- N.Y.-based Democracy Prep to take over struggling Imagine Southeast charter school [Imagine Southeast and Democracy Prep PCS mentioned]
- The D.C. Charter Board let us down, again [Arts and Technology, Options, Imagine Southeast, and Democracy Prep PCS mentioned]
N.Y.-based Democracy Prep to take over struggling Imagine Southeast charter school [Imagine Southeast and Democracy Prep PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Emma Brown
January 10, 2014
New York-based charter school operator Democracy Prep has agreed to take over Imagine Southeast, a large public charter elementary school in Ward 8 that narrowly escaped being closed last year for poor academic performance.
Democracy Prep will take responsibility for the school starting this summer and plans to continue Imagine Southeast’s practice of offering single-gender classes, according to a news release issued Thursday afternoon.
Students currently enrolled will be guaranteed the right to stay at the school, which will continue to serve kids in pre-kindergarten through grade six but will be renamed Democracy Prep Congress Heights Public Charter School.
“We are confident that Democracy Prep will create a learning environment where every child has the support needed to succeed,” Barbara J. Bazron, chair of the Imagine Southeast board of trustees, said in a statement.
Democracy Prep built a reputation for lifting test scores among poor children in Harlem and operates nine campuses in New York and New Jersey. Last fall, the organization won approval from the D.C. Public Charter School Board to open a new District school in 2014. Instead, it will undertake the effort to turn around Imagine Southeast, according to spokeswoman Alice Maggin.
“We are thrilled to be given the opportunity to bring the Democracy Prep model of college prep and civic education to our Nation’s capital,” Democracy Prep chief executive Katie Duffy said in a statement.
Imagine Southeast is part of a network run by Arlington-based Imagine Schools, a for-profit company that operates about 70 schools in 12 states and the District, according to its Web site.
The city charter board nearly closed Imagine Southeast at the end of last school year, largely because of its poor math and reading performance. Fewer than 40 percent of students were proficient on D.C. standardized tests.
The school won a one-year reprieve after its trustees, teachers and parents argued that they needed more time to show progress. They agreed to turn operations over if they failed to hit achievement targets by spring 2013.
Instead of improving, the school slid backward, at least according to standardized tests and the charter board’s ratings. Only one-third of students were proficient in math and one-fourth of students were proficient in reading on 2013 city tests.
The D.C. Charter Board let us down, again [Arts and Technology, Options, Imagine Southeast, and Democracy Prep PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
January 10, 2014
Wednesday the D.C. Public Charter School Board voted unanimously not to renew the 15 year charter of Arts and Technology PCS, the correct decision for a Performance Management Framework Tier 3 facility who’s DC CAS scores over the past three years have been heading downward. The move now throws 624 Pre-Kintergarten through 5th grade students onto the street at the end of the 2013 to 2014 term, resulting in the obligatory story by the Washington Post’s Emma Brown regarding the need for the kids to find a new place to learn.
Recall the recently released Equity Report which included student turnover information for all public schools in the District of Columbia. Charter schools generally demonstrated about a decrease in the student body as the year progressed. Traditional institutions, on the other hand, had wide fluctuations in the number of kids entering and leaving schools throughout the term, obviously providing a tremendous pedagogical challenge. The ruling this week only adds to this turmoil.
The PCSB press release announcing the fate of ATA states that the Board “would be open to entertaining proposals for the school to transfer its assets and operations to a high-performing charter operator.” But this is insufficient. Haven’t we matured as a movement to the point where when we know we are about to close a school we prearrange to have a first class charter take over its operations? Perhaps going forward identifying a new administration to replace a low performing one should be a mandatory requirement before a vote can be taken to shutter a school.
I’m really not sure what is going on right now at the PCSB. First the body is surprised by the managerial malpractice going on at Options PCS, then it agrees to revoke to the charter right in the middle of a stellar Josh Kern revitalization effort, all the while refusing to comment as news reports provide an ever increasing amount of shocking revelations as to what took place at the school for disabled youth, and finally the closing of ATA without first minimizing disruptions for families by finding a high performing charter to take its place. Has it lost its way?
Fortunately, one school has stepped forward to show us how it should be done. Yesterday, Democracy Prep announced that in July it would be taking over Imagine Southeast and would be renamed Democracy Prep Congress Heights. Democracy Prep was recently granted a charter under the PCSB’s experienced operator application process and gave a particularly impressive presentation when its opening here was being considered by the Board. Word on the street was that Imagine Southeast was going to be the PCSB’s next target so it is fantastic that a low performing Tier 3 Pre-Kindergarten through 6th grade charter of over 600 students is now going to be taught by a group that has a proven record of school turnarounds.