Below are answers to the questions we are most commonly asked by students, parents and legislators. If your question is not listed here, please contact us. We’d love to tell you more about ResponsiveEd in person!
History
- Who is Responsive Education Solutions?
- Are RES schools public or private?
- Is there any tuition?
- Are the schools accredited?
- Do RES schools promote parent involvement?
- Are students in charter schools required to take the state TAKS test?
- Can part of the mission be that the charter school is character based rather than spiritually based?
Educational
- What about curriculum? Is there any freedom in choosing curriculum?
- Is the RES curriculum aligned to TEKS and to the TAKS test?
- Are there additional study guides or materials to assist students in preparing for the state exam?
- Screening of students? What is the process?
- Are there specific academic standards that students must meet to qualify for enrollment?
- How do students in the middle to high school grades transition?
- What is the process for them to apply for these jobs?
- Are area teachers’ salaries usually similar to those in the regular public school?
- Are all school employees part of the teacher retirement program?
- If we have teachers who are degreed but not certified, is there a program to help them get certified?
- How have the college preparatory graduates performed on the SAT test compared to those of other schools in your district?
Facility
- What is the space requirement for the classrooms?
- What is the arrangement for using current buildings if the school is a conversion?
- Do you carry insurance on the buildings?
- Do you provide all the classroom equipment?
- How much office space is needed locally?
Operations
- How is the local charter school governed?
- How does the funding come to us?
- How are the bills of the school paid?
- Would our current students’ records be maintained?
- What is the normal length of your agreements with schools like ours?
- What is the nature of our relationship with you in this endeavor?
- How does the child nutrition program work in charter schools?
Athletics
- What is the length of time to get into UIL regarding athletics?
- In a school our size is there usually a full-time athletic director or is that a stipend position?
- How are athletics funded in a charter school?
General Questions
- What items are on the timeline for transitioning a private school to a charter school?
- Do you have a checklist for these transitions?
- Are there different kinds of charter schools?
History
Who is Responsive Education Solutions?
Responsive Education Solutions (RES) is a non-profit, 501(c) 3 organization that has a contract with the Texas Education Agency and the State Board of Education to offer free choice educational services through charter schools. RES was formed in 1998 as Eagle Educational Reform Learning Systems, Inc. and was awarded an unprecedented 15 at-risk charter schools in communities all over Texas. RES opened all 15 charter schools in the fall of 1999 with over 750 students in the first year. Over the next 10 years, RES has grown to over 30 campuses, serving over 4,000 students statewide. RES now operates Premier High Schools, Vista Academies, and iSchool High.
Premier High Schools serve grades 6-12 and primarily offer opportunities for students at risk of dropping out. Vista Academies primarily serve grades K-5 and offer innovative small school environments focused on individualized monitoring and attention with high academic standards. iSchool High, a science, technology, engineering, and math academy, is designed to immerse students in a rigorous liberal arts program in a project based learning environment with Advanced Placement and industry internships that engage the gifted and talented students’ interests.
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Are RES schools public or private?
All RES schools are public schools with the same accreditation benefit afforded any public school district in Texas.
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All RES schools are tuition free just like any public school in Texas. Parents may be charged nominal fees for extracurricular activities similar to a public school.
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Yes. The district is accredited not only through the Texas Education Agency (TEA) but also through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Currently, RES is the only charter school district to receive district accreditation from SACS.
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Do RES schools promote parent involvement?
Yes. RES schools encourage the involvement of parents in the education of their children.
Volunteers are welcomed.
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Are students in charter schools required to take the state TAKS test?
Yes. All students in 3rd grade through high school are required to take the state tests. All RES schools take great care to provide optimum preparation for these tests to help students successfully achieve their potential. The state legislature has passed legislation that will change how state-mandated testing is done in the next few years. Below is a summary:
Phase out the TAKS test for grades 9-11 and phase in the following end-of-course assessments starting with 9th grade students in the 2011-2012 school year:
| English I, II, III |
| Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II |
| Biology, Chemistry, Physics |
- In order to graduate, students will be required to earn a cumulative score within each core subject area, equal to earning a grade of 70 on each exam. Students scoring below 70 will receive accelerated instruction and have the opportunity to be retested. Students must score at least 60 in order to count the score toward the cumulative number.
- The score a student achieves on the end-of-course exam shall be worth 15% of the student’s overall grade for that course.
- All assessments (grades 3-12) shall be developed in a manner that allows a measure of student improvement to be calculated.
- Assessments include a separate series of questions to measure college readiness and the need for developmental coursework in higher education. Exams in lower-level courses will have questions to determine students’ readiness for advanced coursework.
- All students will complete a college-readiness diagnostic assessment in the 8th and 10th grades, and students may choose to take a college entrance exam in the 11th grade, all at state expense.
Are teachers in the RES schools required to be certified or highly qualified?
Charter school teachers are not required to be certified; however, all RES teaching staff are required to meet the standards of highly qualified under the National No Child Left Behind Act. Although charter school teachers are not required to be certified, RES takes great pride in recruiting and retaining certified teacher staff in all of the core academic subject areas.
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Can part of the mission be that the charter school is character based rather than spiritually based?
Yes. In fact, this is part of our system for RES schools. We can help leadership develop a set of mission statements and belief system documents that will be congruent with their campus.
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Educational
What about curriculum? Is there any freedom in choosing curriculum?
In a RES school, we choose the curriculum at the district level. We also can provide training and support for this. We offer various curriculum options from state-adopted textbooks with study guides, online- and computer-based curriculum, and district-developed and district-aligned individualized workbooks.
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Is the RES curriculum aligned to TEKS and to the TAKS test?
Yes. All RES curriculum goes through an alignment process and integrates the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). All RES curriculum options are optimized for preparing students for the TAKS exam.
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Are there additional study guides or materials to assist students in preparing for the state exam?
Yes. RES schools utilize a number of supplemental curriculum options that assist students in preparing for the state exam.
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Screening of students? What is the process?
All RES schools are open enrollment. Therefore, there is no screening per se. The school must determine if the students/parents will abide by the behavioral and academic expectation of our educational program. Therefore, we require all students to submit an application for consideration of enrollment. We also interview every applicant and their parents. During this time, the principal will discuss the expectations of the program to attend school every day, behave accordingly and meet the rigorous academic standards that are set, along with tutorials after school and/or on Saturdays if the student is not doing well. The district provides a contract that parents must sign. It is during this time that the parent or administration may decide that our program does not meet the needs of some applicants. Even after a student is accepted into the program, he/she could be returned to their “zoned” school for not abiding by the contractual behavior and academic expectations that must be set during the interview. In addition, we can make decisions not to enroll a student based on serious or severe conduct, behavioral, or discipline situations. Students are enrolled on a first-come, first-served basis from within our approved geographic boundaries. Once all open positions are filled, a lottery system is used for selecting students to be enrolled.
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Are there specific academic standards that students must meet to qualify for enrollment?
No. Being open enrollment, we accept students unless they have serious issues that we may not be able to address (this is rare). However, not every student can be successful with a program that focuses on the importance of students accepting responsibility for their own learning. Our middle/high school program is based on an individualized approach where the learning is facilitated by a lead teacher who has been trained to encourage independent learning but also to monitor each student’s progress continuously and to “teach” objectives that continue to challenge some students. To be able to learn independently will require some academic skills. We discuss those expectations with the parents during the interview. We discuss the provision of additional staff to work with students that might be struggling; however, we want parents to understand that our program might not work for every student.
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How do students in the middle to high school grades transition?
Students? academic records would be evaluated by school staff and academic projections developed for each student. State requirements for graduation would be reviewed and students would be placed on a personalized academic graduation plan. Some of our schools have strong middle school programs. These students ordinarily have excellent attendance and are highly focused because of our small teacher/pupil ratio where attention can be given to all students. We adhere to the academic requirements for a middle school program and deliver the instruction on an individualized basis as well. Many of our middle school students feel safe and secure so their attention is on the academic program rather than on social distractions. We are continually testing our students with pre/post data from the Stanford tests and district benchmarks. Our middle school students become some of our best high school students and they transition very well.
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What is the process for them to apply for these jobs?
Our administration meets with educators to provide a smooth personnel process. Applications will be distributed and reviewed by our Human Resources department.
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Are area teachers’ salaries usually similar to those in the regular public school?
Salaries are based on formulas with local ISD compensations taken into consideration. Although charters schools receive less overall funding than ISDs, each RES school strives to be as competitive as possible with our teachers’ salaries.
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Are all school employees part of the teacher retirement program?
Yes. All staff are eligible to participate in the Teacher Retirement System (TRS).
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We recommend iteach Texas (the largest online certification program in Texas). We can help with this process.
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As a result of the fact that we have an Advanced Placement Program on our high school campuses, we also provide AP coordinators that encourage students to take the SAT/ACT as a part of college admissions requirements. SAT preparation is available on our computer programs. Our individualized approach directly results in better reading and comprehension skills. Depending on the academic background that students had or did not have, how well the students do is an individual matter. Some of our students do extremely well due to the rigorous college readiness expectation that was set at the home and at the school for those students. We have become more intentional about building a culture of college readiness in all of our schools and expect to see even higher scores for all students. The SAT average varies by campus depending on the school leadership, staff, students, and the college-readiness culture.
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Facility
What is the space requirement for the classrooms?
At RES, we use the state recommendations as a guide. Typically, a classroom should be a minimum of 650 square feet.
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What is the arrangement for using current buildings if the school is a conversion?
A tenant landlord contractual relationship is entered into with the owner of the facility. The charter school occupies the facility as a tenant and pays a pre-negotiated monthly rental amount for use of the facility. If applicable, all issues regarding shared space are negotiated as a part of the lease agreement between the charter school and the landlord.
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Do you carry insurance on the buildings?
RES does not carry insurance on the building itself. However, RES does carry content insurance to cover any capital assets maintained on the property. RES also maintains student accident insurance and general liability insurance.
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Do you provide all the classroom equipment?
We provide equipment, supplies, and materials designed to successfully operate the campus as needed. If some of this equipment is already available, the charter school would negotiate to use these items as a part of the lease. All items that are the property of the landlord would be inventoried prior to the charter school taking occupancy of the building.
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How much office space is needed locally?
Typically, the school should have a clearly identified entrance (lobby), an office for the Director (Principal), office space for the school secretary, a secured space for student records, and several additional offices for assistant principals and special education or ESL staff.
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Operations
How is the local charter school governed?
All governance is ultimately managed through the RES district school board. Local campuses are given leadership support and administrative governance under our administrative management.
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How does the funding come to us?
Funding for the charter school is received at the district office through a depository contract submitted to the Texas Education Agency. All student data is submitted to our PEIMS (Public Education Information Management System) Department through our customized student data management system and then uploaded to the TEA. Our funding is based mainly on student attendance. All school staff responsible for attendance accounting are trained by our staff and monitored on an annual basis for compliance with policies and procedures for reporting student attendance.
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How are the bills of the school paid?
All of the bills, as negotiated and documented in the lease agreement with the school, are paid from our district Accounts Payable office in Lewisville, Texas. Rent for the school facility is paid on a monthly basis and is mailed to the Landlords address. Utilities are negotiated as a part of the lease agreement, and any amount owed by the charter school for these items is billed to our administrative offices for processing.
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Would our current students’ records be maintained?
All records, historical and cumulative in nature, are maintained and kept current at the school location.
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What is the normal length of your agreements with schools like ours?
Most lease agreements are 3 to 5 years.
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What is the nature of our relationship with you in this endeavor?
Generally, our relationship is defined by the tenant/landlord relationship; however, RES is highly sensitive to the transition concerns and issues inherent in this process. Experience in this area has helped us develop a true partnership relationship with entities we work with.
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How does the child nutrition program work in charter schools?
RES participates in the state Child Nutrition Program. Depending on the income qualifications of the parents, students qualify for either free or reduced-price lunch. Training on this process is conducted by our district staff.
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Athletics
What is the length of time to get into UIL regarding athletics?
UIL accepts schools into their system every even school year. Depending on the year the school converts to a charter, there may be a one-year waiting period. Although athletic activities have not been a major focus of our previous campuses, RES is dedicated to responding to the communities’ needs and doing all that is necessary to see that these activities are developed and coordinated with the local community.
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In a school our size is there usually a full-time athletic director or is that a stipend position?
Depending on the desires of the parents and the community, staff would be hired on an as needed basis, depending on the sports activities that are chosen. A budget would be determined based on student participation in the various sports activities.
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How are athletics funded in a charter school?
Athletics can be funded through several avenues, such as gate receipts, athletic booster clubs, Parent Teacher Organizations, local fundraising efforts, as well as funding from the general education funds received to operate the school. Fundraising activities would be encouraged and students may be required to pay a participation fee for uniforms.
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General Questions
What items are on the timeline for transitioning a private school to a charter school?
RES has a system designed to transition a school to a charter. These timelines can be successfully implemented in a 3-6 month timeframe. The longer preparation time we have, the more successful the transition will be.
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Do you have a checklist for these transitions?
Yes. All systems in RES are documented and organized. In addition, a specific campus plan is developed by the Regional Superintendent to ensure a smooth transition.
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Are there different kinds of charter schools?
RES has different methodologies (research-based) that meet student needs. These methodologies are designed for high expectation environments. These can be reviewed by visiting our website at www.responsiveed.com.
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