About Us
CACSA is a Colorado non-profit organization dedicated to helping all Colorado authorizers improve their practices. CACSA assists authorizers in adopting best practices that align with Colorado’s policies and culture of local control. CACSA members include the professionals that work directly on the task of authorizing charter schools both within school districts and the Colorado Charter School Institute. CACSA’s work is informed by nine organizing principles.
Mission: This mission of the Colorado Association of Charter School Authorizers (CACSA) is to promote and support best practices in charter school authorizing and to help all Colorado charter school authorizers develop, adopt, and implement practices that improve results for all students.
Staff
Dr. Mackenzie Khan, Executive Director
Mackenzie Khan has dedicated the majority of her professional career to the betterment of charter school authorizing in a variety of contexts. Beginning her career as a teacher, she quickly moved into a charter school authorizing role in Volusia County, Florida followed by St. Johns County, Florida. During her authorizing career in Florida, she also served as the Vice President of the Florida Association of Charter School Authorizers (FACSA) and was a contributing writer in Florida's Best Practices for Quality Charter School Authorizing. Before leaving Florida, she also graduated from Nova Southwestern University with a Master's in Charter School Leadership.
Since moving to Colorado in 2016, Mackenzie has worked as the Director of Charter Schools for Aurora Public Schools and Director of Choice Programming for Douglas County School District.
She also assisted Aurora Public Schools in the implementation of their long-range facilities and educational plan, Blueprint APS, as a response to the state's declining student enrollment. Mackenzie was honored as a NACSA Leader in the National Association for Charter School Authorizers Leaders Program in 2019.
In 2022, Mackenzie graduated from the University of Colorado Denver with a doctorate in Leadership for Equity in Education and began working as the Executive Director for CACSA. Prior to this role, Mackenzie also served on the CACSA Board from 2018-2020. She has presented at several state and national conferences on the topic of charter schools, specifically around the value of collaboration between charter schools and authorizers and successful school openings.
Dr. Khan is the Chair of the NN4DA Governing Council.
Our Meetings
Resources
CACSA Resource Library
CACSA's resource library contains authorizing toolkits, resources, templates, and other support mechanisms, in addition to curating authorizing resources from around the state.
Upcoming Conference
The Colorado Association of Charter School Authorizers (CACSA) is participating in a series of authorizing-specific sessions at the Colorado League of Charter Schools (CLCS) Conference on February 27-28, 2025.
CACSA Partners in Colorado
Colorado collaborates with a wide range of organizations that support Colorado authorizers, including the following groups.
