A group of charter school leaders met at the Arizona Charter Schools Association office on December 12, 2007 to begin a discussion of quality standards for charter schools. These standards and the process to create them are part of a larger plan to work with the sponsoring organization's reauthorization process. The first draft of charter schools quality statements and indicators are included following the summary of meeting actions.
Meeting summary
1. The group did not complete its main purpose of creating a framework paragraph for each of the focus questions. It did create a process to complete it.
2. The group completed primary indicators for the following:
a. Quality School
b. School culture/Leadership
3. The group created a new focus area called School Choice and drafted primary indicators for all three focus areas.
4. The group agreed to meet next January 22 or 23. At that meeting ite will discuss governance, and business/financial integrity and transparency.
5. The group also agreed to meet next February 12; both meetings will be 10:00 am to 1:00 pm with lunch provided

Quality School Focus Areas and Primary Indicators
Academic quality
· School creates flexible systems to ensure student success
· School is meeting or exceeding norms in student growth and percentile rankings
· Placement of students into the continuum of school curriculum is guided by student skill level
· School measures individual achievement and growth over time and designs and implements effective interventions to ensure student mastery
· School develops staff training and evaluation process to certify capacity of teaching professionals
· High quality teachers are measured, accountable, and rewarded
School leadership
· School leadership is defined as the ability to influence the school’s mission, vision and values
· School leaders create an affective school culture that permeates the entire organization, staff, students, parents and stakeholders
· School leaders create the capacity/environment for continuous improvement and growth
· School leaders create a collaborative decision making process based on the school’s established criteria/screens
School choice
· School measures and tracks growth of parent satisfaction
· School measures student retention
· School measures number of applications for an open seat
· School measures increase in volunteer hours by stakeholders