasks, and if not handled skillfully can quickly halt plans for a new school. As many are learning the hard way, starting any kind of new school is something like starting a small business and running a political campaign at the same time. You will have to quickly develop education and business plans, find facilities, hire strong staffs, recruit students, decide how decisions will be made, figure out how you will demonstrate results, work with the media, and navigate state and local rules and regulations. Starting a new school as part of a school district can give you an advantage in resolving some of these issues - if you have district support, you may have access to district facilities and central office administrative support. But working within a district structure can also bring unique challenges. Most districts are designed to support existing schools and programs. Most are unaccustomed to providing services to autonomous schools, and central office staff are typically strained to meet the needs of their existing schools. Community politics and union contracts can create divisive environments. Once new district schools are up and running, they face considerable pressures that threaten to pull them apart. New district-wide mandates, incoming staff who do not share the school’s educational vision, and diverse demands from parents can quickly dilute or destroy even the best educational program. These realities all point to the need for better planning before schools open. We hope this primer will provide you with valuable information as well as a healthy dose of caution. Opening a new school is unquestionably a worthy and exciting endeavor, but it is also one not to be entered into lightly. For those who succeed, the experience is one of the most valuable and exciting endeavors they will ever undertake. Starting a new school is a community’s affirmation of its commitment to children and its hope for the future. Competently thought out and properly planned, you have every reason to expect your school to survive and thrive. Primer design The lessons in this primer are based on our experience studying school start-ups and the lessons of the burgeoning charter school movement. Through interviews and site visits, staff from the Center on Reinventing Public Education have delved into the nature of the start-up experience, including its difficulties and the many challenges new schools face. We have studied all kinds of schools: private and parochial, “turn-key” neighborhood public schools, alternative public schools and charter schools. Some of the founders we met with were parents, some were teachers, and some were administrators. We also draw from the Center’s experience and ongoing research about school leadership and organizational development. After years of studying the elements of effective schools, we are struck by the fact that new schools often fail for reasons that could easily have been avoided – they don’t plan effectively up front and don’t anticipate common roadblocks, namely ineffective governance and decision-making mechanisms, poor leadership selection, complex finance issues, and inadequate performance accountability. The primer’s sections are based on the lessons learned about school start-up from founders themselves. Despite their different circumstances, the experiences of these founders suggested some common themes that we think are important for the success of any new school. But consistent with the primer’s focus, we’ve taken care to include stories, advice and tips relevant to working within a public school district structure. In addition to citing school founders, some quotes and ideas in this primer are drawn from a workshop of charter school start-up experts. Section One: Getting Started This section outlines some of the most difficult tasks associated with starting a new school. As a practical matter, you, as a new school founder, need to take the time to think through nuts-and-bolts issues such as whom to involve in planning the school, how to establish procedures for making decisions, and where you will find your students. But you need to balance that by paying attention to your new school’s educational vision. What’s likely to make your school different from the others in your neighborhood? What are you going to stand for? What is the essential focus (mission) of your school? It’s tempting to want to jump right into the more concrete tasks, but spending the planning time to achieve clarity about what you hope to accomplish is essential to successful implementation. You will have precious little time for this vital conversation once your school opens its doors. Section Two: Creating a Plan This section gets much more specific. Now is the time to worry about negotiating an agreement with the school district, financing your school, recruiting students, locating a building and paying for it, and many other educational issues, including establishing your educational credibility and thinking about curriculum and assessment. Section Three: Opening Your School This section covers hiring decisions, working with parents, trustees and the district, and risk management issues. We conclude by drawing together the lessons of the primer and summarizes the main lessons for new school development. An appendix follows that categorizes helpful web-based resources for the school development process. It covers Educational Program Design, School Facilities and Operations, Charter School Resources, and has a sample contract. The strategies presented in these sections are not exhaustive. They are only guideposts to help you navigate the process of starting a new school. You will need to adapt and interpret them to match your particular context, and you will likely have to develop new strategies to solve problems not foreseen by this primer.
