NEWS
PCSB Approves Three Out of Six DC Public Charter School Applications [Breakthrough Montessori PCS, Washington Leadership Academy PCS, Goodwill Excel Center PCS mentioned]
City-wide analysis shows that D.C. preschool quality varies
PCSB Approves Three Out of Six DC Public Charter School Applications [Breakthrough Montessori PCS, Washington Leadership Academy PCS, Goodwill Excel Center PCS mentioned]
The D.C. Public Charter School Board
May 18, 2015
The DC Public Charter School Board (PCSB) approved three new public charter schools Monday evening, increasing school quality and choice for District students and adults. The schools approved include: Breakthrough Montessori, a Montessori program serving prekindergarten and kindergarten students; Washington Leadership Academy, a high school with a service learning component; and Goodwill Excel Center, the first competency-based alternative DC public charter school offering high school diplomas to students aged 16 and older.
All three were approved with conditions that must be addressed before the schools can open in 2016.
PCSB received three other public charter school applications. The Board declined to approve Legacy Collegiate and Sustainable Futures while Fostering Scholars withdrew their application.
“As the recent lottery showed, there is tremendous demand for quality public education in the District,” said Darren Woodruff, PCSB Board Chair. “These new schools will help ensure every family can find a quality school that is right for their student.”
“PCSB has a rigorous process and criteria – and is committed to approving those applications which offers quality educational opportunities,” Woodruff added.
“Our next step is to work with the Deputy Mayor of Education to find the best facilities to house these new schools,” said Scott Pearson, PCSB executive director.
Pearson encouraged the newly approved schools to meet with the Deputy Mayor of Education to talk about available facilities and to coordinate their school opening with other education plans in the city.
With the approval of these schools, the percentage of students attending public charter schools in the City is expected to stay roughly the same.
Because of the Board’s commitment to quality, it has in recent years closed nearly as many schools as it has approved. In the last three years alone, 17 have been approved while 18 campuses have been closed.
The three approved schools to open in fall 2016 include:
- Breakthrough Montessori was approved to serve 90 PK3 and PK4 students in its first year of operation. It proposes to provide families a Montessori program, designed in collaboration with the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector. The Board approved the school for grades PK3-K, although the school applied to open through third grade they may apply to grow to 6th grade before opening in fall 2016.
- Washington Leadership Academy was approved to educate 100 students in 9th grade in its first year, with plans to grow to serve 400 students in grades 9-12 at capacity. The blended learning school will offer a service learning component and focus on developing technology-literate leaders.
- Goodwill Excel Center was approved to offer an alternative high school designed to serve students 16 and older, who are seeking high school diplomas. The first of its kind in the District, this program will fill the gap between traditional high schools programs and adult education programs that result in a GED. To ease adults’ barriers to success, the founding group seeks to locate near a metro, offer childcare onsite, and support students with life coaches.
In March, the Board received a total of six applications, notified Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANCs) citywide of the applications and opened the charter applications for public comment. Meanwhile, PCSB staff began reviewing each application, which included 1) analyzing academic, operational, and financial plans, 2) conducting interviews with the founding group, and 3) in applicable cases, visiting existing programs run by the applicants. The Board held a public hearing and a Twitter Town Hall in April about the applications. In addition to meeting with Ward Education Councils and community groups about the applications.
City-wide analysis shows that D.C. preschool quality varies
The Washington Post
By Alison Michael Chandler
May 18, 2015
Most taxpayer-funded preschool programs in the District scored above targets for promoting social and emotional development and maximizing student learning time, and below targets for providing instructional supports to students, according to a new report released by the Office of the State Superintendent for Education.
The report, which evaluated programs during the 2013-2014 school year, is the first to use a common tool to measure the quality of pre-kindergarten classes across the city.
With 86 percent of the city’s three-year-olds and four-year-olds now attending publicly funded preschool, the report emphasized that the District has achieved the goal of universal access that was spelled out in the Pre-K Enhancement and Expansion Act of 2008.
“Now the attention must turn to the investments needed to ensure the quality of programming across all educational programs for children in the District of Columbia,” Hanseul Kang, acting state superintendent of education wrote in an introduction to the report.
As access to pre-school programs increases across the country amid an Obama administration push to expand early education, variable quality is a growing concern.
The District has used the “Classroom Assessment Scoring System” to evaluate classroom quality, a measure developed at the University of Virginia. External independent evaluators observed classes during a typical day in nearly 500 classrooms across the city.
On a scale of 1 to 7, researches have found that “threshold” scores of five or more in emotional support and classroom organization, and scores of three or more in instructional support, are associated with better outcomes for children.
Average scores across D.C. surpassed the threshold for emotional support (which includes positive climate, teacher’s sensitivity and regard for students’ perspectives) and classroom organization (which includes behavior management and productivity.)
But scores fell below the threshold for instructional support, with an average score of 2.5. That category includes concept development, quality of feedback and language modeling.
“These findings suggest a need for additional professional learning opportunities specific to supporting children’s higher-order thinking skills and language development,” the report said.
Elizabeth Groginsky, assistant superintendent of early education at OSSE, said that the District is sharing the results with schools and will use them to inform training opportunities. The District also is expanding a quality rating system that will use classroom observation data and other indicators, including attendance and student outcomes, to rank schools as bronze, silver or gold.
“D.C. is leading the nation in access and the way we support preschool, but also in taking the issue of quality very seriously,” Groginsky said.
Just more than 100 out of 491 classrooms scored at or above thresholds in all three areas.
Average scores in the emotional support and classroom organization categories varied by ward, with Ward 7 rating the lowest in those areas. All wards scored about the same in the instructional support category, Groginsky said.
The District was ranked first in the nation last week in a state-by state report card by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University that evaluated access and state spending on preschool. The report also gave the District high marks for some quality indicators, including teacher preparation requirements and low staff-child ratios.
In all, about 86 percent of all three-year-olds and four-year-olds in the District were enrolled in publicly funded pre-K programs in the 2013-2014 school year, with 12,426 children attending programs in charter or traditional public schools and 1,263 attending other full-day subsidized programs offered by community-based organizations.
Preschool was offered at 154 sites, including in 75 D.C. Public Schools, 58 public charter schools and 21 community sites.
The report also found 1,200 unfilled pre-K slots that year. It noted that, despite availability of seats, parents are not always able to secure a slot in their preferred schools.
Preschool is not compulsory, and students are not guaranteed spots in neighborhood schools. They are matched with schools through the city-wide common lottery. This year there were nearly 5,000 applicants for pre-K3 seats, and 87 percent of those were matched with a school.
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