Luke Justice ’12Journal 1
I arrived at the Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS) without any prior experience or knowledge of the unique space that they occupy. INCS is a nonprofit association of charter schools in Illinois that provides services to its members under two broad categories of support: political and legislative advocacy and direct, school-level technical assistance to improve operational and instructional capacity.
I came to INCS to design and implement a vendor membership program, the primary goal of which is to expand access for our charter schools to businesses and nonprofits that can help improve school outcomes, either from an operational or academic perspective. The initial stage of my project was almost entirely researched based. I quickly realized that there a number of similar organizations to INCS around the country which are collectively called charter support organizations (CSOs). Using other CSOs as a benchmark, I formulated a series of recommendations for a vendor program that made sense for INCS. My fourth week into the job I met with the president to present my findings. The meeting was a success and he gave me the green light to move forward with implementation.
Working with INCS is my first real employment in the education sector, and even though it is only an internship, it is the first big step toward my full transition out of the private sector and into the world of education. I have only ever worked at a large corporation, so not only is the sector new, but working for a small nonprofit is quite a change, and mostly for the positive. The organization is nimble and has lots of opportunity for high impact projects, the only constraint is resources.
Journal 2
I am three weeks into the implementation of the new business membership program, and have already begun to hit a few unanticipated snags. I have been working with our in-house data team and chief operations officer to solicit RFPs from two outside firms to build the website directory that will serve as the focal point for the program. In the meantime, I have been soliciting applications from businesses and nonprofits that want to serve our charter school members. A few applications have trickled in, but I am stepping up the direct outreach to build stronger relationships with potential new business partners and more actively sell the merits of the program. As always, implementation never goes quite how you planned it or exactly on time.
PortionPac is one company that we have established strong ties with and I am looking forward to helping get their message out to our schools. They are a sustainable cleaning supplies company that manufactures highly concentrated, pre-measured cleaning products that reduce the resources used throughout the lifecycle of production, storage, distribution, and disposal, minimize the adverse effects of chemicals on the environment, and eliminate the unsafe and ineffective habits of traditional cleaning procedures. They are working with several charter schools in Chicago to help maintain sanitary and clean learning environments in a safe and non-toxic way. I visited their manufacturing facility and was blown away by their building design and their employment practices. They were not only selling sustainable products, but producing them in ways that reduced energy consumption and improved the working lives of their employees.
This project has only strengthened my belief that the charter school model offers unique, entrepreneurial opportunities not captured by the traditional large urban district. School leaders can use their budgets to partner with sustainable cleaning companies like PortionPac, or high-impact nonprofits such as Mikva Challenge, which works with students to build the next generation of civic leaders, activists, and policy makers. Mikva gives students and teachers the opportunity to actively participate in democratic processes so students can learn democracy by experiencing it first-hand. Whether it is finding a reading specialist, or a company that provides economical and healthy lunches, the charter school model affords school leaders the flexibility to leverage all available resources and talent on behalf of a better education for their kids.
