Identifying schools in distress affords schools, and the ecosystem supporting them, the opportunity to intervene earlier, before failure is too deep, systemic, or extensive to recover.

This brief describes the characteristics of schools when they show signs of early distress from the perspectives of school leaders and governing board members to help educators create and sustain high-quality schools.

This is the third publication in a series on indicators of distress in charter schools toolkit is part of a multi-part series published by the National Charter School Resource Center in partnership with lead authors Aimee Evan, Hannah Sullivan and Laura Groth.