About NECSN Membership
The Northeast Charter Schools Network (NECSN) dedicated to strengthening and supporting
charter schools in New York and Connecticut. We are a membership organization that works
with all schools, whether operating individually or as part of a management network. An annual
membership in NECSN is available to all New York and Connecticut charter schools via a dual
dues structure: one for advocacy and one for services. An advocacy membership is $15 per
student. For access to school services there is an optional $10 per student fee.
Advocacy Efforts
Advocacy is crucial to the strength of the charter school movement, and your NESCN
membership directly supports these efforts. By joining NECSN, you help ensure that state
lawmakers and policy makers hear directly from you about your needs and concerns, and the
impact their decisions have on the children you serve. Advocacy members also receive:
- Updates on legislative activities, including actions on bills affecting charter schools and
call-to-action Legislative Alerts;
- NECSN Bulletins on news and events affecting charter schools;
- Help-Desk assistance through the call center for advice on the range of issues affecting
your charter school, from compliance advice to governance issues, testimony support or
media and social media;
- Access to our annual lobby day, including scheduling appointments for schools to
meet with elected officials (coming soon).
Member Services
We know you are trying to always get better – whether in instruction, assessment, building school
culture, financial management, governance, procurement and more. Helping you improve is core
to our mission as well. We know you can’t always be on top of the latest and best research and
training techniques in these areas, which is why we’ve created Elevate, a fee-based offering that
helps schools better serve their students and families. Elevate has services to guide and support
educators and boards throughout the entire life of the charter.
ElIn addition to access to our Elevate program, NECSN service members also enjoy:
- Direct access to preferred vendors, all providing either a discount or free service to our
membership;
- Deeply discounted professional development classes for teachers and other school
staff covering a wide variety of items- academic, student discipline, school culture and
many more topics;
- Discounted rate on any Elevate Charter School services;
- Discounted rates at our annual conference.
A Team You Can Count On
NECSN’s advocacy and charter school service professionals have been fighting for charter
schools for years – whether it’s pro-active advocacy on such issues as fairer funding or working
to defeat the bevy of anti-charter legislation that arises every year in both Albany and Hartford.
In addition, we have decades of experience with journalists at very high levels – which allows us
to shape the charter story with newspapers, TV news crews, editorial boards, radio reporters, talk
shows, bloggers, Tweeters and more.
The vast majority of charters in New York and Connecticut have endorsed our value to them
and the charter movement by joining as members. However, unless we continue the day-to-day
struggle for charter schools, our successes will be short-lived.
Please feel free to contact our office in New York at (518) 694-3110 or in Connecticut at (855)
694-3110 if you have questions about NECSN’s services and benefits, or the important role we
play to help support and strengthen your ability to serve children.