Engaged and informed charter school boards routinely ask the same high-stakes questions: What happen…Engaged and informed charter school boards routinely ask the same high-stakes questions: What happens if enrollment drops another 5%? What's the plan if state funding changes yet again? How long can we sustain this? The schools that answer those questions with confidence aren't just reporting accurately, they're leading strategically.
This session is designed for school leaders and board members who want to get ahead of the conversation rather than scrambling to catch up with it. The presenters will dig into the five questions every board should be asking in a declining enrollment environment, walk through a practitioner-tested framework for protecting and expanding financial margin, and explore what it actually looks like to build a multi-year sustainability plan when ADA is trending in the wrong direction.
Hear directly from a charter finance leader and two charter network leaders who have navigated these pressures in real time and leave with a clearer picture of what board-ready financial leadership looks like and the tools to help schools get there.
The LCAP is supposed to connect goals for students to the resources being committed to reach them. I…The LCAP is supposed to connect goals for students to the resources being committed to reach them. In practice, those two halves of the document often tell completely different stories because the people who build the vision and the people who manage the budget rarely work closely enough together. That disconnect is the real reason most LCAPs fall short. This session is built around fixing that.
The presenters will get practical about how to align goals and budget so they actually reinforce each other, share tools that make cross-functional communication easier, and work through what it looks like when the process is done well. Whether setting strategy or watching the spreadsheet (or wrangling both!), participants will leave with concrete steps to make their next LCAP cycle smoother and more meaningful.
