California Charter Schools

I'm in Temecula, California where it's been great to run into people who actually know what a charter school is. There are five charter schools in Temecula.

In California, there are more than 500 charter schools. Some are what we in Colorado would call a home school umbrella program, or a network of homeschooling families. Colorado's Charter Schools Act prohibits charter schools from being home-based schools. California and Colorado both passed charter school legislation in 1993.

One of the first people I met outside of Colorado who was involved in charter schools, was Eric Premack of the Charter Schools Development Center, a California-based company offering services to support charter school development. Eric offers a wealth of information and resources through the CSDC and several different training workshops. I've had several conversations with Eric over the years and value his expertise, especially in the area of charter school governance. Some of the training offered by CSDC is comparable to training we have in Colorado, such as the Chief Business Officer training. Some of the resources on the CSDC are applicable to Colorado charter school leaders and can be a great resource.