The bulleted items below provide a general overview of the Institute's Application Review Cycle.  Note that a more extensive discussion of these items is provided in the Institute's Application Kit (in the Frequently Asked Questions document and Section III). 

• All applicants will be notified of the receipt of their applications.

• Institute staff will conduct an initial review of the application for completeness and basic soundness to determine whether the proposal meets the standards set by the Charter Schools Act. If an application does not meet basic standards, the application will receive no further review. Institute staff will contact the applicant by telephone to convey the basic reasons for not advancing the application in the process and discuss the options available at this point.

• If the application does meet the basic standards, it is reviewed by Institute academic, fiscal and legal staff, and a copy of the application is sent to external panels for independent reviews by nationally recognized charter school experts.

• Institute staff interviews the application's founding team, including applicants and proposed members of the charter school's board of trustees.

• The Institute continues review of applications for fiscal and educational soundness, and compliance with all other applicable laws, rules and regulations.

• Those applications moving forward in the process begin a series of exchanges with Institute staff known as the RFA process.

• The applicant and proposed board of trustees of those applications being moved forward in the process are then interviewed by members of the Committee on Charter Schools of the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York.

• The Committee on Charter Schools--informed by the Charter Schools Institute and their own interview with applicants--forwards any recommended charters for action by the full State University Board of Trustees.

• Upon approval by the Board of Trustees, a charter agreement between the Charter Schools Institute and the charter school applicants must be executed. Within five days of entering a charter agreement, the agreement is submitted to the Board of Regents.

The Regents may then issue the charter (if they fail to act within 90 days, the charter is automatically issued), or return it with comments.

The University Trustees can take one of three actions when the Regents return a proposed charter. The Trustees can re-submit the proposed charter unchanged. They may also re-submit the proposed charter with modifications. The Trustees may also abandon the charter. The Charter Schools Act sets no timetable for when these actions must take place. Once a proposed charter is re-submitted to the Board of Regents, whether it has been modified or not, the Regents have 30 days to issue the charter. If after 30 days the Regents do not act, the proposed charter is deemed approved and issued by operation of law.