Ready to Found
You’re embarking on a journey that will change futures for ND students. Let’s go!
Applications open Fall 2026!
Where do I start?
- Go high-level first (and this is the fun part for founders!). Think through and put down on paper your school’s mission, vision, theme and academic approach.
- Who will you be? What will you be known for? Who is your ideal student?
Dream
- Identify the community you wish to serve, looking at demographics, need, and the existence of private school options (if accessible financially to your demographic) that may be providing a similar academic focus.
- Start a list of key people you know and trust who you would want on your governing board. And maybe have an initial conversation with them.
- Find a trusted individual to be a sounding board for your ideas and review documents as you begin to prepare them.
Identify
- Begin locating possible school facilities or land where a facility could be built.
- Review the requirements and application process so you can get an idea of what you can expect and what materials you should prepare.
- Look at key dates to determine your target school year for launch.
Plan
Requirements
To qualify for a charter, a prospective school must check these boxes:
- Operate in-person! Online or virtually based schools don’t qualify.
- Have a governing board! To qualify, the school must be under the control of a governing board. The school’s Charter Performance Agreement (more on that in the next point) will determine whether the board members are chosen by election or selected by the charter leadership.
- Officially establish your school with a "Charter Performance Agreement" made between the governing board and the Department of Public Instruction.
- Plan for your school programming to meet or exceed state performance standards (as now measured by the ND A+). What are those standards? Glad you asked!
- Meet a certain number of instructional hours
- Grades K-6 – at least 962.5 hours per year
- Grades 7-12 – at least 1,050 hours per year
- Follow ND high school graduation requirements — earning at least 22 units/credits of coursework and passing the North Dakota Civics Test
- Develop programming that focuses on at-risk students, including English language learners, students in foster care, and students involved with the juvenile justice system.
- Develop programming with a specific academic approach or theme. This is where you focus on unique specialties that draw in families and students like STEM or the arts, or build your school on a particular approach to learning like Montessori, Classical, or project-based learning.
- Teachers must be licensed and meet the same requirements as traditional public school teachers.
Applying
To qualify for a charter, a prospective school must check these boxes:
(Spoiler alert, it’s a long list. But take a deep breath, you got this!):
- School mission and vision
- Academic program
- Grade levels to be offered and growth plan
- Student evaluation plans
- Governance plan
- Organization chart
- Plan to serve at-risk students
- Community input and involvement
- Finances and audits
- Student policies, including discipline plans
- Staff policies
- If converting an existing school to a charter school, include a petition signed by a majority of teachers and parents of students at the existing school
- Include any anticipated agreements with an education service provider for education or management services, with the following information included:
Read More
- The selection process
- Reasoning for selecting the education provider
- Evidence of the provider serving student populations similar to the charter school’s targeted population
- Evidence of demonstrated academic achievement
- (If applicable) documentation of successful management of nonacademic school functions
- Proposed duration of the agreement
- Roles, responsibilities, and scope of services and resources
- Performance evaluation measures and timelines
- Compensation structure
- Methods of performance agreement oversight and enforcement
- Conditions for renewal and termination of the agreement
- An explanation of the relationship between the governing board, the school’s leadership and management team, and the education service provider (how will the governing board and the school’s leadership and management team monitor and evaluate the performance of the education service provider)
- Statement of assurance the governing board and the school’s leadership and management team are legally and operationally independent from the education service provider
- Separate faculty performance agreements from management performance agreements
- The governing board’s right to terminate the performance agreement for failure to meet defined performance standards after notice has been given to the education service provider or any affiliated business entities
- Disclosing and explaining any existing or potential conflicts of interest between the governing board, the school’s leadership and management team, and the education service provider or affiliated business entities
The application process:
Review the list above and gather all the required information and documents for your application. Pro-tip: Create a Word document with each of these items as a page header so you can begin building the necessary content. Then you’ll have it all handy in one place when you’re ready to start your application.
Start your application (NOTE: link not live yet! Stay tuned…). You will be able to create a login and return to the application as you work through it.
Hit “Submit” on your application. (Yay, you did it!)
Notify the school board in the district where the charter school will be located of intent to establish the charter school. You can do that via email. Check out the North Dakota School Boards Association website or Google your district’s website directly for contact information.
NOTE: Remember, if you are converting an existing school to a charter school, your application must include a petition signed by a majority of teachers and parents of students at the existing school. Form coming soon…
Key Dates
Here are important dates and timeframes to keep in mind:
Charter applications become live on Summer 2026.
To launch for the 2026-2027 school year, you must apply within 90 days of applications opening (subject to the finalization of rulemaking).
Within 90 days of your application being filed, the Department of Public Instruction will evaluate your application and notify you of approval or denial.
Within 60 days of your application being approved, the superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction and the charter school’s governing board will execute your Charter Performance Agreement.
You have up to one year after approval to open your charter school. Further delay will require receiving an extension from the Department of Public Instruction.
Every five years you will need to apply for renewal of your application.
Webinars & Events
Stay tuned!
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