Pub. 3 2013-2014 Issue 2

8 T he Utah Association of Public Charter Schools is pleased to announce the addi- tion of a Director of Training to our staff. Debby Llewelyn has been involved with charter schools in Utah since 2006. With this addition, we are excited to expand our trainings and will be offering several new training opportunities for governing board members, teachers and charter school administrators throughout the State. We’ve listened to your feedback and look forward to build upon the training foundation that’s already been set and to branch out into areas that will continue to help char- ter schools thrive in Utah. BOARD MEMBER TRAINING After receiving your feedback through a survey sent out last month to all charter governing board members, we are thrilled to begin holding quarterly board round tables. We appreciate the hard work that charter school board members contribute to their schools and recognize the need to assist in training as well as providing networking oppor- tunities. The first round tables will be held beginning in Sep- tember at three locations throughout the State (Northern, Central and Southern Utah) and based upon your in-put; the first round tables will be focused on how to evaluate your school’s principal and how to evaluate your board. Ad- ditional round tables will be focused on improving parental participation in school governance and how to communicate effectively with your community and stakeholders. We will continue to provide future round table trainings based on survey feedback and will be bringing in outside experts for each of our roundtables as well as allowing time for networking to get to know board members from other charter schools in your surrounding area. Also beginning this Fall will be a ‘Boot Camp for New Board Members’ that will be held annually. We would like to make you aware of the training mod- ules provided by USOE as an additional resource that may be helpful to your board. These can be found at: http:// www.schools.utah.gov/charterschools/Training/Governing- Board-Online-Training.aspx New this year, we have included a ‘Board Retreat’ op- tion at our 8th Annual Charter School Conference. This is a personalized retreat, geared towards the specific needs of your board. We already have schools taking advantage of this valuable option and looking forward to working with them and other charter school board members as confer- ence registrations continue to come in. We will continue to provide one-on-one training with your board, as requested. For information regarding the survey we sent out or for any board training needs, please contact us. We are here to help! DIRECTOR TRAINING We will continue to hold monthly trainings to coincide with our monthly member meetings. Utilizing the expertise of our Shared Service Partners, we will provide this invalu- able service as charter schools throughout Utah continue to strengthen and grow. If there is a particular training topic you would like to see presented at our monthly member meeting, please email Debby at debby@utahcharters.org. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHERS Behind every great school is an army of enthusiastic and highly qualified teachers! After listening to your feedback, we are pleased to announce a reduced rate for teachers to attend our 8th Annual Charter School Conference this June while increasing and expanding our courses offered for teachers. The Utah State Office of Education will award continuing education credits for all teachers who attend. A complete list of conference courses, sponsored by the as- sociation’s Charter University, can be found in the center of this publication. PRE-APPLICATION TRAINING Beginning this Fall, we will be offering four pre-appli- cation trainings for prospective charter schools seeking ap- proval and funding from the State. These trainings will pro- vide information regarding charter school implementation requirements, statutory and board requirements, financial and data management, legal requirements, federal require- ments and as well as other topics required by the State. We look forward to assisting innovative and high-quality char- ter schools through the application process. ON-LINE SEARCHABLE LIBRARY AND RESOURCE CENTER As the final pieces of our new website are put into place, we are excited to announce the creation of an on-line search- able library and resource center, accessible to our UAPCS member schools. Here you will find documents your board and administration will need, as well as shared resources from other schools. If you would like us to include your school’s policies and best practices, please email them to debby@utahcharters.org. Look for our new website to be debuted at this summer’s conference! UAPCS Training Debut