We are ever so lucky to be part of Utah schools. We get to be crucial partners with parents helping to open and stretch a child’s mind, showing them the beauty and opportunity all around.
We work within rules set by our authorizers, the State Board of Education and the Legislature. The women and men who create those rules need to understand our daily challenges and how they can help both us and parents meet the needs of the children in our classroom. That help can come in several ways. Most obviously, they create the budget that funds charter schools, complete with its nuances, strings and red tape.
Over the past couple years, UAPCS has worked closely with our public officials to simplify that budget. Every time there’s a new line item, we have new reports, audits, monitoring visits, etc. And we’ve had remarkable success. Even as funding for charter schools has gone up and continues to increase year over year, the number of line items in that budget is shrinking. Not as fast as we’d like, but we’re making progress. Our message of flexibility and local control is getting through.
To help our elected officials better understand the challenges in charter schools, we are scheduling monthly meetings with members of the Legislature at charter schools across the state. They want to see the good work you are doing and what we need to better meet students’ and families’ needs. I’ve already spoken to some members of Congress and the Legislature and will be contacting you over the coming weeks to organize more opportunities.
We want to support you better. Expect to see us visiting your schools more often. We want to build more bridges between charter schools, so you can more easily share your struggles and successes, problems and solutions. Our opportunities to share give us strength, confidence and compassion. And we can all use more of that in charterland!
So we look forward to working closely with and for you over the coming year. We all hope your summer was relaxing, invigorating and fun — and we know you are now back in the thick of things, on track for a great school year!
