Charter School Resource Center
Center for Effective School Practices
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
80 Cottontail Lane, Suite 410
Somerset, NJ 08873

Telephone: (732) 564-9087, (732) 564-9100
Fax: (732) 564-9099
Contact: Heather Ngoma, Director
E-mail: hngoma@rci.rutgers.edu
Website: www.njcharterschools.org

Organization Description and Mission

The New Jersey Charter School Resource Center (CSRC) helps to create and sustain high quality charter schools throughout the state of New Jersey. The organization has always provided technical assistance to charter school developers and operators.  However, in recent years, CSRC has worked to streamline its approach to working with charter schools at their various stages of development.  Thus, CSRC has developed special initiatives which complement its customized technical assistance services. A branch of the Center for Effective School Practices, the CSRC supports educational reform and innovation by providing school organizers with information, resources, and technical assistance.
The Charter School Resource Center offers a number of services to area charter schools, including strategic improvement facilitation, summer workshops, and year-round consultation. Current programs include:

• Charter School Application Development Institute: This 3-day workshop series is designed to help charter school developers submit competitive charter proposals to the NJ Department of Education.    For charter school developers from Camden to Passaic Counties, the day-long workshop sessions not only provided insider information on developing quality applications, but offered complimentary follow-up technical assistance with charter school professionals. The Institute drew about 35 potential applicants and addressed topics such as Governance, Goals & Objectives, Fiscal Planning and Education Program Design.  The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and many of the applicants currently under serious consideration for charter approval attended the Charter School Application Development Institute.
• Pre-Approval Charter Training (PACT) Series: Once charter developers submit their application, they enter a period of uncertainty during which they must await approval or denial.  To ensure that this waiting period is spent productively, CSRC has developed the Pre-Approval Charter Training Academy, which encourages developers to proceed as if they will be approved so that they are prepared to hit the ground running should the Commissioner’s decision prove favorable.  This unique training program combines CSRC’s ten years of working with charters and the experience of seasoned charter school professionals who bring specific expertise, along with the field-based experience of running a charter school.  Training sessions, which are offered as open seminars or exclusive founding team sessions, include: board recruitment and training, team-building, meetings management, founding group conflict resolution, interview strategies, working with consultants, community awareness and support, hiring the right people, and strategic planning.
• Leadership for Autonomous Schools: Once a charter school developer receives a charter, s/he is supported by CSRC’s Leadership for Autonomous Schools, a service delivery program intended to strengthen and support the state’s education entrepreneurs by helping them address relevant educational and management topics critical to school operation.  Leadership for Autonomous Schools features training in advanced education program planning, school operations, governance and board relations, human resource management, financial planning and reporting, technology systems and data collection, families as customers, facilities acquisition, marketing and public relations.

Program facilitators are knowledgeable about charter schools and offer a wealth of expertise in their subject areas developed from professional experiences.  The training design uses case studies, and group discussion to ensure interactivity, practicality, charter school relevance and flexibility.  Each session features useful reference materials, coordinated optional follow-up activities, and e-consultation with session facilitators. Professional development credit is available for all participants.   Other credit options may come available as the program develops.

• General Technical Assistance: As charter school is founding group transition from approved charter school planners to charter school operators, CSRC continues to provide assistance to them on a case-by-case basis.  At this point planning needs become very individualized and whole group seminars are not necessarily the best way to address the variety of planning needs.  For example, planners often need help identifying insurance plans for their trustees, writing a press release to introduce themselves to the region, coordinating a community introduction program, writing job descriptions, developing a curriculum, or policy development.  Their needs run the gamut, and at this juncture in the planning process, their requests warrant immediate, personalized responses which whole group training sessions do not accommodate well.

• The Charter School Resource Center needs a student to help update and enhance the vendors’ directory.  Charter schools use the directory to compare the price and quality of vendors such as bus companies or food caterers. Students would survey the charter schools for their opinions.  How reliable are the vendors they use?  Would a school recommend a vendor to another newly opened charter school?  Enhancements could include, but are not limited to, reviews and star ratings. The Charter School Resource Center would like help making the directory electronically accessible.
• Most charter schools start off small and serve children in grades K-2 or K-5, which means that for the first few years of a charter school’s existence, students must find another school to complete their elementary or high school education.  Where do children go after charter school?  How do children fare if they leave charter school and return to public school?  Do they fare as well as children who attend charter school K-8?  What happens to children if they leave charter school and go to independent school?  Should a founder bother to start a K-5, or should founders wait until their schools can open as K-8 or complete high schools?
• What is the profile of a parent who chooses to sign up a child for charter school?  Are these parents more than usually active in their children’s education at the previous school?  What motivates the parent to complete the arduous process of enrolling a child in charter school?  Why are some parents willing to do so and others not, although the parents come from the same neighborhood?

• The Charter School Resource Center wants to educate the community about charter schools. How can the Charter School Resource Center help the community better understand charter schools?

• The Charter School Resource Center would like to evaluate its impact on charter schools. Based on existing methods of evaluation of other non-profit support organizations, how can the CSRC most effectively measure its role in the growing success of New Jersey charter schools?
• How nutritious is the food at New Jersey charter schools?  What are the eating habits of students, faculty, and founders?   What emphasis do the schools place on learning about nutrition? 
• Personal health is important to a founder creating a strong charter school; what can be done to prevent founders from experiencing burnout?  What are founders doing to sustain themselves during the process of creating a charter school? 
• What change in nutritious well-being occurs in inner-city children who transfer to independent school?  Do the children continue to consume the same diet or does their diet change? What effect does this new diet have on their health? How long does the effect last?

Continue searching profiles in alphabetical order.

Continue searching profiles by area of interest.

Continue searching profiles by geographic location.