Creating Working Relationships: How Can School Districts and Charter Schools Work Together Effectively? Author: Jo Ann Izu

As charter schools become permanent features of many school districts and their numbers steadily increase, learning what charter schools and stronger school-district relationships have to offer to the larger school system becomes more important. Drawing upon WestEd's evaluation of 13 charter schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, this knowledge brief highlights the difficulties of balancing the twin needs of charter school autonomy and accountability, and the implications for how charter schools and districts can work together. The brief identifies key challenges in district-school relationships (particularly when districts serve as the sponsoring agency) and outlines some ways in which districts and charter schools can work together more effectively.