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The Washington Post
How a D.C. school puts fresh food on the lunchroom tables
By Lisa Dobbs and Linda Moore
Sunday, February 28, 2010

In his Feb. 14 Outlook commentary, "In D.C. school cafeterias, a long way from here to healthy," Ed Bruske asked a question on the minds of nearly every school parent, from Michelle Obama on down: How do we make the transition from feeding our children industrial food filled with artificial substances to freshly prepared, whole foods that are healthy for kids? At the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School in Northeast, we think we've found the answer.

This month, we began preparing fresh food from fresh ingredients on site. One recent lunch, for instance, was black bean chicken, jasmine rice, Whole Foods-brand green peas, fresh apple slices tossed with cinnamon and low-fat white milk (chocolate is offered one day a week). The fresh chicken breast comes from a distributor, but it will soon be supplied by a local farmer. All the chicken, garlic, ginger, scallions and black beans that go into the dish are fresh, and we peel and chop everything ourselves.

So how does one get from reheating to fresh cooking?

We do it with a lot of hard work, and a lot of help. Stokes bought a building that was equipped with an antiquated but functioning kitchen. The Vulcan stoves and gas tops are more than half a century old, but after giving them a serious cleaning and turning on the gas for the first time in many years, we are able to cook with them. As Bruske pointed out, most local school kitchens have little actual cooking equipment, a serious impediment to fresh in-school food preparation.

To cook for and serve the nearly 400 adults and children who make up the Stokes population, we have a kitchen staff of five. We clean up afterward and do the paperwork required to comply with the Agriculture Department's National School Lunch Program in order to receive the reimbursements that are the lifeblood of school lunch service nationwide. If the reimbursements reflected the higher costs of fresh food preparation, more schools would be able to make the transition.

We offer our students and staff members a full salad bar every day, thanks to the donation of a refrigerated bar from the United Fresh Produce Association. It is simply not true that kids do not eat vegetables. What is true is that they will not eat -- nor will most adults -- vegetables that have been frozen or processed until they become nasty mush. Our kids ravage that salad bar every day. We literally run out of most things we put out, especially the uncooked cauliflower, broccoli and leaf spinach. And these are pre-K through sixth-graders!

We are not a rich school. Our funds are limited. So the second reason we were able to do this is that we asked for, and received, a lot of help.

A small, superbly effective Washington-based nonprofit called Through the Kitchen Door, with funding from Kaiser Permanente, made our start-up possible. Through the Kitchen Door secured donations of most of the equipment we needed, much of which came from Whole Foods Market, which has a program of promoting healthy nutrition in local schools. We used money from the stimulus bill to buy a commercial refrigerator, freezer and a hot holding cabinet and to hire three additional kitchen staff members.

Our wish list of needs is still long, but little by little we are making progress. One parent owns a local farmer's market and is putting us in touch with farmers who can supply us year-round. Thanks in part to the first lady, improving school lunches has shot to the top of the nutrition agenda in Washington, which makes this a good time to apply for grants. We are making full use of every fruit and vegetable program that the U.S. government offers.

We work bare bones at the moment. But everyone in the building is devoted to the idea that when children are properly nourished and their bodies are healthier, they can learn, think and play better, and are ultimately better equipped to reach their potential.

Lisa Dobbs is the Stokes kitchen chef. Linda Moore is founder and director of the school.

The Washington Informer
Friendship Collegiate Academy Public Charter School students prep for gridiron
By John E. DeFreitas
Thursday, February 18, 2010

Parents, family, friends and a few professional pigskin lovers filed through the doors of the Friendship Collegiate Academy Public Charter School auditorium in Northeast recently to honor a group of young college-bound athletes.

Ten seniors who attend the college preparatory high school in Ward 7 made decisions to sign their names on the dotted line during the National Football Signing Day ceremony Wed., Feb. 3.  Students and faculty also showed up for the auspicious occasion – the first day that high school players can officially commit to a collegiate program.  The event was the second ceremony of its kind in the school’s history.

The football players – the young men of the hour – had committed to play for seven different colleges and universities, including Villanova University – the defending NCAA Division 1 Football Championship Subdivision national champions. Nine of the young men played in the December 2009 D.C. All-Star Game.

“I’m proud of their perseverance.  A lot of the kids have a lot of obstacles – but they decided to commit themselves to being student-athletes.  If you commit yourself to something positive, good things happen,” said Knights head coach Aazaar Rahim.

The players dressed in suits and ties, thanked their parents, coaches and teammates for their unwavering support over the years.

Knights starting quarterback Chris Griggs received a full scholarship to ply for the Bowie State Bulldogs in Bowie, Md.  He attributes his success to his sister, Candice Jeffery, a freshman who attends Widener University in Chester, Pa.  A big fan of Redskins’ QB Jason Campbell, Griggs was all smiles during the 2 ½ hour ceremony.  Chris said that along with his sister, his father Donald Griggs, a coach at Howard University in Northwest, played a major role in his success.  His dad, he said, urged him to attend Friendship Collegiate Academy Public Charter School.

Sherae Smith, a friend of Griggs, snapped one picture after another during the ceremony.  She described Griggs a being charismatic. Further, she said that there’s no doubt that he will excel both on the field and in college.

“Chris is very warm, definitely a people person and intelligent.  He’s really focused for his age,” she said.

Along with family and friends, some special guests who are intimately familiar with the gridiron showed up for the afternoon event:  former Redskin players Raleigh McKenzie, Ravin Caldwell and Ted Vactor all provided a few words of encouragement to the group.

McKenzie, the former Redskin and offensive guard from 1985 until the early 1990s congratulated the players for their achievement both on and off the field.  His teammate, Caldwell, a linebacker from 1987 until 1992, told the players that their journey was about to begin and it started with schoolwork and then football.  And Vactor, a cornerback with the Skins from 1969 until 1973, and later with the Chicago Bears, said that education is the best game that they could play if they wanted to have a future.

The Washington Informer
Let’s bend public schools toward justice
By Donald Hense
Thursday, February 18, 2010

As we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this week we are aware of the tremendous strides our nation has taken toward racial equality and justice. Indeed, the day after Martin Luther King Day saw the anniversary of the inauguration of our first African-American president.

But as different as our nation is from that dark day in 1968 when Dr. King was taken from us, we know that African-American children remain subject to a public education system that will likely fail them. The shameful reality is that millions of our children will not graduate from high school. Because of that they will likely fail to escape the burden of poverty that will exclude them from America's mainstream.

That we face this crisis 56 years after Brown v. Board of Education is an indictment of our public schools. Nationally, the high-school graduation rate for African-American children is 51 percent, according to research by the journal Education Week. In our nation's capital, the school system does not even make the African-American high-school graduation rate public. Dropping out of high school will haunt these children throughout their adult lives as they struggle to survive in a society in which literacy and numeracy are the keys to success.

Securing an education for all of our children is a goal every bit as righteous as those for which Dr. King gave his life nearly 42 years ago. Failure to graduate from high school denies children access to college, the passport to the middle class.

The Department of Labor estimates that high school graduates earn $600,000 more during their lifetime than high school dropouts. And an adult with a college degree makes 73 percent more over a lifetime than someone with only a high school diploma, the education nonprofit The College Board reports. These are lost opportunities not only for our children but also for our nation. The achievement gap separating black and white students cost our country up to $525 billion in 2008, management consultants McKinsey & Company found.

Tragically, dollar amounts don't begin to count the cost of failing our children. High school dropouts' lives are shorter because they are more likely to be victims of violence. According to research out of Northeastern University in Boston, the unemployment rate for African-American males aged 16 to 24 who dropped out of high school was 69 percent in 2008. Male high school dropouts are 47 times more likely to be incarcerated than their peers with college degrees. Their young female counterparts are nearly nine times more likely to become single mothers as those with college degrees.

Here in Washington there are worrying signs that the student achievement gap between black and white students is widening. The Washington Post reported last month that from 2007 to 2009 the gap grew from 53 to 58 points, using test score results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Even the much-publicized improvement in fourth-grade NAEP math scores in the District was largely the result of improved scores among white students in city-run schools.
But there are signs of hope, and they come from the District's public charter schools. Did you know that D.C. charters-publicly funded but independently run-have a higher proportion of African-American and economically disadvantaged students than the city-run school system? Charter schools have closed the citywide achievement gap between black and white students by 25 percent in three years, according to an analysis by D.C.'s Friends of Choice in Urban Schools.

Did you know that D.C. charter high-school graduation rates are eight percentage points higher than the U.S. average? The national average includes affluent counties and suburbs that are a world apart from the vulnerable communities in which nearly all D.C. charter schools operate. The hard work of charter teachers and students has paid off: 85 percent of charter high school graduates are accepted to college.

The introduction of public charter schools to the District of Columbia is a 14-year old school reform that now educates 38 percent of D.C. public school children. It is improving the odds for those children whose parents previously lacked school choice: children whose parents cannot afford to pay tuition or buy a home in an exclusive suburb with good public schools.

Charters are reshaping the tragic topography of America's urban landscape. In neighborhoods that once contained only the lowest performing public schools there are now thriving public charter schools offering a high-quality public education.

To paraphrase Dr. King, the arc of the moral universe is long but with our help it can be made to bend toward justice.

Washington Business Journal
D.C.’s Franklin School gets little notice from developers
By Jonathan O’Connell
Thursday, February 11, 2010

Community advocates are worried that the District's Franklin School, built in 1869, will be turned into condominiums or a luxury hotel, but developers are showing little interest in the building.

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty received only two development proposals for Franklin, a national historic landmark on Franklin Square that housed experiments by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 and became the city's first high school in 1880.

One proposal, by Brooklandville, Md.-based Cana Development, would turn Franklin into a 30-room boutique hotel above a restaurant and culinary training program. The other would turn the site into an elementary and middle school for the Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School, which bid in tandem with D.C.-based Jair Lynch Development Partners.

Michael Morris, a Cana principal, said a 30-room extended stay hotel similar to Palihouse, which opened in West Hollywood, Calif., last year, would fill an empty niche in the local hotel market as a place for days- or weeks-long stays by business travelers or families. Franklin, with its significant history and proximity to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, is a perfect fit, he said. “I think this presents a very unique opportunity,” he said.

Morris, a former development manager at the Cordish Cos. of Baltimore, declined to name hotel operator or restaurant partners, but was recently looking at restaurant locations with Scott Conant of New York City's Scarpetta restaurant. Morris said he is working with the Adams Morgan Youth Leadership Academy, a nonprofit, to craft a work-study program in Franklin’s bottom floor.

Yu Ying, which translates to “Nurturing Excellence,” currently serves about 200 pre-kindergarten to second-grade students in the city’s Brookland neighborhood in Northeast D.C. Executive Director Mary Shaffner said the school plans to grow to almost 700 students by adding grades 3 through 8 in coming years, and finding new space is crucial.

“We really like Franklin partly because of its history and its closeness to Chinatown, and also because it’s accessible to parents all over the city,” she said.

After Fenty’s economic development team, headed by Deputy Mayor Valerie Santos, issued a solicitation for the property in September 2009, community members formed the Coalition for Franklin School, creating a petition and publishing letters in newspapers urging that it be retained by the city and used as a school. The group sent Santos an informal 20-page proposal to turn the building into a “High School for Global Citizenship and Diplomacy.”

Whether Franklin is renovated by the city or the private sector, the work will be expensive. The building suffered from years of neglect and has been used as a homeless shelter until 2008. Those costs, along with the community concerns and the credit shortage, may have collectively tempered developers’ interest. Morris estimated that it would take $15 million to $20 million to bring Franklin up to code, but said it was still “very surprising” there weren’t more responses.

“I would have expected that there would be a lot more interest in the property,” he said. He argued that a hotel and restaurant would bring the city needed tax revenue, create 220 full-time jobs and help turn around that part of downtown. “We would help to gentrify that community and that area,” he said.

While Morris said he isn’t seeking any public funding “at this time,” Yu Ying may be facing longer odds because it is asking the city to finance about half of its plans. The Brookland school was already turned down in its previous attempt to secure one of the city’s more recently vacated schools.

Franklin “was intended as a school, it has historic status as a school and if they decide to protect it as a school, we believe we should get some assistance,” Shaffner said.

When it comes to tax revenue, she said, “we figure they’re going to be doing tax abatements for whoever else would be doing it anyway. So we figure it might come out as a wash.”

The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU 88.5 (NPR)
Evaluating charter schools
Monday, February 1, 2010

*Robert Cane, executive director of FOCUS, joined the show as an in-studio guest at the 22-minute mark of the broadcast.

To listen to the clip, please click the following link: http://thekojonnamdishow.org/audio-player?nid=16168

Program description: The Washington region is at the forefront of the national charter school movement. But after a decade of innovation and experimentation, it's still difficult to evaluate local charters and compare them to traditional public schools. Do charters live up to the claims of their boosters? Our charter school series continues with a look at how we measure performance.

Guests:

Thomas Nida
Chairman of the D.C. Public Charter School Board; Executive Vice President at United Bank

Marsha Silverberg
Acting Associate Commissioner of Knowledge Utilization, National Center for Education Evaluation at the Institute for Education Sciences.

Sam Chaltain
National Director of the Forum for Education and Democracy, a DC-based education think tank. Author of American Schools: The Art of Creating a Democratic Learning Community (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009).

Robert Cane
Executive Director, Friends of Choice in Urban Schools (FOCUS)

The Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential
Do charter schools make a difference?  Check out this new video on D.C. charters
By Mark Tapscott
Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Charter schools are public-funded and independently run public schools that provide a genuine alternative to the typical dreary,  teacher-union debacle found in most big-city public school systems.

But do they make a difference in the academic performance of students? Well, in the District of Columbia, 38 percent of all public school students attend charters. Those charters have higher grades, higher attendance and higher graduation rates than regular DC public schools.

There are reasons for this performance differential. Check out this new video that explains those reasons:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Do-charter-schools-make-a-difference-Check-out-this-new-video-on-DC-charters-83489762.html

The Washington AFRO American
Public charter garners D.C. Teacher of the Year award
Saturday, January 30, 2010

Stephanie Day, a teacher at Friendship Public Charter School’s Chamberlain campus in Ward 6, was named Washington, D.C.’s 2010 Teacher of the Year Jan. 20.

D.C. State Superintendent of Education Kerri Briggs and D.C. Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso presented Day with the coveted award in front of students, parents and fellow educators—including Friendship’s Chairman Donald Hense and Chamberlain campus principal Keith Stephenson—during a ceremony held at Friendship’s Chamberlain campus last week.  

“Ms. Day won because she believes in her students and knows that they can achieve immeasurable goals when held to the highest standards,” said Barnaby Towns, spokesman of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, the D.C. public charter school advocacy and resource organization. “We are delighted that this honor is going to one of the many outstanding educators who teach the 38 percent of D.C. children in public charter schools.”

Day was selected by a panel of District education leaders from charter and traditional public schools chosen by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education. The application process included a written application and essays, an interview, and a classroom observation.

As the 2010 D.C. Teacher of the Year, Day received a $3,000 check and will represent the District of Columbia in the  National Teacher of the Year competition and program in Dallas, Texas. Four other finalists, two from District public charter schools and two from District traditional public schools, each received checks for $1,000.

The Current
Op-ed: D.C.’s school building scandal penalizes children
By Robert Cane
Wednesday, February 3, 2010

As E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, one of the highest-performing public schools in the city, gets ready to move into a school building that was recently closed by the city's school system, D.C. residents may not realize that many other high-performing public schools in the city, serving children from some of D.C.’s most vulnerable neighborhoods, are being denied similarly empty school buildings.

Student enrollment at D.C. public charter schools, which are open to all D.C.-resident students and are tuition-free, has grown rapidly since the first two public charter schools matriculated 160 students in 1996. Today, there are 99 campuses. These new-style public schools have higher shares of African-American and economically disadvantaged students -- defined by the Department of Education as eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch -- than the city-run public schools. And they are ahead of the curve in reducing the student achievement gap -- closing D.C.’s gap between black and white students by 25 percent in three years.

Economically disadvantaged children have fared well in the public charter schools, which have been free to shape their own education programs. Innovations include longer school days, weeks and years; more intimate learning environments; increased contact between teachers and parents; and data collection to track what each student has learned at multiple points throughout the school year.

Students in D.C. middle and high schools with a majority of economically disadvantaged students are nearly twice as likely to be proficient in reading and math in charter schools as their peers in the city-run schools. D.C. charters also have created safe schools for children in troubled neighborhoods. The academic and character instruction offered by District public charter schools is helping children arrive at adulthood properly equipped for life.

High school graduation rates at D.C. charters are a full 24 percentage points higher than the city’s regular public high schools -- and even 8 percentage points higher than the U.S. national average. Fully 85 percent of high school graduates from D.C. public charter schools are accepted into college, and many successful charters have 100 percent of their graduating class earning college places, opening doors in adult life that otherwise would be closed.

But amid their successes, D.C.’s public charter schools have a huge problem: finding suitable school buildings in which to impart the quality academic and character instruction they offer. Charters do not begin their life with a public school building. They grow incrementally, one grade level at a time, and they must find their own space. Many are located in unsuitable warehouse and retail space or church annexes and basements, often lacking essentials such as playgrounds, playing fields, auditoriums and gymnasiums. Many charters have taken out expensive loans to convert these unpromising spaces into child-friendly school environments.

D.C. law says that the District government must offer school buildings that D.C. Public Schools no longer needs for educational purposes to charter schools to buy or lease before developers are allowed to bid for them. But almost always, the city government either does not invite charters to bid for buildings or it invites offers but does not seriously consider them. Instead, the city offers surplus school buildings to commercial real estate developers, who can make more lucrative offers.

There is no shortage of these schools: Enrollment in the city-run schools has declined for decades. Twenty-six schools have been closed by the city, and more closures are on the way.

Many of these school buildings -- frequently large, imposing structures -- lie derelict, blighting the underserved communities in which they are located and attracting crime. Others have disgracefully been sold to developers to become luxury condominiums or health clubs. Thus the city not only deprives needy children of school buildings (charters have half the square footage per student as city-run schools), but also keeps thousands of children on waiting lists for schools that can’t accommodate them. For instance, high-performing Capital City Public Charter School -- which President Barack Obama recently visited and praised as “an example of how all our schools should be” -- has nearly 30 applicants for every available place.

Simple fairness requires that the underserved children whom D.C.’s public charter schools predominantly serve get school buildings before developers can.

Robert Cane is executive director of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, which promotes school reform in D.C. via the development of high-quality public charter schools.

News Channel 8 (ABC affiliate)
D.C. students take part in National Football Signing Day
By Britt McHenry
Wednesday, February 3, 2010

This piece featuring Friendship Collegiate Academy Public Charter School is more than two minutes in length.  To watch the clip, please click here: http://www.news8.net/news/stories/0210/702631.html

The transcript is below:

WASHINGTON - High school football players from across the area took part in National Football Signing Day.

It's the earliest scholarship-receiving players are able to commit to a collegiate program. And for one Northeast public charter school, the day carried even more significance.

Darious Holly never imagined he'd sign a national letter of intent to play football at the collegiate level. In fact, a few years ago, he never even thought he'd play football at all.

At just 12 years old, both of his parents had passed away. And by the time he started high school, Holly says he was already headed in the wrong direction.

"I wasn't into anything; I wasn't doing any positive things," he said.

But things changed when he met Friendship Collegiate Academy's head football coach.

"He just needed structure and being around positive people," said coach Aazaar Rahim. "He needed a lot of male figures in his life."

Holly found 33 of those figures when he transferred to Friendship Collegiate and joined the football team. Many of his teammates, like strong-safety Harlynn McNeil, came from tough backgrounds.

"My best friend lived down the street and he wanted to be a hustler and steal cars and stuff like that and I wanted to play football," he said.

But the program faced its share of challenges. The players don't have a home field to call their own, and recently the violence near campus was so bad, the principal spearheaded an effort to get District police officers on campus as school resource officers.

"One of the challenges is what they encounter every day coming to and from school," noted Principal Peggy Pendergrass.

But that challenge is paying off for Holly, who is now seeing his dream come true as he gets ready to hit the field at West Virginia State University.

"My teammates they helped out," he said. "It's just like a lot of love shown."

Holly will be joined by three of his teammates at West Virginia State University.

While these players are moving on, the coach says the team is still very young, and there's already a sophomore getting recruited by top Division 1 programs.

The Washington Examiner
The 3-minute interview: Stephanie Day
By Leah Fabel
Thursday, January 28, 2010

Day wakes early each weekday morning to overcome challenges that have long thwarted educators throughout the District of Columbia. For her success as a special education teacher for early elementary students at the Chamberlain campus of Friendship Public Charter School, 26-year-old Day has been chosen as the city's Teacher of the Year for 2010.

What's your best trick for engaging your students?
One word: costumes. Bringing in art, music, dance -- anything to get kids engaged. It's critical to make lessons memorable and to tap into students' interests.

When you speak with non-teachers, what's the biggest misconception about your job?
The most inaccurate assumption is that teachers have a lot of time off. We don't work solely within the hours of the school day. I wish people would realize we have an 8 a.m.-to-8 p.m. day. And I've worked summers; I haven't had a summer off yet.
Also, there's a misconception about parents in urban communities, that they don't want to be involved. Parents do want to be involved, and they want direction, and they want what's best for their kids.

What did the award mean to you?
It was amazing. When I came into teaching through Teach for America, the first person I heard speak was Jason Kamras, who was the 2005 Teacher of the Year. I looked at him and said, "By the time I'm 30, I'll be the Teacher of the Year, too." I think it's about who you're surrounded by -- I've had amazing mentors and colleagues -- that's what it's about.

Has your school been a factor in your success?
When I came to Friendship two years ago, I asked for some leeway in my practices and strategies, and they said, "Go for it, let's see what you can do." They like creativity. If you bring it to the table, they'll back you up and let you try it.

- Leah Fabel