New York City Center for Charter School Excellence

What it reported doing in 2024

For the past 21 years, the New York city charter school center, the country's first citywide charter support strategy, has served as a one-stop-shop for ensuring the growth and vitality of nyc's charter sector. Our integrated approach to building a favorable policy environment, solving industry-wide challenges, ensuring quality, growing the movement and providing key supports and services has "cleared the brush," so that charter schools can focus on their core work of educating children. Our work is guided by five strategic priorities:1. Create a favorable public policy environment for charter schools and education reform, in general: we educate and engage communities and influencers on the value of the charter school model, proactively framing the public discussion with research and data as well as pushing back opponents and guiding and coordinating the sector. 2. Empower charter schools to serve all students: through the collaborative for inclusive education, we support nyc charter schools as they seek to equitably recruit, educate and retain all students, including students with disabilities and multilingual learners. 3. Ensure operational excellence and sustainability: we help by providing resources, trainings and guidance to ensure charter schools not only comply with all state and local laws and policies, but also implement best practices in nonprofit operations. 4. Support new school development: we build the capacity of planning nd start up teams as well as schools growing grades so as to increase their chances for success. 5. Transfer charter school successes back into nyc's public school system: we seek out opportunities to partner with the nycps and district schools to transfer learnings and innovations to improve public education for all students. Our work during the 2024-25 school year included: -researching and developing numerous fact sheets, reports/white papers, op-eds designed to myth bust and educate the public and policymakers, alike, about the charter school model. - ensuring no legislation passed that negatively changes New York's charter schools act or harms/hampers charter operations or the model itself. Maintaining the urgency, via press conferences, rallies, media opportunities, around the need for equitable funding and a lift in nyc's charter cap. - holding nyc public schools accountable for delivering the supports and services that charter schools are entitled to as part of nyc's public education system. Collaborated with administration & nycps leadership to secure new opportunities, protect autonomy and encourage collaboration. - monitoring ny's three authorizers to ensure their standards for opening and closing charter schools remain consistent and high. - conducting several citywide, multilingual media campaigns to inform families about the charter school option. The campaigns, which include charter school open house month, "i am nyc charter schools and "how to apply", support charter schools' recruitment efforts.- offering nearly 200 remote, hybrid and in-person trainings/workshops/professionaldevelopment opportunities annually, exposing charters to best practices in the fields of inclusive education programming and supports as well as human resources, finance and operations. Including development of a new pd on demand platform offers over 40 online courses to make it easier for school teams to learn anytime, anywhere. - supporting potential and start-up charter leaders, via new school development seminars, to empower thoughtful school designs and strong operational practices. - creating an online nyc charter school finder, the first definitive guide to the city's 420 charter school campuses, helping families to locate, explore data and apply to nyc charter schools.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 65.7%; rating input score 66
• Program expense ratio: 84.6%; rating input score 85
• Fundraising efficiency: $52.99 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 79; 79th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 1 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 17
  • Compensation committee: Missing
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
  • Written employment contract: Missing
  • Compensation survey or study: Missing
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: Pass
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 25.3%; rating input score 81; 81st percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 3.66; rating input score 78; 78th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.25; rating input score 38; 38th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 28.1%; rating input score 6; 6th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: -2% per year; rating input score 0; 9th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 0.4% per year; rating input score 100; 13th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 10.1% per year; rating input score 100; 59th percentile among comparable filings