- Exclusive interview with Linda Moore, Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom PCS [Mentions Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom PCS]
Exclusive interview with Linda Moore, Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom PCS
The Washington DC Examiner
By Mark Lerner
October 3, 2011
I had the extremely fortunate opportunity to sit down with Linda Moore, Executive Director and Founder of the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School. We started our conversation by going over the history of the school. Ms. Moore explained to me that Elsie Whitlow Stokes was chartered July 1st 1998, which places it in the second cohort of charter schools approved in the District of Columbia. It has now been going strong for 14 years.
The school is named after Ms. Moore’s mother who taught elementary school for 36 years in Arkansas. The Elsie Whitlow PCS website explains the three principles she relied upon when teaching, which inform the mission of the charter school:
1. Every student can succeed academically and become a responsible citizen;
2. Every student needs a solid foundation in reading, mathematics, social studies, science, and the arts
3. Every student can contribute to the community through service activities that prepare that student to become a caring neighbor and responsible citizen.
Ms. Moore remembers observing her mom’s classrooms and learning about the education process. The Whitlow Stokes Executive Director went on to spend her entire life around education groups, both formal and informal in nature. Among the organizations for which she has worked include the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National Community Education Association, and the Institute for Educational Leadership.
She recalls clearly when the federal Government’s Nation at Risk report came out which pointed out that schools had not changed the way children are educated for 99 years.
At about the time that Ms. Moore was first becoming a grandmother Ms. Stokes became terminally ill. The two of them then engaged in what Ms. Moore referred to as “importance of life conversations.” They discussed how indispensable it is to care for and nurture children, and the high value in being a good teacher. She talked with her mother about the significance of self discipline together with the idea that people should have the ability to care for themselves and their communities. The final lesson her mother taught was that “you can do anything you want to do.”
During a period in which Ms. Moore was home recovering from knee surgery she began writing the charter for her school. Ms. Moore thought about the criticism of charters, namely that they are separate and unequal from the traditional schools. But that did not dissuade her from applying. “I knew what it was like to attend a segregated school in Little Rock, Arkansas and I understood that my school did not have resources of the ones the white kids attended. I was interested in what opportunities I could create for my grandchildren and others in their generation.”
Elsie Whitlow Stokes was chartered by the Board of Education and opened with 35 students in grades Kindergarten and 1st. The school now has 350 students in grades Pre-K through 6th. This year there were an astounding 600 kids on the waiting list.
There are some interesting aspects of this school that differentiate it from others. First, it is a dual language immersion emersion charter. Students study in either English and French or English and Spanish. This is accomplished through the use of two teachers in each classroom, one for each language. Ms. Moore added that the emphasis on students studying foreign languages comes directly out of the Nation at Risk study and the school’s desire to prepare its students for the 21st Century.
Another fascinating component of the school is the use of trimester community service activities. Here Ms. Moore provided me with an example. There was a group of students that worked on building a water well for a village. They organized band concerts to raise money for the project, and learned science, politics, math, and languages related to their goal. “What we need in the 21st Century,” Ms. Moore commented, “is for people to learn to communicate with others far beyond their backyards.”
The school is in a building located in the Brookland section of Northeast D.C. which is perfectly aligned with their high academic goals. Elsie Whitlow Stokes started in a church basement in Northwest. Ms. Moore started looking for a permanent home just at the time real estate in the nation’s capital was becoming hot. She commented that at one time she knew every commercial building up for sale in the City.
They moved into their current home 3 days before school began in the fall of 2008. The school continues to thrive and according to the Executive Director “represents what is best in public education today.” Ms. Moore is extremely proud of her institution and believes that the dual focus on learning three languages and community service, and our belief that every child can excel, makes Elsie Whitlow Stokes a cutting edge school in urban education.
Her proof is in the results. Elsie Whitlow Stokes boasts DC CAS scores that are above the D.C. average for student proficiency in reading and math and which are growing faster than the D.C. average.
The academic progress of their students is tracked through high school. Many of Stokes’ students go on to attend high-performing charters such as E.L. Haynes and Washington Latin or receive scholarships to attend such schools as Sidwell Friends and Georgetown Day. Elsie Whitlow Stokes now has alumni that beginning in 2010 have been accepted into colleges such as Penn State, Kent State, and Harvard University. Many of these graduates return back to the charter school on Fridays to provide service, just as they were taught to do.