Once a new school application is approved, many authorizers tell founding teams, “Now the hard work begins.” In other words, this is the moment at which the founding team’s plans, capacities, vision, and engagement with the community all must be activated to bring the ideas on paper to life. This stage is called Ready to Open (RTO).
This RTO guidance from NACSA helps create a strong RTO process puts authorizers and founding teams on the same page. Here you’ll find two resources:
- RTO Playbook – This playbook aims to provide authorizers with knowledge and resources that support the planning and execution of a quality RTO process. This playbook is also useful for new school developers, incubators, and others involved with opening new charter schools.
- RTO Criteria – This checklist provides authorizers and founding teams with a dynamic list of criteria that should be met in a successful RTO process.