Program Design and Development
Among Uncommon's greatest assets are the managing directors of our school networks. Paul Bambrick, John King, Doug Lemov, and Brett Peiser have a proven track record as leaders of several of the country's highest-performing urban public schools. Under their leadership, Uncommon provides comprehensive program design, including curriculum development and implementation, instructional oversight, the development, administration, and analysis of diagnostic assessments, and the oversight, measurement, and management of school quality.

Facilities Management and Financing
The hurdle that often proves to be the most discouraging and complex for aspiring charter school founders and operators is facility acquisition. The capacity to remove this burden from a school leader's portfolio of requisite skills is critical. Uncommon has a strong team of staff, consultants, partner organizations, and friends who have worked together on projects in Newark and New York City. Site selection, development, management and financing functions are performed from the home office to spread the costs of developing this specialized expertise across multiple schools. The organization secures below market rate loans, loan guarantees, and credit enhancements that permit the flexibility to purchase properties. Uncommon monetizes New Markets Tax Credits, National Historic Tax Credits, and Qualified Zone Academy Bonds where available.

Teacher and Principal Recruitment and Training
Not only does Uncommon assist schools with teacher recruitment, it helps design and implement effective processes to ensure selection and retention of high quality teaching staff. Recruiting on behalf of multiple schools leverages their shared reputations, and the reputation of our management team, to attract highly qualified candidates. In addition to supporting school leader recruitment efforts, Uncommon coordinates leadership training across the networks and leverages "scale" to provide founding principals with leadership skills, organizational skills, and training in our system-wide and group-wide strategies, tools, and procedures.

Budgeting/Financial Guidance/Back Office/Payroll/Purchasing
Charter schools routinely hire business managers to assist their principals in budgeting and accounting functions. These positions are notoriously hard to fill with quality personnel. Through Uncommon's home office, multiple schools share financial management personnel and tools to reduce costs, increase expertise, and streamline operations. Centralizing budgeting, payroll, bulk purchasing, and auditing coordination lowers workloads for school personnel and redirects resources and attention towards more critical operational issues.

Fund Development
Charter school leaders spend an inordinate amount of time raising money to pay for programs and services. Schools in the Uncommon network benefit from the shared capital of large scale philanthropic commitments secured on behalf of the network to cover the costs of start- and scale-up and can concentrate exclusively on ensuring strong returns for those philanthropic investments, not on securing the investments in the first place. Alongside this large-scale CMO effort, Uncommon builds capacity to secure program grants and other project-based resources to address strategic needs and reward excellence within its system of schools.

Technology
Uncommon facilitates its schools' purchase and procurement of information technology equipment and services, and provides computer and information technology support to schools, including troubleshooting, training for use of the student information system, completion of the E-Rate application, and email, website, and network design and maintenance.

Charter Application and Start-Up
Uncommon provides support and coordination of the charter application. The organization also provides and funds start-up activities including recruitment, purchasing, and facilities.

Inspections
Uncommon inspects all of its schools every year to ensure that each school makes progress towards its goals and receives third-party feedback both on its own program and Uncommon's impact. Uncommon leaders and Managing Directors spend a day observing each school in action to provide feedback and to leverage best practices, expertise, and perspective across the network.

Reporting
In coordination with each school, Uncommon provides reports and documentation required by authorizers in a timely, thorough manner including schools' accountability plans and annual reports. Uncommon completes other required foundation and government reports.

Legal Guidance
Centralized counsel helps build and refine school discipline and special education policies and systems, whereas most schools operate blindly in this regard. Key points on education law are defined at the state or federal level; therefore, knowledge and guidance acquired on these fronts are highly scalable.

Special Education Management
Uncommon provides technical guidance to schools on issues related to Special Education. The organization also maintains centralized record keeping and reimbursement systems for special education services to allow schools to spend a greater percentage of special education dollars on education rather than administrative services.

Materials and Best Practice Sharing
Schools in the Uncommon network benefit from a network effect in which solutions and program developed in one school are quickly brought to the attention of other schools. A single school's effective solution to, for instance, the development of standardized binders for all students can quickly be shared and replicated throughout the system. Effectively implemented, this sort of simple practice can multiply the rate of improvement among entrepreneurial schools.

Marketing and Advocacy
Uncommon provides marketing and advocacy on behalf of its schools, including production of collateral materials, the coordination of school visits from key community members, and government level advocacy.