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PCSD is presenting at the CSDC 2022 Charter Schools Leadership Update Conference in Sacramento alongside our partners HJ Sims and LISC.

Education Session:

School Daze: Navigating the Facility Financing Maze
November 15, 2022 | 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm

For many charter school leaders and their boards throughout the country, navigating the need for a high-quality facility remains one of their most significant organizational challenges. Add the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and plotting a course through current and future facility needs has become an even more challenging exercise. Is your school planning a facilities expansion or renovation? Join us to learn the key to planning a successful facilities project and understand the potential cost of that project. During our session, a panel of charter school experts will introduce school leaders to the critical elements of project planning and creditworthiness. We will begin our session with a brief icebreaker to gauge who is in the room and their level of facility financing knowledge. Our four experts will then introduce the critical elements of facility project planning and credit worthiness. Following the panel, attendees will be guided through an exercise that estimates key facility project costs. To conclude the session, panelists will work with attendees in small groups to answer their facility financing questions. Attendees will walk away from our session with the tools to solve their facilities challenges.

Presenters:

• Kahlmus Eatman, Chief Operating Officer, Pacific Charter School Development
• Kaiti Wang, Vice President, HJ Sims
• Crystal Langdon, Director of Lending, Local Initiatives Support Corporation
• Kelly Theofanis, Loan Officer, Charter School Financing, Local Initiatives Support Corporation

I’ve always tried to make the world a better place–leave it better than you found it. From the US Marine Corps to the Houston Land Bank, I’ve been driven by the idea of service and defense of those in need—that we accomplish more by working together than we do apart. That’s why I’m excited to be joining the PCSD team, as the founding Project Director for Texas Charter School Development. 

Like many relationships these days, PCSD and I met online. When I came across the job posting, it felt like a full-circle moment. As a kid in the Gulfgate area of Houston, I was lucky that my parents had the option of enrolling me in HISD’s vanguard & magnet schools. As a transfer student, I got used to the idea of attending a school that offered programs and experiences my neighborhood schools didn’t. But because there were limited transfer seats, my friends didn’t have the same opportunities I did. That showed me how important it is for parents and kids to have options.

After high school and the Marine Corps, I studied economics and sociology at Rice University. I became fascinated by the sociology and economics of a city: how market forces can drive the need to revitalize communities like the one I grew up in. That was the beginning of my path into real estate development, which accelerated when I became a member of one of the founding classes of the graduate real estate MBA program at the University of Houston.

After grad school, I worked for one of Houston’s most prominent real estate developers at the Welcome Group, building and renovating spaces to meet the needs of office and industrial clients. Still driven by a desire to ‘make a difference’ to the world around me, my focus turned to the Houston Land Bank–working to develop affordable housing by acquiring and reactivating vacant and/or underutilized properties.

As a sociology major, I know that improving educational outcomes leads to other improved ‘life’ outcomes throughout a community. From working on build-to-suit industrial projects, I know what is needed to tailor new or existing spaces to fit needs—from land acquisition to design & construction to property management. And from my work in affordable housing, I know how to take folks who have limited experience and understanding of real estate development and walk them through the many moving parts. With TCSD, I’m excited to bring together all these skills and lessons and unite them with my personal experience and education.

This is PCSD’s first time expanding to a new region since 2017. And Houston feels like a natural fit. We’re an entrepreneurial city, where people face tough challenges head on, and hustle up, to bring their vision to life. We are the birthplace of some of the country’s biggest charter school networks, like KIPP, YES Prep, and Harmony.

But there is also a community of emerging and single-site charter schools—many of them led by educators of color—who don’t have the capacity to handle facilities needs in-house. TCSD will be a one-stop facilities shop for these smaller & under-resourced charter schools. We are the only charter school facility development nonprofit in Texas offering strategic planning, project management, and access to capital all in one place.

A beautiful school building is more than just a nice building. It’s a landmark for the community. When I worked with Houston Land Bank and community meetings were held in neighborhood schools, folks would tell me about how they, their kids, and their grandkids all went to that school. By building attractive, functional educational facilities that last 30, 40, 50 years or more, I’m excited to give people something they can point to and be proud of as part of their neighborhood and life shaping experiences for generations to come.

Congratulations to Fenton Academies in Sun Valley on completing their new Annex building and elevator project!

The Sun Valley site was originally developed into a facility for two Fenton elementary schools in 2015. This project provides Fenton Academies with an additional 20,000 sf of educational space to house their middle school students, and a new three-story elevator to provide ADA access to the existing parking garage.

You can read more about the project here.

Congratulations to Yu Ming Charter School on opening their Carolyn campus in San Leandro!

Yu Ming will offer their K-3 Mandarin Immersion program at this campus. Formerly occupied by Key Academy, the campus is reusing the existing portable units at the site and is excited to serve more families at this location.

PCSD was happy to partner with them on their continued use application with the Alameda County Planning Department in order to secure the use of this site. Yu Ming started this process with the county late 2021 and received approval in January 2022. Then, they solidified the location approvals with Alameda County Office of Education in order to start operating there for the 22-23 school year.

Yu Ming is a non-profit, tuition-free K-8 public charter school and was founded in 2011 by a group of diverse families. Yu Ming’s mission is to nurture an inclusive and diverse community to become empowered, engaged, and outstanding global citizens. Yu Ming is a 2019 National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence, a 2020 California Distinguished School and the first Mandarin immersion public charter school in the state.

I had the opportunity to host a group of 15 college students interning with Construction Industry Workforce Initiative (CIWI). Students represented colleges from throughout Northern California, including San Jose State, San Francisco State, Sacramento State, UC Davis, and UC Merced. We visited Blanca Alvarado and Jose Hernandez Schools, which are two K-8 Alpha Public Schools co-located on an Alum Rock Union School District site in San Jose. They are finishing up Phase II construction that will add an additional 90 seats in three modular classrooms. I asked the students a few questions about the day.

1. Why did you decide to participate in the CIWI program this summer?

• CIWI is one of the few programs open to students in the first two years of college.
• CIWI represents diversity and that is something I was looking for in a program.
• I wanted to gain real world experience and better understand what it takes to make a project happen.

2. How do you see yourself using your CIWI experience this summer?

• The practical experience helps me better understand my education.
• It helps me in career decisions.
• I want to participate in more practical programs.

3. Are you interested in pursuing a career in construction, engineering, or a related field?

• Finance and Estimating
• Mechanical Engineering
• Environmental Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Architecture
• Construction Management

4. What was the highlight of your experience today?

• Learning what it takes to make a project happen from inception through construction.
• I did not realize how many steps it takes or how long it takes to develop, design, process, fund, and construct a project.

The Advancement Fund, a partnership between Pacific Charter School Development (PCSD) and Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), is aimed at investing in facilities for early and single-site operators who are Black-led or educating a majority of Black students. The Fund will provide low-cost, project-enabling debt capital to leaders looking to grow their schools.

Starting with a pilot fund and accompanying market research, we believe our project- and place-based approach can be replicated in target markets across the country. We seek to form a coalition: marrying facility development and charter school expertise, philanthropic capital, and private sector capital in order to face systemic racism head-on and provide economic opportunities for Black businesses and professionals.