Institute Adds Expertise to Help Charters Excel

The National Charter Schools Institute strives to help school boards and authorizers throughout the country excel in education. The Institute recently added two professionals to our Board and Authorizer Services team who offer a tremendous and varied skillset and are passionate about working with charter schools.

Dustin Sommer recently joined the Institute after five years as the Manager of Design and Engineering at one of the nation’s largest charter school management companies. While there, he worked across the whole process, from real estate evaluation to retrofitting existing schools. Dustin was primarily responsible for the design and engineering of new facilities and assisting existing schools with space needs. Dustin brings big-operator expertise and knowledge to charter organizations of any size, and he offers facilities expertise and services to authorizers and boards.

A charter school’s biggest financial asset is its building. It takes a specialized skill to design a building or to find just the right building and to ensure that it meets the needs of the students, parents, teachers and administrators. Once a building becomes a successful school, questions of space utilization, expansion, and costs quickly arise when planning for evolving needs of the student body.

“I am excited to have the opportunity to continue working with charter schools as a resource helping them navigate the design and construction process to get a great building and make the most of their investment,” Dustin Sommer said. “Existing charters are also facing space challenges, and helping them better utilize the space in their buildings is crucial for the future success of established charters throughout the country.”

Dustin uses his expertise to help with new school construction or to consult on existing buildings. Dustin will advise schools on what to expect from construction and where the pitfalls may be. Dustin’s unique skills and experience are invaluable to any board considering new school construction, additions, renovations, or reconfiguration of an existing building.

Dustin will work with you by visiting your school to learn about your program and space challenges. While on site, he will walk through the building to collect data to update the floor plans in 3D modeling software. After the visit, he will create new floor plans for the staff and visitors as well as a dataset of information to help identify any inefficiencies and to discover solutions to problems. Using his data-driven skills, Dustin can make new building construction more affordable and current buildings more efficient.

Dustin is offering a free webinar on June 20, 2017 at 11:30 am Eastern and will discuss why bringing space planning into focus is important to the success of your school. All participants are eligible for a service discount by registering and attending the workshop. Click here for more details.

Bill Pistulka joined the Institute this spring after a varied and distinguished career in K-12 education, including 28 years in the field of education as a teacher, coach, principal and superintendent in three different school districts. For the past ten years, Bill was the Charter Schools Director at Northern Michigan University (NMU). During his tenure at NMU, Bill doubled the number of schools authorized by NMU, developed policies and best practices, and increased the team of the charter school office.

Bill can creatively strengthen performance and productivity in the education sector. His strong problem-solving skills and ability to arrive at solutions for long-term growth and lasting positive solutions will result in superior and sustainable academic, financial, operational and organizational success.

“My entire career has been spent fulfilling my passion, and that’s educating kids and preparing them for the future,” Bill Pistulka said. “The Institute has a great team in place and I look forward to working with them to help educators meet their goals, and, most importantly, to help kids succeed.”

His special skills include:

• Budget development
• Successful bond and millage proposals
• Collective bargaining leadership
• Board policy development
• Board recruitment and training
• School reform leadership models
• School and staff evaluations
• Site-facility development and renovations
• School improvement planning and academic growth and proficiency improvement models

Dustin and Bill will help your team achieve exceptional results and ensure that your organizational and budgetary goals are met. Feel free to contact them at:

Bill Pistulka
Associate
bpistulka@charterinstitute.org

Dustin Sommer
Associate
dsommer@charterinstitute.org