FOCUS DC News Wire 1/16/14

 

 

Supporters of the Booker T. Washington Public Charter School for Technical Arts showed up in droves Tuesday night for a public hearing on whether the 15-year-old school should be allowed to continue operating.

 

Staff for the D.C. Public Charter School Board have recommended closing Booker T. Washington, which operates both a high school and an adult education program in Northwest Washington’s U Street corridor, at the end of this year.

 

They argue that Booker T. Washington — which emphasizes job training in the construction trades — has failed to deliver on the goals set forth in its charter agreement, including ensuring that students earn an industry certification and develop their ability to work as a member of a team.

 

In addition, academic performance at the high school is both poor and declining, with 17.5 percent proficiency rates in both math and reading.

 

But Booker T. Washington staff, students and alumni said Tuesday night that the school gives troubled teens and adults a rare and much-needed opportunity to turn their lives around. The school can’t be fairly judged by the usual measures because of the population it serves, they said.

 

“What do you do with a 16-year-old man-child who is in ninth grade and reading at the fourth grade level?” said Executive Director Edward Pinkard. “We have a place for him here at Booker T. Washington. We feel if we can keep him here past tenth grade, we have a chance.”

 

Pinkard told the charter board that the school accepts students whenever they show up, even if the student arrives too late in the year to draw public funding. “I know what the data are — I see them every day,” said Pinkard said of the poor achievement and attendance rates. “I also know where our young black boys end up, and our mission here is to give them some upward mobility.”

 

Several alumni testified that the school had helped them change their lives. One man said that he arrived at Booker T. Washington’s doorstep after a period of incarceration and learned the skills he needed to get a job.

 

“Now I am a supervisor” and just finished overseeing the painting of the new O Street Market, he said.

 

Staff for the charter board said the school had provided documentation for only a handful of students receiving state licensure or industry-recognized trade certifications.

 

Charter schools in the District operate under agreements that expire after 15 years and must be renewed for the school to continue operating. Booker T. Washington is one of seven schools up for renewal this year.

 

The law requires the charter board to deny renewal if a school has failed to meet the goals set out it in its original agreement.

 

 

Each of the five people accused of helping divert taxpayer dollars from the District’s Options Public Charter School will remain defendants in the case, a D.C. Superior Court judge decided Wednesday.

 

Judge Craig Iscoe ruled that none of the five defendants met the legal standard to be dismissed, writing that “the District has sufficiently pleaded that Defendants may have participated in a plan to run Options contrary to its nonprofit purpose.”

 

Three former Options managers allegedly sent millions of dollars from the charter school to two for-profit companies they controlled as part of a self-dealing scheme, according to a civil lawsuit filed in October by the D.C. Office of the Attorney General. The managers were allegedly aided by two others: television news personality J.C. Hayward and former D.C. Public Charter School Board official Jeremy Williams.

 

The alleged scheme violated the District’s Nonprofit Corporation Act, according to the complaint.

 

In seeking to be released from the case, the defendants argued that the District’s complaint failed to allege specific wrongful acts. They also argued that the case is moot because the District already ousted the former Options managers and gained control over the assets of the two for-profit companies. Both the school and the two companies are now controlled by court-appointed receivers.

 

Iscoe was required to treat the suit’s claims as true in deciding whether to release the defendants. He ruled that the complaint plausibly argues that a self-dealing scheme might have occurred and that the case is not moot because the District is seeking to recover money from the three former Options managers. The government also wants a permanent order barring Hayward and Williams from having any future relationship with Options.

 

A. Scott Bolden, an attorney for David Cranford, Options’ former clinical director, said the government’s complaint fails to describe “what was illegal, unlawful or inappropriate” about Cranford’s earnings. In the end, he added, he fully expects “Dr. Cranford to be found not liable for any of these claims pending against him.”

 

Hayward, who has been on leave from her job as an anchor at WUSA (Channel 9) since Oct. 1, allegedly signed key contracts on behalf of Options as the school’s board chairwoman. Iscoe called the claims against her “substantially less detailed” than those against the other four.

 

Jeffrey S. Jacobovitz, Hayward’s attorney, said his client was not aware of and did not profit from any alleged scheme. “The judge’s decision certainly does not constitute a final finding of wrongdoing by the defendants, only that the District may move forward with the case,” he said.

 

Now Iscoe must decide whether to accept an amended complaint from the District, which includes far more detailed allegations about how Options money was diverted into individual defendants’ pockets.

 

A spokesman for the D.C. Office of the Attorney General said in a statement that the office was pleased with Wednesday’s ruling and is “prepared to prove significant misconduct beyond that set forth in our original complaint.”

 

 

In a December 19, 2013 letter to D.C. Councilman David Catania, chairman of the education committee, 21 charter school leaders call for an amendment to the D.C. School Reform Act to allow an admission preference for children of charter school staff who live in the nation's capital. The signatures read like a who's who of prominent education reformers in this town, among them Martha Cutts (Washington Latin PCS), Jennie Niles (E.L. Haynes PCS), Donald Hense (Friendship PCS), Shantelle Wright (Achievement Preparatory PCS), Susan Schaeffler (KIPP DC), Linda Moore (Elsie Whitlow Stokes Communnity Freedom PCS), Emily Lawson (DC Prep), Alexandra Pardo (Thurgood Marshall Academy), and Jessica Wodatch (Two Rivers PCS).

 

The logical argument in favor of the preference goes like this. Quality teachers are the key to the academic success of students. Competition for excellent teachers is high, especially considering the funding inequity between charters and traditional schools. Retention of good teachers reinforces a successful school's culture. As teachers have children it becomes extremely difficult for scheduling to work at one institution while offspring receive their education somewhere else. Many other jurisdictions that permit chartered schools have admission preference for staff. Here is an example of the justification from the document:

 

"Seven years ago, my husband was a young teacher just starting his career, and he was hired at a new charter school just finding its feet. As the school has grown into an accomplished place of learning, he has grown into a seasoned educator and administrator. We now have young children and are making decisions about where we will raise them. We believe deeply in public education and desire to commit to and invest in a school community. It is our hope that our children will attend wherever my husband is teaching.

 

We are not alone as we face these decisions. As the charter school system matures, the teacher demographic is aging as well and increasingly starting families. The schools are better places for the experience and commitment of these teachers. If charter schools are able to provide an employee-child preference, they will be far more likely to retain their strong workforce.

 

Charter schools cultivate a unique sense of community that is pivotal to their educational success. Community is stronger when families and teachers are deeply invested. How much stronger would the community, and ultimately the success of students, be were it to have the families of teachers enrolled?

 

A number of teachers have left my husband's school for institutions where the children of faculty are guaranteed enrollment. We hope that DC charter schools will be allowed to offer that same opportunity to faculty families."

 

The letter's authors would like one clause added to the School Reform Act's section on charter school admission, enrollment, and withdrawal. It would say (change in bold):

 

If there are more applications to enroll in a public charter school from students who are residents of the District of Columbia than there are spaces available, students shall be admitted using a random selection process, except that a preference in admission may be given to an applicant who is a sibling of a student already attending or selected for admission to the public charter school in which the applicant is seeking enrollment, or to an applicant who is a child of a member of the public charter school's founding board, so long as enrollment of founders' children is limited to no more than 10% of the school's total enrollment or to 20 students, whichever is less, or to an applicant who is a child of a staff member of the public charter school so long as the total number of students allowed under this exemption constitutes only a small percentage of the school’s total enrollment.

 

Let's all hope that this common sense amendment makes it into law.

 

 

An earlier version of this story gave the incorrect year for an AAP statement on the importance of recess. This version has been updated with the correct year.

 

Recess has taken a beating in recent years. Because of shrinking budgets and ever-increasing academic demands, playground time in many school districts has dwindled, seen as a frivolous luxury. In some places, recess has been cut altogether, despite endorsements from the American Academy of Pediatrics and studies showing that recess not only improves children’s fitness, but benefits their social-emotional growth and academic performance.

 

But 14 public and charter schools in the District have overhauled recess dramatically to make playtime a priority. Each of those schools has a Playworks coach who helps facilitate playground activities. A nonprofit organization started in Oakland, Calif., in 1996, Playworks champions recess not only for its health benefits, but for the opportunities it creates to teach children conflict resolution skills.

 

“Yes, it gives kids the physical activity and the opportunity to play, but it’s also the social-emotional learning aspect of it,” said Nancy Barrand, a senior adviser for program development at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which provides funding for Playworks. “It’s helping kids learn how to socialize, how to take turns, how to be able to wait, how to be able to compete without killing each other. It’s all the things that one learns from play. Sometimes it’s easier to learn those things from play than from reading a rule book and being told what to do.”

 

Susan Comfort, executive director of Playworks D.C., cited the American Academy of Pediatrics’s statement on recess from January 2013 and its emphasis on the academic benefits of play, calling the policy statement a “grand slam” for Playworks’ efforts to get schools to make time for play. She hopes the AAP endorsement will help protect recess.

 

Playworks’ direct service program includes about 175,000 children at 380 schools in 23 cities. To participate in its direct service model, where the organization splits the cost of a full-time coach with the school, 50 percent or more of the students in a school must qualify for free and reduced lunch, Comfort said. Playworks also serves other schools, with children from all economic backgrounds, by holding training sessions to allow school staff to administer the program on their own.

 

The direct service program is about $65,000 a year per school, including teacher training, a “survival kit” of equipment and a stipend for the coaches. The schools put up $29,000 of that, Comfort said. Playworks covers the rest of the cost.

 

Jill Vialet, chief executive of Playworks, started the organization after visiting a school in Oakland for her job as the founder of the Museum of Children’s Arts.

 

Vialet was waiting for a meeting when the principal emerged from her office with three boys who had been unruly at recess. After dismissing the boys, the principal told Vialet that recess was a nightmare. Teachers didn’t want to be on the playground supervising, and they spent an excessive amount of classroom time dealing with problems that carried over from playground disputes.

 

The principal said, “Can’t you do something?” That principal was joking (sort of), but Vialet ran with the idea.

 

“So much of how we talk about education is about serving or helping kids,” Vialet said. “So little of what we talk about involves their agency, their choices, their leadership, their engagement.”

 

At the Playworks schools in the District, the coaches set up stations on the playground, varying the available games from day to day, and children can choose which ones they want to play. Coaches are playing with the kids the whole time, fully engaged in the games.

 

They don’t have to spend their time policing conflicts because the children are taught to use the game rock-paper-scissors to resolve disputes. And despite what you might think — yeah, we tried that with our kids at home and it was a disaster — the coaches and teachers say it’s like magic. The kids do rock-paper-scissors when they disagree about whose turn it is or what game to play, and then they move on, no questions asked.

 

A study released in May by Mathematica Policy Research suggests that the Playworks model works. It found that teachers at Playworks schools reported 43 percent less bullying and exclusion than at non-Playworks schools. They also spent 34 percent fewer minutes getting children to settle down and get back to work after recess. And Playworks students spent 43 percent more of their recess time engaged in physically rigorous activity than kids at schools without Playworks.

 

“It’s really been a game-changer for the kids,” said Jackie Jaffe, a second-grade teacher at Bruce-Monroe Elementary School at Park View in Northwest. Jaffe was at Bruce Monroe before it launched its Playworks program during the 2008-2009 school year, when Bruce-Monroe and Park View were consolidated into one school. They brought the program in to help build the new school community, according to Rachel Hustedt, a Playworks program manager in the District. This year, the school is transitioning from having a full-time Playworks coach to managing the program with school staff, according to Comfort.

 

“We used to come back and I would spend 20 to 30 minutes of instructional time putting out the fires of whatever happened during recess time, because they had nothing else to do” but argue, Jaffe said. “Now we come back from recess and I don’t miss a second.”

 

So the kids at Bruce-Monroe, or at Amidon-Bowen Elementary School in Southwest, come out for recess, line up to hear the day’s games, and do a cheer before breaking apart to blow off some steam. They run around playing toilet tag (when you’re tagged you have to kneel, put your hand up, and remain frozen until someone comes by and “flushes” you), foursquare, soccer, jump rope or basketball.

 

If they don’t like the day’s options, they can ask the coach about starting another game. Or they can hang out and talk to a friend if they prefer. It’s not about telling the students what they have to do so much as organizing the playing field and then letting them choose what they want to do and how to resolve disputes when they come up.

 

The program also selects some older students to be junior coaches and help oversee recess. They get to wear special shirts and assist the recess coach with set-up and organization of games. Sometimes, the kids are chosen because of their leadership skills. But often, it’s not the star students who get picked.

 

“We’ll pick a shy kid, or a kid that’s using their leadership in the wrong direction, as more of a bullying tendency,” Comfort said. “Giving them a responsibility and letting them lead games and teach other kids positive behaviors and rock, paper scissors has a transformative effect on their own behavior.”

 

That is particularly true with shy children or those who are non-native English speakers, Comfort said. Learning how to be assertive and proficient with English on the playground can translate into classroom success, she said. It’s another way Playworks employees believe their program helps kids academically, as well as physically and socially.

 

“If you’re going to ask them to decode letters and to add numerals, they need a brain break between those to operate at full brain capacity,” Comfort said. “Recess isn’t just to fight obesity or get kids moving. It’s not just to develop their social-emotional skills. It’s also critically necessary if you’re going to have success in the classroom.“

 

Susan Ohanian, author of “What Happened to Recess and Why Are Our Children Struggling in Kindergarten?” agrees that free time to play — in addition to structured physical education classes — is critically important for children.

 

“They are under adult direction all day long. Recess should be a time when they’re independent and able to draw on their own resources,” Ohanian said, recalling a rainy day in third grade when she went outside and stood in the rain during recess. “The teacher told me to get out of the rain. I said, ‘It’s recess. It’s my time.’”