For new charter schools, we work with founders to draft the documents necessary to create a solid legal foundation for the school.
We help founders navigate every step in securing a charter, including corporate formation, applying to the IRS for recognition of tax-exempt status, and reviewing and revising the governance section of the application for a new charter to ensure it clearly and accurately reflects the school’s legal structure.
The scope of work includes:
- Preparing and filing Articles of Incorporation that meet the requirements for a 501(c)(3) school.
- Securing tax exempt status.
- Drafting bylaws and governance policies.
- Drafting student/parent handbooks, including counseling on key decision-points.
- Policy drafting for various school model decision points.
- Contract drafting and review.
- Lease review and facilities negotiations.
- Drafting and review of the governance section of the Charter Application to ensure consistency with legal structure.
FREE DOWNLOAD
How to start a Non-Profit Charter School in Arizona
In this FREE PDF download, you’ll learn what needs to be done before you form a charter school, a step by step process of forming the organization, and applying for tax-exempt status
EXISTING CHARTER SCHOOLS
Does your charter school need day-to-day and/or circumstantial legal services?
We represent existing charter schools in a variety of ways, ranging from outside general counsel to representation on just a single issue. When we serve as outside general counsel, the charter school has counsel ready and waiting for all of your nonprofit tax, corporate law and governance, transactional, and school law issues without having to pay another full-time employee. When an issue is not in our wheelhouse, we co-counsel with experts in that particular field of law. Existing school services include:
- Contract drafting and review
- Real estate, lease, and construction contract review, including AIA documents
- Land purchase and sale
- Drafting and reviewing Charter Contract Amendments
- Policies and procedures
- Conflict of interest issues
- Open Meeting Law and Public Records Law
- Board training
- Constitutional issues (free speech, due process, religion, search and seizure, equal protection, student dress code, etc.)
- School Closings
- Arizona Corporation Commission filings
- Corporate resolutions and board documents
- IRS nonprofit tax compliance
- Legal audits
- Structuring transactions
- Tax-exempt bond financing
Arizona Open Meeting Law
As a board member of a charter school operating in Arizona, you are responsible for knowing and complying with Arizona’s Open Meeting Law. Being well-versed in the requirements of open meeting law is a necessary step to ensuring your charter school’s success. Caritas Law Group attorneys have extensive experience representing charter schools across Arizona on a wide range of open meeting law issues and board training.
EXPANDING CHARTER NETWORKS
The point of building a Charter Management Company (CMO) is to reach more students with a proven school model. When excellent charter school operators feel prepared to scale their impact, students win.
No two charter school models are the same, and likewise, no two CMO structures are the same. Building a CMO requires a careful analysis of the school’s risk tolerance, assets, desired scale and speed of growth, authorizer attitudes, state law issues, etc. We remain at the forefront of both the corporate law and IRS tax regulations impacting CMOs so the school’s tax-exempt status is not imperiled and its assets are best protected. Expansion services include:
- Significant tax law counseling on the IRS’ complex treatment of CMOs
- Risk tolerance counseling to determine which corporate structure best fits the school’s needs
- Entity formation
- Securing tax exempt status (if necessary)
- Drafting governance documents
- Contract drafting and review
- Review of the governance section of a new or replication charter application
- Drafting agreements between the entities, including employee sharing agreements, licensing agreements for intellectual property, and service agreements between the CMO and the school
- Counseling on operating the structure to maintain liability protection
- Ongoing support throughout the expansion process
What legal services does your charter school need?
We will determine the appropriate scope of legal services and fees after consultation with you. Every circumstance is different, and our fee is based on the level of documentation and counsel that you will require.
GET IN TOUCH
Let us help your charter school with all its legal and compliance needs.
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