The rise of charter schools in Utah has also increased the number of educators who are working as consultants. These school leaders don’t have their primary allegiance to the school but to their company bosses or future income.

Imagine if you are the third wife of a man, and you realize he has his eye out for the fourth. This is how the parents and charter school boards often feel when they hire a consultant to lead the school.

As consultants, they know they could be fired at any time. Therefore, they have to constantly look for future lines of work and build relationships with everyone they do business in order to have a robust network of contacts, which can lead to ethical dilemmas. The charter school leader may not be as tough when negotiating a contract with a lease holder when that lease holder could steer future work to him from start-up charter schools.

The consultants may also be selling software or have associates who are hired by the consultant as a package. They may or may not be of the highest quality or lowest price, which can be a disadvantage for school even though the school leader brings them with him.

The benefit of these consultants is obviously that they can bring a wealth and variety of professional experience and contacts. Charter school boards need to be particularly aware of the relationships and how they could compromise the school or lead to substandard quality or increased costs. Charter school consultants must be particularly aware of how their web of contacts and relationships can compromise their ethical standards and guard against any real or perception of conflicts of interest.

Jeanne Whitmore is the founder and CEO of American Fork charter school Aristotle Academy and an education columnist for the American Fork Citizen. You can learn more about Aristotle Academy at aristotleacademyk8.org or on Facebook.