It depends on how a school is chartered here Dottie. You can get a charter directly from the state, which means that you are paid 100% of the regular funding that any school would receive and you're directly accountable to the state. It's more like you're a district of one school.
Most charters are district-chartered. The public school district has to review and approve of the original charter and renew the approval every 2-5 years (depending on the paperwork). The district keeps a certain percentage of funds for management. In our case, it's 3% of ADA that the district keeps. For that 3%, we use their internet servers, have access to make reservations with transportation (which we pay for) and have access to their liability insurance (which we pay for.) Some charters use their district's business office or HR. Ours does not- we have our own HR, business office, purchasing etc.
Now, the district does not have specific say in the programming but they do have complete access to the results. We have to provide an accountability report, just like any school does, to the district, who in turn provides it to the state. If we are not meeting our accountability requirements, we could be shut down by the district, have the charter not renewed or other measure. I briefly worked for a charter that was closed by the district because we did not have enough cash flow to make payroll and did not have enough assets to get a loan while waiting for the next state payment.
The other benefit funding wise, is that we have complete control over any donations or grants that we receive. The district, in most cases, gets to take donations made to a public school and pool them. So if Parent A loves Fred Elementary and donates $1,000, the district can take it and distribute it, give it back to Fred Elementary or heck even use it to pay a bonus to the Superintendent.
We have an elected board that serves as advisors and the school district also appoints a member to sit on the board. It's very oversight heavy and there are reports upon reports everywhere!
