March 25, 2009
That’s because spring break takes a different form at E.L. Haynes. The Petworth charter school operates on a year-round schedule, with eight- to 12-week academic sessions punctuated by breaks that include a week or more of “intersession.” During that time, school is optional and the classes are nontraditional. This year, for example, the 200 intercession students spent the week crafting quilts, taking drama classes and visiting museums on the Mall, among other activities.
Haynes founder Jennie Niles said the point of intercession is to introduce students to the kind of learning that falls outside the academic curriculum, and it’s especially useful for students whose parents don’t have the resources to pack their children’s schedules with extracurricular activities. “The purpose of it is really to level the playing field,” she said. “It’s not just school that’s helping enrich their lives.” Sixty-six percent of the students at Haynes qualify for free and reduced lunch, she added.
Niles, a former teacher, served as the head of the Charter School Office for the Connecticut State Department of Education before she completed the urban principal-training program New Leaders for New Schools in 2003. When she arrived in D.C., she came with a mission: “How do we start a school where all the students are prepared for college when they graduate?” she remembers asking her school reform- movement friends.
Haynes is her attempt to answer that question.
To that end, Niles said, the charter school synthesizes the best practices from institutions across the country. “We have borrowed or stolen liberally,” she said. For example, she got the idea of a year-round schedule from the Fairfax County school system, and the school’s teaching fellows program replicates a similar program established by the New Teacher Project, on a smaller scale.
At Haynes, teachers-in-training assist in classrooms while attending education classes at American University at night. Those teachers then compete for full-time jobs at Haynes, or for positions at other area schools. “It’s like an apprentice model,” Niles said.
At the school’s core is the philosophy that all students can achieve when they get the right mix of supports. “The key for us to teach the kids is: You’re not born smart or not smart. You have to work hard to get there,” she said. As a result, students must accept the principles outlined in the student promise: “Be Kind, Work Hard, Get Smart,” which is based on the KIPP charter school model. Posted on all the classroom walls, the promise instructs children to be respectful of their teachers, their classroom materials and each other, and to learn from their mistakes while avoiding excuses.
So far, Niles said, the school is netting impressive results. In 2008, Haynes students made 18 and 19 percentage-point gains in reading and math tests, respectively. That same year, Haynes was chosen from D.C.’s 56 charter schools as the winner of the Fight for Children’s Quality Schools Initiative Award. It was also a silver award winner in the New Leaders for New Schools’ Effective Practice Incentives Community (EPIC) grant program.
Robert Cane, executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, said Haynes exemplifies the promise of D.C.’s public charter schools — which now educate more than a third of the city’s public school students, according to enrollment data compiled by the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent. “It’s clearly one of the best-performing elementary schools in the city, including DCPS and public charter schools,” Cane said. “They combine extremely high standards with excellent teaching and much longer hours.”
Niles said she’s determined to keep the momentum going. Haynes first opened its doors in Columbia Heights in 2004. Since then, the school has grown by one grade every year, and it now serves 375 students in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade.
Last fall, E.L. Haynes moved into a new school building near the Petworth Metro station. Earlier this month, Haynes became one of a handful of charter schools the city selected to negotiate for a vacant D.C. Public School building. On March 16, the D.C. Office of Property Management announced that it would negotiate with Haynes to occupy Clark Elementary School in Petworth. The city will also negotiate with three other organizations — Washington Math Science Technology Public Charter School, AppleTree Public Charter School and the nonprofit group Building Hope — for use of the Taft Center in Brookland.
Niles said she is still ironing out the details of the Petworth purchase with the city, but she expects to use the new space as a high school for Haynes. “Probably what will happen is we’ll have to finance the capital improvements,” she said. “I think the mayor’s office has every intention to make it work.” She said the earliest the school could move into the new building is probably fall 2010. In the meantime, she said, she’s planning to scout out area high schools and see what’s working. “We know kids will know the grown-ups intimately,” she said. “We know we will have them out in the community often.”
Whatever the specifics of the program, she said, building a high school is key to achieving Haynes’ mission. “It really is a way to show that every child that starts with us will be ready to go to college,” she said.