Charter schools come in all shapes and sizes, and they call their leader a wide range of terms: executive director, head of school, school director, principal, and CEO.
In BoardOnTrack lexicon, we have chosen to call the person at the very top of the org chart the CEO. A charter school is a multimillion dollar public enterprise, and many of the flaws of charter schools come from not having the right leader/leadership structure in place. The schools that we see being successful typically have some one at the top who serves as a CEO—not just the instructional lead, but conducts effective oversight of the financial health and operational systems of the school, as well as fund-raises and works effectively with the board.
See our definition of a BoardSavvy CEO.
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