Charters Overview

For over 50 years, Bethel University has prepared many excellent educators. As an academic institution, it is Bethel’s mission to eduate and energize men and women for excellence in leadership, scholarship, and service. In accord with its mission and vision, Bethel University supports school choice through its charter school authorizing efforts. The goal is to authorize a network of charter schools—each with its own individual curricular focus, and all subscribing to an accountability model informed by the most current research about ensuring children's success.

Charter Authorization Mission

Bethel’s commitment to authorize charter schools is an outgrowth of its history and mission to educate and energize men and women for excellence in leadership, scholarship, and service. 

Bethel Education sees charter authorization as strategically assisting in the positive growth of innovative education that contributes to the larger dialogue about quality teaching and learning with both proof of conceptual and scalable models.

Charter Authorization Vision

The Education Department's vision for charter school authorizing is to serve innovative charters committed to academic excellence for their students and show proof of practice in alternative and scalable designs for education to our preservice teachers, educational researchers, and the field of practice.

Bethel’s vision of charter school authorizing is to oversee a network of charter schools, each with its own individual curricular focus, and all subscribing to an accountability model informed by current research and ensuring all children’s success academically, socially, and civically.

Our goal is to visibly and intentionally encourage and collaborate with schools that are examples of unique models of education and demonstrate support of school choice, while providing direct learning opportunities for teacher candidates and faculty, in order to impact the learning of all students and improve achievement.

Program Overview

Education Department

The Bethel partnerships coordinator, working with the education department chair and the oversight committee, is responsible for the leadership and management of the Charter School Authorizing Program. The Bethel partnerships coordinator assumes responsibilities for communication and coordination with staff and administrators at the schools and to facilitate oversight of schools authorized by Bethel University.

The Bethel Charter School Oversight Committee (BCOC)

The Bethel Charter School Oversight Committee has been in place for over ten years and is made up of five full members. This committee works with the Bethel partnerships coordinator to provide regular and ongoing oversight to each of the charter schools that the university authorizes.

Resources for Authorized Charters

• Charter School Handbook
• Approved Authorizing Plan (AAP)

Questions?

For questions or inquiries about charter school authorizing, contact the education department's Partnerships Coordinator Heather Ross at heather-ross@bethel.edu.

Bethel-Authorized Charter Schools

Hmong College Prep Academy

Northwest Passage High School

PACT (Parents Allied with Children and Teachers) Charter School