The Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools offers a variety of governance training packages. The Association's governance training packages are designed to address key issues related to charter school governance and to support effective leadership and organizational planning. The Association is available to conduct a no-cost needs assessment to help member schools choose the training package that best meets their needs. The Association can also customize any of the packages below to best meet the needs of an individual charter school.

Charter Boards 101

One of the quickest ways for a charter school to fail is to be run by a board of directors who are uninformed, or worse, misinformed about their roles and responsibilities. Involvement on the board of a charter school requires not only commitment and dedication, but also a core base of knowledge about the board’s roles and responsibilities and the requirements of the Louisiana charter school law. This training includes topics such as open meeting laws, conflicts of interest, ethics, financial responsibilities, policies and procedures, running effective meetings and organizational documents.

This package introduces basic roles, responsibilities and general practices essential to creating and/or operating an effective charter school board. This training can be applied to boards of new schools, individual board members, or existing boards needing assistance with structure and operations.

This training is customized for each school via a pre-session survey and conference call in order to best meet the needs of the charter school board. This training package can include the review of items such as: committees (work, structure and board oversight), board recruitment, public relations and marketing, measuring constituent satisfaction, evaluating the board and administration, developing essential operating documents, legal roles and responsibilities of board members, running effective meetings, school bylaws (and other foundation documents) and compliance, essential policies as they relate to items such as board meeting/operations protocol, conflict of interest, employment, school operations, accountability, SPED, ESL, and basic contract provisions (especially at the time of charter renewal) and waivers.  An LAPCS staff member will be assigned to the training to help with follow-up action items.

Training Package:

1. Needs assessment: Board members will be required to complete a board self-assessment in advance of the training
2. 4-hour training: Board members will be trained in the aspects of board roles and responsibilities that are most important to their unique situation.  At the end of the training, board members will complete an action plan with specific milestones for important aspects of board work and responsibilities (see above)
3. 2-hour follow-up: Board consultant will follow up with board members and committees 1-3 months after initial board training to check in on progress towards completion of the action plan and specified milestones

Total Cost: LAPCS Members: $1,000; Non-Members: $1,200

**The initial training will be conducted at your school and scheduled at your school's convenience. The follow-up can occur over the phone with specific committees, the board chair, and/or with the entire board.  Most charter schools schedule the training on a Saturday morning or on a weeknight. This program includes everything necessary for successful completion of Louisiana’s statutory governance training requirement for charter school board members. Charter schools can choose from our list of approved charter school consultants that have been recommended to us by charter schools in the state.  Please contact Andrea Chen at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for fees and availability.

Performance Management for Charter School Boards

This training provides the foundation for understanding the board’s role in ensuring improved student performance and school success.

The session focuses on understanding student performance data, key questions board members should know how to answer, and how boards can establish sound practices in providing academic performance oversight and monitoring.

The training is customized through a pre-session survey and conference call, to best meet an individual school’s needs. Other topics may include key school performance measures, state and authorizer specific performance expectations and measures, mechanisms for appropriate monitoring and evaluation of school performance.

Training Package:

1. Pre-session survey and conference call: Board consultant will conduct a needs assessment with Board Chair and/or Academic Performance/Instruction Committee
2. 2-4 hours training: Board members will be coached in overall data management, which may include the development of a dashboard and indicators to track the most important elements in the school’s mission

Total Cost: Members: $500-900, depending on the level of board knowledge surrounding performance management; Non-members: $700-$1,100

Strategic Planning

Charter school boards are responsible for ensuring effective organizational planning.

Developing a sound strategic plan is key to supporting effective governance and leadership. Strategic plans range from specific goals such as facilities acquisition to more general purposes such as guiding the school’s strategic priorities and continuous improvement.

An Association-approved consultant will assist charter schools with items such as strategic planning process design and facilitation, SWOT analyses, transition from founding board to policy setting board, and identifying key performance indicators, measures, metrics and targets.

Training Package:

1. Pre-session conference call
2. Full-day Strategic Planning Retreat: 6-7 hour full-day planning retreat
3. 2-hour follow-up: Board consultant will follow up with board members and committees 1-3 months after initial board training to check in on progress towards completion of the action plan and specified milestones

Total Cost: Members: $1,300; Non-members: $1,500

Charter School Policy and Handbook Drafting

This training provides an overview of why it is imperative that your school have in place written policies and procedures for your board, staff, students and parents that effectively express the school’s mission, its legal obligations, and the school’s expectations about performance, benefits, and behaviors. You will learn about the potential risks and liability by not adopting certain policies. We will discuss specific examples of policies that should be drafted and adopted by your school.

You will learn to differentiate between policies required by federal, state and/or charter law and policies that are “best practice” or optional. You will discuss the relative responsibilities within your school, of who should take on the task of drafting, reviewing, and implementing various policies; the entities assigned to draft certain policies may differ depending on the substance.

The persons who are ultimately responsible for the implementation of the policies may also differ from the initial drafters (the Board’s role vs. Senior Management). We will discuss adopting and drafting of policies that may not necessarily be “required” by law, but are nevertheless suggested as “best practices” or optional in serving to describe your school’s mission and expectations.

Finally, we will discuss the importance of how to best utilize and implement your policies once they are in place to ensure policies are applied consistently, fairly, and do not discriminate.

Training Package:

1. For each school that participates in the workshop, the Consultant will review the policies that the school presently has in place for its Board, staff, students, and parents (time spent will depend on length and detail or policies; approximately 2 hours)
2. The Consultant will meet with the Board President and School leader to discuss the state of the school’s policies presently in place, and assess whether the policies exemplify the school’s mission and needs, and whether they comply with the law. The Consultant will make recommendations on who should attend the follow up workshops on policy drafting (1-2 hours)
3. Follow up work shop to assist those assigned to draft policies, to choose and draft policy language (1-3 hours)
4. Follow up session within three months after new or revised policies go into effect for Consultant to determine if policies are successfully working and how they are being implemented (1 hour minimum)

Total Cost: $1,000-$1,200 (depending on complexity of current policies)

Optimizing Conflict

Volunteers serving on charter school boards usually do so out of a deep commitment to the school’s mission.  However, different members of the same board can hold varying perspectives on critical school issues and these differences may evolve into stressful conflict among board members.  If handled in a proactive, positive manner, this conflict can prove vital to school development.  If the conflict is poorly managed, however, it can become toxic to the school’s environment and even threaten its continuing existence.

An objective, outside facilitator can be key to helping the board resolve its differences and develop a method to deal with future conflict.

Training Package:

1. Through interviews with board members, facilitator will develop an analysis of issues involved.
2. With the assistance of the facilitator, the board will create strategies todeal with internal conflict.
3. Follow-up sessions will be held as necessary to support implementation of strategies.

Total Cost: TBD after initial conversations with client

Charter schools can choose from a list of approved charter school consultants who have been recommended to the LAPCS by member charter schools in the state.  Please contact Andrea Chen at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 504-274-3651 to discuss needs, costs, and availability.