Providing Choice is a Florida Charter School Alliance podcast. The Florida Alliance is a non-profit charter school support and advocacy organization. Our mission is to increase student achievement and meet the demand for parental choice by assisting high quality public charter schools in Florida. On this episode, we talk about the school leader-governing board relationship with Carlos Alvarez, the principal of the City of Hialeah Educational Academy.

He runs a municipal public charter school that was founded in 2008 by the city council members and the mayor of the City of Hialeah.

That city is located Northwest of Miami for close to 50 years, it’s been home to low-income Hispanic families from throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. For many of its residents, Hialeah is their first home in America, and for many of their children, the city of Hialeah educational academy represents the first opportunity for a high quality education and a stepping stone to college.

We sat with Carlos in his office on a busy Friday afternoon. We spoke about the many accomplishments on campus, student achievement, graduation rates, his outreach to parents and the community and how his governing board and his relationship with them plays a vital role in the success and growth of the charter school.

We asked Carlos to tell us how to best communicate with charter school governing board members, and, more importantly, how to engage them so they become a school leader’s partner in the school’s successes and improvement process.

For a complete listing of our podcasts and webinars created for charter school leaders, governing board members, stakeholders, and prospective founders, visit our website at flcharteralliance.org