CSO February Newsletter

RESOURCES FOR SCHOOLS

Below are standing resourceful items for our schools to stay up-to-date. Click below!

Building Community, Teaching Tolerance & Talking Race Resources

Calendar of Collections

Charter School Manual

Charter School Payment Calendar

Charter Sector Updates

City of Philadelphia’s “Safer at Home” Guidelines

COVID Quarantine/Closure Form

CSO School FAQs

Enrollment Codes

CSO Winter 2022 Convening Webinar and Slide Deck

NEXT NEWSLETTER

Click here to view the CSO January 2022 Newsletter. We encourage you to share this sign-up link with colleagues who wish to become newsletter subscribers!

Please email the CSO at charter[email protected] if you have feedback, questions, submissions, and/or if you would like to have your school or one of your scholars featured in an upcoming CSO newsletter.

February 14, 2022

Greetings Sector Leaders,

We hope you all are well and having a strong start to the New Year. Enclosed in this month’s Newsletter are a number of updates related to school operations, so please review items carefully and feel free to contact our office with questions or if we can be helpful at all.

As we near the two-year mark of the pandemic directly impacting school operations, it’s important to acknowledge the incredible flexibility and resourcefulness with which every school has approached the health and safety of your school communities. To support schools with their health and safety efforts, we are excited to share that PDPH, in partnership with Philadelphia Charters for Excellence, will provide all charter schools with the opportunity to obtain one COVID test for each of their students and staff members. More information can be found in the updates section of the Newsletter regarding the process of requesting COVID tests for your school.

As a reminder, we are currently in the preview window for the Draft Organizational Compliance and Viability report. We appreciate the many questions and comments that have come in, and want to reiterate that you should complete the response template added to Epicenter to ensure any feedback and comments you have are centralized. Any feedback or responses to ratings reflected in that report should be shared with the CSO by February 22, 2022. The CSO will be providing rolling responses through early March.

As always, we look forward to continuing to enhance our support and collaboration with all schools throughout the remainder of the school year.

With Thanks,

Peng Chao

Acting Chief, Charter Schools

CSO UPDATES & UPCOMING DEADLINES

Ensure to review pertinent upcoming deadlines and updates below. Deadline dates will be in red for reference. Feel free to contact [email protected] with additional questions.

Free COVID Tests for Charter Students and Staff

Through a partnership between Philadelphia Charters for Excellence and PDPH, all charter schools are eligible to receive one over-the-counter/take home COVID test for each student and staff member. Test kits expire in December 2022.

Schools must complete a test request form prior to picking up supplies. The memo linked here includes step-by-step instructions for completing the test request form as well as information about test pickup times. Once the form is completed, the school point of contact listed on the form will receive follow-up information about pickup time options. Any questions or inquiries can be directed to [email protected] or [email protected].

Transportation Chargeback Updates

In an effort to improve the transportation/attendant chargeback process, starting with SY 2021-22, transportation and attendant charges will be recovered over three periods per year instead of two per year. The three chargeback periods will be September through November, December through February, and March through June. Please ensure this information is shared with the appropriate Epicenter and operations point(s) of contact at your school.

The first set of charges for September through November 2021 will be uploaded to Epicenter on February 18, 2022. Questions and comments are due to the Office of Special Finance by emailing them at [email protected] by March 18, 2022. The Office of Special Finance anticipates recovering costs for the first set of chargebacks from the April 5, 2022 subsidy payment.

District-Wide Survey Update

The District-Wide survey will open on March 14. Paper copies will be mailed to charter households for any charter schools that opted in to receive paper mailings. Please note: translated surveys are available for families online in Spanish, Chinese, Albanian, Arabic, French, Khmer, Portuguese, Russian, and Vietnamese. For information about updates to this year’s survey, please see the memo linked here.

PHLConnectED Year 3

To support continued PHLConnectED operations for a third year, the PHLConnectED team will be in communication with schools regarding Year 3 MOUs. Specifically, the City of Philadelphia will be asking all participating LEAs for a program contribution in year 3 of PHLConnectED. For more information regarding year 3 operations and next steps, please refer to the slidedeck linked here. Questions can also be directed to [email protected].

PA Secure and PIMS

To support Information Systems (IS) with PA Secure ID facilitation, we are requesting that operations personnel refer to the spreadsheet linked here and confirm the PIMS primary contact currently listed. Having accurate data will allow for Jessica Fallon, your Intermediate Unit (IU) contact, to contact appropriate personnel at your school with pertinent updates and guidance. You may contact Jessica Fallon at [email protected] with any related questions.

ESY Updates

The District’s Office of Transportation is beginning ESY planning. The CSO will update the sector later this month about the method for submitting ESY calendars to support this planning effort. As a first step, please complete the brief form linked here to indicate whether your school is hosting virtual, in-person, or no ESY programming.

Voter Education with City Commissioner Deeley

In an effort to empower the education sector with knowledge of the voting and electoral process, The Office of City Commissioner and Chairwoman Lisa M. Deeley is offering Voter Information Sessions both virtually and/or in-person upon request, as a way to engage with school communities. Please read the letter linked here for more information, including how and where to request a session.

Beating the Odds Annual Event with NASA

Beating The Odds and NASA invite charter students, specifically a cohort of 15-18 middle and high school students per school/network, to join a research challenge scheduled for Thursday, May 5, 2022 at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Students will have the opportunity to explore the Inspiration4 Mission, as well as learn about the life of Inspiration4 Mission Specialist, Chris Sembroski. For information, click here. Questions about the application process should be directed to Theresa Showalter at [email protected].