- D.C.’s Shining Stars Montessori Academy relocates again days before start of school [Shining Stars PCS and Sela PCS mentioned]
- Forging Ahead for the Children of Ward 8: Preparing Students for Careers in Engineering, Technology and Environmental Sciences [Friendship PCS mentioned]
- Academy of Hope Offers Second Chance [Academy of Hope PCS mentioned]
D.C.’s Shining Stars Montessori Academy relocates again days before start of school [Shining Stars PCS and Sela PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Karen Chen
August 20, 2014
The D.C. Public Charter School board voted this week to approve the relocation of Shining Stars Montessori Academy to 6015 Chillum Pl. NE, near the Maryland border — forcing anxious parents to map yet another new route to school just a week before classes begin.
Shining Stars had been searching for a new location since the previous school year, when the lease on its U Street corridor space expired. But the school was unable to close on two other relocation deals officials had considered. First, they had pursued a building at 1246 Taylor St., in Petworth. When that became unavailable, they looked into the International Union of Operating Engineers’ building at 2461 Wisconsin Ave. NW. That location would have made Shining Stars the only charter school in Ward 3.
Finding a permanent roof is a regular struggle for charter schools because they must hunt down a facility to use. Meanwhile, many vacant public school buildings sit unused, said John McKoy, chairman of the D.C. charter school board. That mismatch is an ongoing problem.
“It’s normally a little more rational than what has been happening, but they’ve had a series of fluke-y events — it’s bizarre,” McKoy said. “This shouldn’t happen again. More broadly, can we find a process whereby a charter looking for space can cut a deal to lease a vacant D.C. public school space?”
By this week, Shining Stars parent Brooke McClintock said, her 3-year-old son was very confused.
“He’s been involved twice with me saying, ‘This is your new school — oh, wait, no, this is your new school — oh, wait, no,” McClintock said. “As a parent, you try to create as much stability as possible, and I wish I would have never said anything to him.”
On Friday, McClintock had taken a dry run to school with her son, visiting the Wisconsin Avenue building, looking at the nearby playground and sketching out the new commute. When McClintock saw rumors appear online at DCUrbanMom.com that day, she refused to believe them. Then, an e-mail newsletter informed her on Monday that the location had indeed changed again.
Many parents had begun referring to the charter school as “homeless.”
Kamina Newsome, the school’s director of operations, said that she and staff members shared every frustration parents felt. The decision to sign a two-year sublease from Sela Public Charter School on Chillum Place came down to making sure school started on time, Newsome said, and putting the school in a safer position to thoroughly explore its options before signing a long-term lease. Shining Stars is set to occupy 12,000 square feet of the lower level of Sela’s building.
Newsome said officials still hoped to eventually move the school into the Ward 3 building, and was in talks with a buyer who would take over the building from the union and offer the Montessori school a 10-year contract.
“We love the school, we want the school to prosper, and sometimes you do what you have to do to make sure we survive and have a home,” she said. “Parents want information, and we’re giving it to them as we have it. It adds stress.”
Newsome said that 124 students were scheduled to begin Monday and that moving trucks had already begun bringing boxes from the school’s original location near the U Street corridor. A parent orientation is scheduled Thursday to explain the drop-off routine and explore the possibility of a shuttle bus option, Newsome said.
Officials said that most students live in Ward 1 and Ward 4, but that the school includes families from all over the city. Many parents were attracted to the Montessori learning style and Shining Stars’ ability to enroll children born later in the year for its pre-K program.
Families that had been buried in the waiting list were surprised to learn last week that they suddenly had a spot, indicating that many families were leaving rather than making the switch.
“We were number 86, then last Thursday we jumped to 18, and on Friday we had a spot — I was ecstatic,” said one parent, Allison Winter.
Because of the drama of all the relocations, many parents have opted to switch their children to different schools, including Wayan Vota.
“It came down to, ‘Do we want to spend our time in a car or spend our time with our kids?’ ” Vota said. He said his family had been with Shining Stars since the beginning, but he decided to pull his two daughters out and put them in a nearby public school when he learned the Petworth option had disappeared. He likened the final relocation announcement to a “toothbrush move” where the school had to grab and go.
“It’s very painful. It feels like we’re being torn away from a family,” Vota said of leaving Shining Stars. “We know the teachers and students by name, we have play dates all the time and we go to each other’s birthday parties.”
McClintock, who lives in Columbia Heights, said that instead of a short bus ride to send her son to school and then hopping on a bus to her job downtown, she plans to drive her son to school and then pay $20 a day to park downtown. She planned to stick with the school, for now.
“What happens inside the classroom is just incredible,” she said. “I think us parents just hope we can put our grown-up pants on and just move forward and not wallow in this struggle we’ve encountered here over the summer.”
Forging Ahead for the Children of Ward 8: Preparing Students for Careers in Engineering, Technology and Environmental Sciences [Friendship PCS mentioned]
The Washington Informer
Washington Informer Staff
August 20, 2014
This school year, an exciting new opportunity for a college preparatory middle and high school public education opens on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, in the Congress Heights neighborhood. On Aug. 26, a brand-new $22 million state-of-the-art Technology Preparatory Academy school campus enrolling students from the sixth through the twelfth grade will open its doors for the start of the new school year.
Specializing in STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — subjects and environmental sciences, the new campus will provide students with the high-quality education and 21stcentury skills necessary for success in today’s high-tech global economy. The presence of the new facility will be felt in a community that has long been underserved for adequate educational, job and housing opportunities. It is so important for minorities — for too long marginalized in the job market — to access the emerging field of environmental sciences.
The new facility includes a SMART — science, math and research technology — lab, allowing students to complete projects across a wide array of subject areas using the latest technology. The building also includes a robotics lab, two chemistry labs, two biology labs and a rooftop greenhouse for career opportunities in environmental sciences, engineering and technology, including computer-aided design, 3-D printing and gaming.
Next door, on the site of the old St. Elizabeth’s hospital, is the new headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security, offering the potential for career-oriented alliances for children in this historically neglected community. That site also will be home to a prestigious university or college presence, and will also be a high-tech hub for international technology names, such as Microsoft.
Additionally, the Tech Prep campus has been chosen as a site for a career academy in information technology. This city investment allows further resources to be provided for students keen to enter this growing and often lucrative field. Becoming lifelong IT learners will allow our students to use their skills to benefit from technology, rather than depend on jobs and careers that are increasingly displaced by it.
Every 11th and 12th grade student will be dual enrolled at Tech Prep, which, as a public charter school, is tuition-free and open to all District of Columbia-resident students, and in college, at no cost to themselves—an important benefit in this low-income community. Students will earn both a high-school diploma and credit toward a college degree. The first 12th graders will graduate in the summer of 2015.
Tech Prep is one of six tuition-free public charter campuses operated by Friendship Public Charter School, which serves nearly 4,000 students in the District-resident students from preschool through the twelfth grade. Adjacent to the new campus and also on Martin Luther King, Jr. Ave. is Friendship’s Southeast Academy, an elementary school campus serving students from pre-kindergarten to the fifth grade.
This school year, 650 students will be enrolled at Tech Prep. The aim is that this campus replicate in D.C.’s Ward Eight what has been achieved in Ward Seven by Friendship’s Collegiate Academy, which has an on-time graduation rate of 95 percent.
To place that in perspective, the rate for regular D.C. high schools is 56 percent, which in turn is significantly higher than most D.C. high schools in Wards Seven and Eight.
Fully 100 percent of Collegiate’s graduate class is accepted to college. College-bound students have recently headed to Princeton, Columbia, University of Virginia, University of North Carolina, Morehouse, Georgetown, George Washington University, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Bucknell, and University of Maryland, among many others.
At Friendship, we understand that being accepted to college is insufficient for students from many families to attend the higher education institution of their choice. Accordingly, with our assistance, Collegiate Academy students have earned over $50 million in college scholarships since our first graduating class earned their high-school diplomas 10 years ago.
Nearly 700 Collegiate Academy students have been awarded D.C. Achievers Scholarships, making college a reality for hundreds of students. Some 25 students have earned coveted Posse scholarships, which provide a full-ride through college. Some have earned Gates Millennium Scholarships, which pay a full-ride through undergraduate and postgraduate studies. One student recently earned a scholarship worth $260,000.
Tech Prep aims to emulate this success by providing the academic, mentoring and emotional supports routinely available to children whose families have the means to finance college without scholarship money. These include academically rigorous Advanced Placement courses, college courses for college credit, college tours, and a culture of college-readiness as the key to success in life.
Academy of Hope Offers Second Chance [Academy of Hope PCS mentioned]
The Washington Informer
By Stacy M. Brown
August 20, 2014
After graduating from Cardozo Senior High School, James Chase started a construction apprenticeship.
On his first day of work, he recognized his biggest shortcoming. He wasn’t comfortable with his math skills and he had difficulty figuring out measurements needed to properly perform his tasks.
“I remember when my lead foreman told me I was stupid. I was so upset,” Chase said. “Am I stupid? That’s when tears came down my eyes, not for what the foreman said, but for not paying attention to my weaknesses ahead of time.”
Chase represents a compelling statistic. One in five adults in the nation’s capital lack a high school diploma and one in three adults cannot read a newspaper or a map, much less complete a job application. That’s where the Academy of Hope plays a vital role.
“The Academy of Hope is like coming home to me because when you are home you feel comfortable. There are no barriers, all your mindset and fears, your doubts, everything you have to put it down. When you come here you put it all down,” said Loucace Ampe, who moved to the United States from West Africa 18 years ago and, in just 18 months, conquered the General Education Development (GED), and graduated from the academy in May.
Ampe, a married mother of two, has started studying for a bachelor’s degree at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) and said her interests lies in working with people and on computers.
She said the Academy of Hope has instilled in her a sense of pride and an ability to reach for and obtain her goals.
“I didn’t think that I would learn so much after not being in school for 18 years, and I didn’t think that everything [previous knowledge] would come back to me,” she said. “But, the people here (at the academy) were a tremendous help to me.”
Headquartered in Northeast, the Academy of Hope received approval for a charter late last year and will launch as the seventh adult charter school in the District in September.
“We’re going from a small nonprofit with 20 staff members to about 40 full-time staffers,” said Daquanna Harrison, the school’s instructional director. “We will have 300 students on a consistent basis,” said Harrison, who noted that the recent economic downturn actually resulted in being a blessing in disguise for adults without a high school diploma or GED.
She said the Great Recession showed that even those with education degrees and comfortable jobs were also susceptible to economic and other problems, factors that have led to more adults seeking educational assistance.
Founded in 1985, the Academy of Hope offers evidence-based academic instruction which school officials couple with strong workforce training.
Earlier this year the academy’s executive director Lecester Johnson received the Georgetown University’s Legacy of a Dream Award which salutes and celebrates excellence among emerging nonprofit leaders who work to solve key issues to help improve and positively shape the District.
“Adult education and literacy are such fundamental pieces of our social fabric, and this is a tremendous opportunity to shine a light on the need of thousands of adults who are looking for quality education and literacy services to improve their lives and those of their children,” Johnson said during her acceptance speech at Georgetown University in Northwest.
Harrison said the academy offers adult basic education, the general education development, an external diploma program and pathways to college success.
The academy also offers education services to assist adult learners in attaining their educational goals including, computer training, workplace literacy projects and career assessment and planning while also offering a range of student support services to help break down barriers that may stand in the way of a student achieving his or her goals.
“Our students can earn up to four college credits with matriculation to the University of the District of Columbia,” Harrison said.
Chase, a 2012 alumni of the Academy of Hope, began to reflect on his foreman’s comments and to think about his future. “The first thing on my list was to catch up on what I missed in high school. Second, I needed to refresh my mind and get certifications that would help me to be a better professional and I found the Academy of Hope and immediately signed up. I finally conquered the math I had been having problems with,” he said.
Chase has now started taking college preparatory courses at the Academy of Hope and he said he hopes to join the Air Force and train for a career in computers and Internet Technology.
“My message here is that people make mistakes,” Chase said. “But, there is a second chance for everybody.”