Charter School Operations
FCI has been charged with conducting applied research on policy and practices related to charter schools. As such, we, together with our Charter Support Unit, will be investigating best practices with regard to charter operations and working with organizations such as the Florida Consortium for Public Charter Schools and the Florida Charter School Alliance to identify, research, and promote operational best practices.
Our initial efforts during 2023 will focus on studying two main areas:
Charter School Finances
FCI is researching and analyzing the finances of existing charter schools. Financial oversight of charter schools is essential both from a governance perspective at individual schools and from the sponsor’s view of monitoring compliance. Florida has standardized reporting requirements for charter schools and strict audit rules; however, to our knowledge, there has never been a comprehensive review of this data. We will work to determine if there are trends in this data, as well as analyze the correlation between a school’s financial decisions and their academic outcomes.
Charter School Staffing
To get a better understanding of the statewide teacher shortages in charter schools and provide recommendations, FCI will study staffing data and trends and offer possible avenues of support and policy recommendations to address staffing concerns. We will review data submitted by charters as part of annual reporting requirements and compare this to the data of traditional schools. We will also survey schools to better understand and quantify the challenges that schools are trying to overcome.