An Afton Partners Blog
There has been so much news on early childhood lately that we couldn’t resist adding our own information dump covering Afton’s recent efforts. Some exciting Afton-related early care and education (ECE) updates include: Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker announced a proposal for a new unified early childhood state agency, which represents an important next step for children and families, resulting… Continued
At Afton, we have been reflecting on the concept of financial stewardship, meaning how charter schools handle resources like money, assets, and talent to enable great outcomes. We believe effective financial stewardship consists of three major pillars: Enacting your mission through resource allocation, Protecting your money with controls and governance, and Making good resource decisions that… Continued
At Afton, we think of community engagement as the process of collaborating with impacted groups on projects and ensuring they can influence the decisions that will ultimately affect them. It’s part of living out our values to center the human experience, collaborate inclusively, and prioritize justice. In fact, it’s the core of everything we do. We believe answers… Continued
In July 2023, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program. CCDF is the primary federal grant that provides child care assistance to low-income working families with children under the age of 13. In addition to policy changes designed to… Continued
Student enrollment is the engine that powers both mission and sustainability. However, with national birth rates at an all-time low and families increasingly migrating out of urban areas, that task is more difficult and uncertain than any time in recent history. Now is a critical moment to push to recruit new students and plan ahead… Continued
Some public school systems, including several who Afton is currently supporting, are already charting their path to navigating their fiscal cliff. While each circumstance is different, we offer guidance to navigate the challenge, co-developed in partnership with the Charter School Growth Fund. Our guidance includes: Understand and confront the reality Engage and empower stakeholders Identify,… Continued
By 2015, the State of Illinois had the most regressive education funding system in the country. When the state put forth its new education funding system in 2018, it calculated each of the state’s ~850 school districts’ funding adequacy targets. North Chicago Community School District 187 had just 54% of the funding it needed to… Continued
School systems across the nation are continuing to face a unique challenge: effectively distributing the influx of education funding that came with the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER). Yet headline after headline places much of the blame on schools themselves for their spending struggles, arguing that they are too slow to distribute… Continued
When I think of Memphis, Tenn., I think of resiliency. The vote to disband Memphis City Schools, seceding into six separate school districts, proved to be an egregious example of intentional segregation. That choice deepened existing opportunity gaps facing Tennessee’s highest-need students, while allowing school funding inequities to persist. But Memphis Shelby County Schools and… Continued
While technology-enabled instruction has been growing throughout the K12 landscape over the past decade or more, it has become nearly ubiquitous with the sudden shift to distance learning due to COVID-19. Students, teachers, and parents received a crash course in the spring to varying degrees of success, and this summer has allowed schools to evaluate… Continued