Active community engagement is critical to both petition approval and the sustainability of your school. Authorizers will take notice of strong community support, which assists in establishing credibility. Identify and leverage your community relationships. As soon as you have finalized your mission and vision, begin to rally support for the school by sharing it with your community, along with a brief and inspirational explanation of the intended program.

Ongoing community outreach is important throughout all stages of the development process. We have seen excellent programs wither due to lack of support and perceived need.

Gathering signatures

Signatures of support are a requirement. A charter school petition cannot be submitted for authorization without:

"...a number of parents or legal guardians of pupils that is equivalent to at least one-half of the number of pupils that the charter school estimates will enroll in the school for its first year of operation." (ed code 47605)

Once your petition is complete, and not before then, you must gather signatures of support. When considering how informed must a teacher or parent/student be in order to be considered "meaningfully interested" in teaching or attending a charter school, know that it isn't sufficient for the teacher or parent/student to simply know about the proposed school and support its establishment and existence. He or she must actually be considering teaching or enrolling a student at/attending the new school. Some districts have contacted signators to verify interest and understanding. And some have denied petitions based on the process and information gathered. To eliminate potential challenges, we strongly advise petitioners to use our template.

While such teachers need not be tenured, they must be credentialed. The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing has a list of all credentialed teachers and districts. Note that it does take awhile for new credentialed teachers to appear on the website. In such cases developers should obtain a copy of the credential and indicate that they have verified it.

Note that districts are not prohibited from calling or otherwise contacting meaningfully interested teachers and families to verify their interest. In fact, districts across the state have contacted signatories to charter petitions to verify their meaningful interest. The district should not attempt to dissuade or harass individuals, though. Any attempt to do so should be reported to the charter developers.

The signature form for a new charter petition may also be used to collect signatures for a Proposition 39 facilities request. As long as the form shows the students' names, addresses, grade level during the 2011-12 school year, and a signature indicating the families' meaningful interest, then it can be used for both a charter petition and Prop. 39. It is also a best practice for the form to include a place to list the students' neighborhood schools. This will make it easier for the charter school to migrate that information onto its Prop. 39 request, which requires such information.

Develop an Outreach Plan to Leverage Community Assets

Identify all relevant community organizations and resources, then develop an outreach and recruitment plan to ensure the broadest reach possible.

Partnering with Community Based Organizations (CBOs) may provide invaluable services and supports. Well-established CBOs can also carry local political clout and their support will further aid the approval of your school.

Recruiting Parents and Students

Community outreach efforts will generate interest in the school, but you will need to attract students. Even the most carefully crafted program cannot survive under-enrollment. Community awareness drives enrollment. Start recruiting efforts early in the process. Remember, for elementary schools you'll be recruiting parents, but for middle and high schools, recruitment should focus on the student.

In some cases, you may wish to inform your target population that a committee is working on a potential charter petition, an perhaps invite them to an informational meeting. If you have permission from the school district, you may distribute leaflets on campus. If you do not have permission, you would have to use the public sidewalk to do so.

Local School Board Campaign

With signatures gathered and commitments of support in hand, it's time to submit the charter petition to the local school board, which is charged with approving or denying the petition.

Ongoing local advocacy on behalf of your school through letters, emails, meetings and phone calls from the community can make a real difference. Encourage community members and interested parents to contact school board members and express their support for the charter. As locally-elected officials, they will be sensitive to constituent demands.

The Public Hearing

Once the charter petition is submitted, there will be a public hearing. Leverage all of your contacts to fill the meeting space with as many supporters as is possible.