|
Minnesota
charter schools are required to submit an annual report to the Minnesota
Department of Children, Families, and Learning. Most of the information
about currently operating schools presented in these Profiles came
directly from each school's 2001-2002 annual report, but some charter
schools did not have reports on file. Please note that in some cases,
schools reported data in different ways (i.e., raw numbers versus
percentages), and in other cases, schools chose not to respond at
all. Accordingly, with respect to certain categories in these Profiles,
data is presented in each school's own language, and is therefore
not presented consistently across schools. We hope that you will find
these Profiles useful nonetheless. This document represents a first
attempt to compile a huge amount of information. We know there will
be some inaccuracies, and we ask that you bear with us as we identify
and correct them.
The following
categories require further explanation:
Grades Served:
Each school is designated as "Elementary," "Secondary,"
or "Both." "Elementary" is considered to serve
grades K-6, and "Secondary" to serve grades 7-12. If a
school serves students at both levels, we used the designation of
"Both."
LEP:
This refers to students who are considered to be "Limited English
Proficient."
Poverty:
This figure is based on the number of students who are eligible
for the national free and reduced lunch program.
Mobility:
This category refers to the number or percentage of students who
started the school year in September and left before the end of
the school year.
Graduation
Rate: If a school does not serve 12th graders, this information
does not appear in its profile.
Number of
Teachers: Some schools list their administrative and support
staff together with their teaching staff. While they are certainly
important, this report does not consider individuals such as principals,
directors, teacher assistants, or technical support personnel in
this category. Also, we are not distinguishing between full-time
and part-time teachers.
Board makeup:
This category generally refers to the number of teachers and/or
staff members, parents, and community members that make up a school's
board of directors.
Last Financial
Audit: This refers to the most recent school year for which
a school reports that a financial audit was done. For most schools,
this is 2001-2002.
School Success:
An external consultant did an evaluation of each school's academic
achievement based on their annual report. Schools were given this
draft and were asked to review, modify, and ultimately take responsibility
for this section. They were encouraged to present a balanced, multiple
measure picture of the factors that contribute to their students'
success, giving appropriate context and using concrete examples
(i.e., graduation rates, standardized tests, success for unique
learners, and success in areas such as service learning and student/parent
satisfaction). Schools responded to this section in different ways,
as represented by the wide range of variation in the profiles.
State Test
Results: This data is available to the public on the website
of the Minnesota Department of Children, Families, and Learning.
The abbreviation of "NA" means that this data is not available
from the state either because too few students were tested to report
their scores and protect their anonymity, or because this school
was not open in 2001-2002.
|
Minnesota Charter School Resource Center
