Atlantic Montessori Charter School Partners with Charter School Capital to Add a Campus and Pay Off Debt

Atlantic Montessori Charter School (AMCS) was founded by their passionate and dedicated Executive Director, Juana Garcia, with the mission to provide quality instruction following the founding principles and philosophies of the Montessori Method. They strive to create a learning environment that respects children as unique individuals in an atmosphere of caring, creativity, kindness, firmness, dignity, and independence. Their first campus, Pines, is a K-3 school and they’ve since added an additional campus, West, a K-5 school.

Challenges

• The struggle to find funding was frustrating as other lenders would not take the time to explain things clearly.
• AMCS wanted to expand to a second campus but needed $80,000 for a deposit and the first month’s rent.
• In order to expand to a second campus, a daunting fight with the city for approval led to over $100,000 in legal fees.
• With 122 students, it was difficult to operate paycheck to paycheck with no leeway or the ability to pay back their substantial legal debt.

Solution

• Charter School Capital helped AMCS access working capital to finance their new campus deposit (and first month’s rent) as well as pay off their legal bills.
• Charter School Capital purchased state aid payments due to AMCS from the State of Florida; and, in exchange, provided funding to the school they needed, when they needed it.
• Charter School Capital also worked with AMCS to devise a plan to stop using receivables payments after a certain period of time.

Charter School Capital’s approach, they way they explained everything to us in detail—how everything worked—made us feel like we weren’t stupid for asking the questions we had. We felt like we could trust them. It all comes down to their exceptional customer service. — Juana Garcia, Executive Director, Atlantic Montessori

The Result

The funding provided by Charter School Capital helped springboard AMCS’s success. It enabled their expansion; helped them pay off legal fees; increase enrollment; purchase needed Montessori materials; provide training for their teachers; acquire new computers and furniture; and covered basic operational costs. Executive Director, Juana Garcia, the life force behind Atlantic Montessori Charter School, is now looking toward their future. In addition to some facility renovations and upgrades, her dream of opening a middle school may be on the horizon now for this now growing, thriving school.

Since the company’s inception in 2007, Charter School Capital has been committed to the success of charter schools. We help schools access, leverage, and sustain the resources charter schools need to thrive, allowing them to focus on what matters most – educating students. Our depth of experience working with charter school leaders and our knowledge of how to address charter school financial and operational needs have allowed us to provide over $1.8 billion in support of 600 charter schools that have educated over 1,027,000 students across the country. For more information on how we can support your charter school, contact us. We’d love to work with you!

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