The charter renewal decision is one of the most significant high stakes decision in public education. It determines the continuing existence or termination of a school. It has the potential to be a celebration of the accomplishments and success of a school--and its students--that was built from the ground up a few years earlier. In some sense, the renewal decision happens on an ongoing basis as the authorizer evaluates a school's performance from year to year. Upon passage of New York's Charter Schools Act, The State University of New York Board of Trustees (SUNY or Board of Trustees) established the Charter Schools Institute (CSI) to administer its authorizing responsibilities and, through CSI, currently oversees 24 charter schools. Taken together, CSI's Findings & Recommendations cover a spectrum of renewal possibilities and are particularly instructive regarding charter school accountability. To reach these recommendations the threshold task for CSI was to collect, verify and document relevant evidence about school performance. SUNY's process compiles a host of relevant school performance information. This issue brief is about translating that information into charter renewal decisions. It focuses on CSI's findings and conclusions for the three schools in order to identify the decisive factors that shaped an authorizer's recommendations regarding whether to renew three charters. (Contains 32 endnotes and 2 resources.)