Visions To Renew Charter Petition
Visions In Education will request a renewal extension aligned with the Charter renewal for the July 1st, 2025 – June 30th, 2030 term. Every 5 years, Visions will renew its charter petition through its authorizing district, San Juan Unified School District (SJUSD). However, due to the challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, Visions was granted an extension to submit its charter petition.
Visions community members were invited to express their thoughts on Visions In Education’s petition on May 23, 2024. This public hearing can be viewed on www.viedu.org under Board Documents.
Petition In The Making
The project planned since July 2022, incorporated input from various stakeholders, including Instruction, Student Services, Special Education, Human Resources, Business, Senior Executives, Academy Advisory Groups, Business Leadership, Instructional Leadership, the Advisory Board, Office Staff, and feedback from our internal communication site, The Wire.
Some of the major updates to the Charter Petition Elements I-XV include a revised Mission Statement replacing “interpersonal, intrapersonal” with “social-emotional, postsecondary” for better measurability.
Dr. Micah Studer, Chief Academic Officer, explained that these terms were changed to better measure our commitment to our students and community. These terms are widely common and recognized throughout education.
“Visions was challenged with measuring interpersonal and intrapersonal growth, to make this more measurable we chose to update the terminology to better measure and find actionable results for our student’s needs,” said Dr. Studer.
Growing 1% Better
Soren Gutierrez, Director of Accountability & Data Services, added that Visions has grown and changed significantly since its last charter renewal in 2017.
“The challenge was catching up to all the new laws and describing our current practices but at the same time also not being so prescriptive or detailed in our charter that we can’t be flexible in the future,” says Mr. Gutierrez, “On top of that, our educational programs and student demographics changed markedly so there was a wholesale rewrite of many significant portions of the charter to accurately describe the students we serve and the programs we offer.”
What Is A Charter Petition?
Visions’ charter petition outlines rules and regulations regarding school operations, fiscal management, student outcomes, and more. This allows us to operate as an independent charter school.
Why Do Charters Renew
Visions is accountable for documenting its clear practices as outlined for taxpayers, stakeholders, and CA state laws/legislation; this is important for transparency to our communities.
For more information regarding the Charter review process, visit the California Department of Education.
Renewal Process
Visions prepared their charter school renewal cover sheet, written notice, an updated petition (including new legislation enacted after the charter school was originally granted or last renewed) as approved by the chartering authority, and a copy of the written plan adopted by the governing body of the charter school (SJUSD). This totals over 1000+ pages of consolidated work.
The next steps include a submission to the SJUSD in September 2024 and anticipated approval in December 2024.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to drafting this renewal so that Visions can continue to be a driving force in charter education. Visions looks forward to sending its charter petition in September to San Juan Unified partners to reach approval.
