Time for a new direction

By Kevin Teasley

For the past seven years, GEO Foundation’s Charter School Service Center has assisted numerous schools in Indiana with their various needs stretching from helping with their actual application, to accounting to nursing, to recruiting, to hiring, to building a building, to buying technology, to teacher contracts and special education. Last year, we loaned nearly $5 million to Indiana charter schools, too.

Today, we are excited to announce that we are providing a new service to charter schools. We will now provide all the back office support services a charter school needs to succeed and do so at a significant cost savings to each school. We will cluster these services into one service contract with schools that want these services. By clustering these services, we hope to save schools significant dollars in back office expenses and provide them more dollars for the classroom.

Charter schools across the country are realizing that it doesn’t make sense to have a business manager, an accounts payable/receivable staffer, an HR staffer, a compliance manager, a technology director and other back office staff on their payroll. When they do, their budgets for the classroom and for the students are challenged and compromised--not to mention space in their buildings.

Charter school budgets need economies of scale. So, charter schools in various cities across the country are “clustering” together to create savings and improve their buying power.

Do you wonder how the for-profit education management organizations succeed? The answer is they cluster their buying power and back office support to create economies of scale. Mom and Pop charter schools are at a significant disadvantage when competing against the EMOs or schools that have significant philanthropic backing.

GEO’s Charter School Service Center seeks to level the playing field and promises to more than pay for itself by creating cost savings in health and liability insurance, technology planning and purchases, transportation planning and contracting, cost neutral food service programs, legal assistance, special education services coordination, and in group purchasing opportunities. Schools also will see savings in accounting and HR services. Marketing and fundraising will be provided on an as-needed basis.

GEO’s Charter School Service Center will work with each charter school’s school board and their principal to bring the best value added services possible. Only a select few schools will be served this first year. If you are interested in learning more or in being considered for service, just call GEO.

Our goal is to save schools money, protect and maintain the independence of independent charter schools, provide quality services, and allow school leaders and their boards the opportunity to focus on student achievement.

With this new direction, this is the last issue of Indiana Charter Schools Today. It has been a pleasure reporting on the growth of Indiana’s charter school movement for the past seven years. Today, the movement has an association and more than 50 schools throughout the state. Indiana is clearly on track to reach 100 charter schools within the next five years. GEO’s Charter School Service Center hopes to provide critical support to existing and future schools.

Teasley is president and CEO of GEO Foundation and can be reached at Kevin.Teasley@geofoundation.org.