It was only Tuesday morning, but Hypolite’s week had already been hectic. “I was here until eight last night,” she told Hardnett.
He just laughed. “Welcome to the rest of leadership,” Hardnett said.
Hypolite is more than halfway through a 15-month New Leaders for New Schools program, one of only a handful nationwide that offer extensive, personal training for potential leaders of charter schools. (The program also trains those who want to work in traditional public schools.)
Hardnett has become a trusted confidant of Hypolite’s. They meet weekly, dissecting encounters she has with students and parents, planning academic projects and preparing for observations and meetings with teachers.
The training program begins in the summer and continues with year-long paid residencies. Participants spend the summer together, and by spring the program separates those who are preparing to work at traditional schools from those focused on charters.
The charter leaders, who will operate with more autonomy than principals at traditional schools, must learn to recruit students and balance budgets. They often have to raise money and secure their own facilities.
“Good leaders need to have not only the core skills around improving student achievement and evaluating teachers,” said James Merriman, director of the New York City Charter School Center, a nonprofit group that helps new charters get started and supports existing ones. “They also need to know how to manage upwards to their board of trustees . . . and navigate the shoals of living in and working in a community.”
Comprehensive training programs spend time on all of these issues, but there is a limit to how many graduates they can produce. With programs in 12 urban districts across nine states and the District, New Leaders for New Schools accepts about 100 applicants — 7 percent of those who apply — each year. At the D.C. program this year, six out of 12 residents are being trained to be principals at charter schools. Nationally, about 25 percent of new leaders go on to run charters.
Some charter schools are starting to train teachers from within their own ranks to take leadership roles. But far more schools don’t have any plan should their principals retire tomorrow.
Only half of the nation’s charter schools said they had succession plans in 2010, and many of those plans were weak, said Christine Campbell, author of the Center on Reinventing Public Education study.
The D.C. Public Charter School Board, which oversees the District’s 98 charter schools, makes recommendations to schools about developing succession plans. “It’s nothing enforceable,” said Tamara Lumpkin, deputy director of the board. “We want to respect schools’ autonomy, but we do think it’s a good thing to have.”
This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University.
butrymowicz@tc.columbia.edu
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