- Plan approved for D.C.'s largest charter school [Rocketship and Friendship PCS mentioned]
- DC Public Schools start campaign to hang onto students
- DCPS Chancellor Henderson has marketing plan, charters have one too
- D.C. Student Receives Surprise Scholarship [Friendship Collegiate Academy mentioned]
Plan approved for D.C.'s largest charter school [Rocketship and Friendship PCS mentioned]
The Washington Examiner
By Rachel Baye
February 28, 2013
The DC Public Charter School Board has approved what could become the District's largest charter school.
The California nonprofit Rocketship Education had submitted an application to open eight campuses in the District, serving a total of 5,200 students and surpassing Friendship Public Charter Schools as the largest charter school operator in the city.
In its meeting this week, the charter board approved the creation of two Rocketship schools, with a maximum capacity of 1,300 students, to open in fall 2015. After the first school has been open for two years and if the first two campuses are in the top tier of D.C. charters, Rocketship can begin adding one campus with up to 650 students each a year until it reaches the eight campuses it wants.
The Washington Examiner
By Rachel Baye
February 27, 2013
DC Public Schools has started an "aggressive" campaign to persuade parents whose children attend one of 15 schools being closed not to abandon the school system for charter or private schools.
DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson has enlisted principals, teachers, parents and even students at the schools slated to receive students from closing schools to help recruit. Henderson said she hopes to keep 1,762 -- 80 percent -- of the 2,203 students at the closing schools and to increase the school system's overall enrollment by nearly 3 percent in the coming school year.
During the beginning stages of the effort, which began earlier this month, principals at closing and receiving schools are reaching out to parents, schools are offering tours and hosting open houses, and every letter or email sent home is supposed to contain "an encouraging message to re-enroll in DCPS." Starting next week, schools are scheduled to get new brochures and posters, as well as banners, T-shirts and buttons for principals and volunteers. Students will compete for the best two-minute recruitment video.
DCPS plans to reward schools that hang onto their students with "enrollment swag" and reward teachers who help with recruitment efforts.
"We seek to minimize the loss of students through the transition -- we want families to stay in DCPS," Henderson wrote in a letter to D.C. Councilman David Catania, who heads the council's Education Committee.
DCPS has been rapidly losing students to the District's public charter schools. Since the District closed 23 schools in 2008, enrollment at public charter schools has grown by 60 percent. This year, charter enrollment grew 10 percent to enroll 43 percent of the city's 80,230 students, while DCPS enrollment grew by less than 1 percent.
D.C. Council members and education experts have warned that more closings could be another reason for parents to move their kids to charters. And some parents say no marketing campaign or recruitment effort is going to change that.
"Honestly, [a marketing effort] should have been done before the schools were closed, not now," said Leslie Jones, whose sons are in prekindergarten and second grade at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School. When the school closes, Jones hopes to avoid sending her sons to Langdon Education Campus, the DCPS-chosen alternative. She has applied instead to two out-of-bounds DCPS schools and three charter schools.
"DCPS has proven to be very frustrating to deal with," Jones said. "I don't think that anybody should have to gamble with our children's education, which is basically what we've been forced to do."
For Joy Hicks, the latest round of closings marks the third time her daughter, a seventh-grade student at Shaw Middle School, has had to relocate. The changes have left Hicks feeling neglected.
"My trust level for DC Public Schools -- I just don't have any," she said. "They have no problem looking you right in the face and lying."
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
February 28, 2013
The Washington Post’s Emma Brown revealed yesterday that DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson has a plan to retain within her school system 80 percent of the students who now attend one of the 15 traditional schools she has decided to close. Ms. Brown discloses that in a letter to Councilman David Catania, chairman of the education committee, Ms. Henderson asserts: “We are mounting an aggressive recruitment strategy at each receiving school in coordination with the closing school leaders to retain and attract students and families.”
The move comes as a result of the panic I’ve been reporting that has engulfed the city’s political leaders who are petrified that their government schools are about to become a thing of the past.
The article provides some details of the components of the strategy such as students from the receiving school producing upbeat videos to greet the new kids and parents. I’m really not impressed.
Charter schools also have a marketing plan and it does not involve hiring an expensive public relations firm. In fact, the entire package can be summarized in three words: high academic achievement.
D.C. Student Receives Surprise Scholarship [Friendship Collegiate Academy mentioned]
CBSDC
By Kimberly Suiters
February 20, 2013
WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — A D.C. high school student received the surprise of a lifetime Tuesday.
Alassane Traore, a senior at Friendship Collegiate Academy in Northeast D.C., was recognized for his academic excellence and ability to overcome adversity when he was awarded a full scholarship to attend Hanover College in Indiana.
Traore, 17, bested 150 students from across the country to earn the Benjamin Templeton full-ride scholarship, valued at more than $130,000, which includes tuition, room, board, books and a personal mentor over four years.
Two representatives from Hanover College flew to Friendship Collegiate Academy on Tuesday to hand deliver Traore the scholarship offer — and give him a college sweatshirt — at a surprise presentation during his history class on the fourth floor of the charter school.
School officials said the full-ride was the most generous scholarship ever offered to a Friendship student.
Traore said he’s never felt so supported by any other community in his life.
“My father has been absent throughout most of my life and I’ve been pretty much without a father figure,” Traore said. The teen also has bounced around schools, attending a new one every year of high school.
A school counselor said finances often are the most critical obstacle for low-income, first generation college students.
Traore kept his cool in front of teachers and fellow students throughout the presentation but broke down when he called his mom to tell her of the good news.
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