Key #1: “Unpacking the Charter”™

The Most Important Step in Preparing for Charter Renewal

by Wayne D. Jones, JPS Solutions | April 28, 2025

Charter renewal doesn’t begin in year four or five. It starts the day your charter term begins. And it starts with understanding what, exactly, your school promised to deliver. That’s why the first key in our series is also the most foundational: “Unpacking the Charter”™.

At its core, your charter is both a contract with your authorizer and a blueprint for your school’s program. Yet too often, that blueprint is set aside after approval—consulted only occasionally, with key components overlooked as school leaders focus on the daily demands of running a school. As a consultant, I’ve seen this scenario play out many times. A school nearing the end of its charter term brings me in to support its renewal—only for us to discover that a key element of the academic program, such as Response to Intervention, was never implemented. (‘Wait—did we say we were going to do that?’) By then, it’s too late to demonstrate progress toward that commitment. Yet, an unpacking of the charter at the outset of the charter term, along with the resultant Charter Compliance Plan, would have spared the school from this problem.

Unpacking the Charter is a collaborative process that transforms your charter from a static document into a living guide for implementation, progress monitoring and continuous improvement. Our charter unpacking process—developed through work with dozens of charter schools—creates a shared understanding of charter obligations across your team. It culminates in a practical Charter Compliance Plan that helps ensure your program, operations, and governance align with your charter’s commitments. It is, frankly, the most important thing you can do to prepare for a successful charter renewal.

Why It Matters

• It promotes shared understanding of your school’s mission and charter commitments among all school stakeholders. By unpacking the charter in a structured, facilitated and collaborative process involving school leaders, Board members, staff and parents, you’ll ensure alignment across all levels of the organization and reduce the risk of critical responsibilities being overlooked.
• It guides the implementation of your school’s program, guaranteeing that you’ll stay true to your authorizer-approved mission, design, and instructional program. It empowers your school’ leadership team to make informed decisions that align with your charter. At the same time, it equips your Board to provide stronger oversight by clarifying what success looks like and outlining what must be tracked over the course of the charter term.
• It supports alignment between your day-to-day operations and your authorizer’s accountability expectations. Unpacking the charter ensures that your implementation of everything from classroom instructional practice to leadership and governance to human capital management remains aligned with your authorizer’s accountability framework. This alignment builds credibility with your authorizer and strengthens your chances for a successful renewal by showing that your school has remained true to its charter-authorized mission and design.
• It ensures that all new Board and staff members are aware of and committed to fulfilling the charter commitments. Turnover at the Board and senior staff levels is a fact of life for most charter schools. As schools grow and evolve over the charter term, leadership changes are often necessary. Yet too often, these transitions occur without a robust charter-focused onboarding process that grounds new Board members and school leaders in the school’s charter obligations, expectations, and vision. Without this foundational knowledge and consistent attention to the charter, schools risk drifting out of compliance and jeopardizing their chances for a successful renewal. Unpacking the charter provides the grounding for an orientation and training process that empowers new Board members and school leaders to guide your school to a successful renewal.
• It prepares your Board and Leadership team to speak with clarity and confidence during site visits, renewal interviews, and public presentations. Indeed, writing a great charter renewal application is only one step of the renewal process. Most authorizers require interviews with your leadership team, Board and staff, as well as public meetings with parents and community members. Unpacking the charter and sharing the Charter Compliance Plan helps to ensure that everyone understands the authorizer’s expectations of the school and is “on the same page” when it comes to telling the story of your school.
• It prevents compliance and renewal missteps by making sure every school stakeholder understands the school’s performance objectives, operational requirements and the standards by which it will be judged by the authorizer when it applies for renewal.

How It Works

Over 20 years and a few dozen charter renewals, my JPS Solutions partners and I have developed a process for engaging a wide range of school stakeholders in reviewing and analyzing the charter to build the foundation for a successful charter renewal. Our process for Unpacking the Charter™ is not a one-time task. It’s a structured approach that takes a “long view” to charter renewal. Ideally, it begins at or before the start of your charter term. But even if you’re reading this while being far along in your charter term, the unpacking process can be an invaluable help in preparing for your next charter renewal.

Unpacking the charter should be facilitated by an experienced third-party. The independent perspective of an external consultant allows for assumptions to be challenged and tough questions to be asked. Your school will also benefit from the consultant’s expertise—drawn from working with multiple schools and authorizers—to help view the charter through the lens of compliance, accountability and renewal readiness. The objectivity, structure and expertise that an outside party brings to the unpacking process will ultimately enhance your school’s chances for a successful renewal.

Our approach to unpacking the charter begins with a detailed review of a school’s approved charter and supporting documents (e.g., notes, if any, from the authorizer’s visit or capacity interviews). Working with representatives of the school’s Board and/or leadership, we facilitate an analysis of the charter, breaking down each section to define the school’s commitments and timelines for implementing required activities. This results in a written summary that outlines start-up, short-term and full-term obligations. Follow-up meetings with various stakeholders are held to ensure an understanding of the charter and design appropriate plans of action to achieve the charter goals.

Unpacking the Charter turns mission into action and vision into results. It’s how high-performing schools build momentum—and stay renewal-ready from day one.

For more information about Unpacking the Charter, contact us.

If you’d like to explore this further or discuss how it applies to your school, feel free to get in touch.