By: Lisa DiGaudio
New Dawn Charter High School, Founding Member

Last week I talked about the years that it would take to generate an idea, find a group of people to work with, and go through the beginning steps in generating the outline of a school. I really want to reiterate to all of you the time factor. You cannot say, “I’m going to open a charter school” and have an application approved just like that. There are so many pieces to go through, from the “easier” concepts--the looks like, feels like, sounds like concepts--to the very minute details, such as budgeting on a FIVE YEAR basis and staffing needs over that time period. 

I went over the number of emails that the professionals in my group exchanged PRIOR to the letter of intent being drafted to our State Education Department. There were over FIVE HUNDRED. And that was in a six month time frame, from June 2010-December 2010. That’s not counting the meetings and emails that went on PRIOR to that, or the emails that went back and forth AFTER that. That also doesn’t include face-to-face meetings, dividing research and school visits, real estate walks, and then over the phone or Skype meetings to iron out the ”what ifs” and “I don’t agrees” in the process. It takes patience, dedication, and the ability to compromise.

So, you meet with some like minded folks and you all seem to be speaking the same language in terms of goals and desires. That’s great! Half the battle. Now, get to the nitty gritty. For our team, we knew the cohort of students we were going to target: the over-aged and under-credited. Thanks to the experience in opening two schools for this cohort of students, prospective Board of Trustees President Ron Tabano, and our lead applicant, Sara Asmussen, had plenty to share in terms of what this cohort needed. They needed real life help--solutions to getting their lives back on track. I had worked with high school drop outs in the Evening Program at Sewanhaka High School and I saw how hard some of these kids were working. They would work a full time day job, often pizza delivery or waiting tables, and then come to school for three hours at night. They were tired and introspective; they wished they could take back their mistakes. Often they wished for a second chance.

This is what we all agreed on: the second chance. Now we had to iron out the other details. Where would we locate the school? What would the school even be called? What were we going to teach? How were they going to get a second chance WITH US? All of these things had to be discussed at length, one piece at a time. The first part, location, seemed to be an easy discussion. Sara and her husband, our community liaison Marco Castro, were long time residents of Sunset Park in Queens, New York. A large immigrant neighborhood, many students in Sunset Park get lost in the shuffle due to poverty, gang activity and language barriers.  It seemed like a great place to target for our school.  Next steps would mean setting up meetings with different community leaders to get a sense of whether a charter school would be welcomed in the neighborhood.  As our community leader, Marco was instrumental in reporting on how an application would be received for Sunset Park. The preliminary feedback was positive.

Next up was the instructional program. We all had ideas. I was finishing up a second masters in School Leadership from Stony Brook University, and I spent many an hour arguing with classmates about the opportunities we should be giving high school students. Surprisingly, one of the most controversial topics in the discussion boards was allowing sophomores and up to go off campus to college for credit. I was all for this. Differentiation is the cornerstone to learning, students who can actively be a part of the college community learn how to build better organizational skills, writing habits and responsibility for their workload. Building responsibility is key, and sending them to college during the school day would be a huge step in preparing our teens for the real world. The pushback went from valid concerns of maturity, to some crazy ideas about teen alcoholism and pregnancy. To me, college for our particular cohort of kids made total sense. If they could earn credits while finishing their high school credits, then they wouldn’t be so “behind” their own age group when they went to college full time. Sara and Ron once again had great experience in this, and quickly developed a partnership with the College Now program, which would give this very opportunity to our students. This was one piece of the puzzle that we were in agreement on. However, there were other pieces that required more discussion and research.

My classroom experience relied heavily on the workshop model. To me, it made perfect sense to use this, along with the Advisory Model to truly individualize instruction for each student coming to our school. Now I had studied the advisory model at Stony Brook, reading “The Big Picture” by Dennis Litkey. I actually tried to get in touch with him for more information on how he rolled this out with his team, but I have not been successful yet.  Now came time for pushback and discussion. Not all members of the team were familiar with workshop, particularly because of its use in elementary classrooms. However, having taught middle school English, I saw the workshop model work very well, and achieved great results on the ELA exam as a result of the individualization and conferencing that was a major part of the structure of workshop. 

Next steps were to research the workshop model, as well as the advisory model. The team and I went on school visits to New York City schools that used advisory. It was eye opening to see the breadth to which the word “advisory” was applied. One school we went to worked with the same cohort of students over the course of their high school career, however, the cohort interacted in mostly study hall situations, with common books being read and discussed, along with different “issues,” such as debating abortion or presidential elections. In other schools, we saw that a formalized curriculum was written, where students worked together and shared issues, hardships, hopes and dreams with their advisory leader and within their group. After reading through research, including more on the Big Picture schools, we knew that we wanted to develop our advisory as an integral, intensive method of counseling for our most at-risk cohort, students coming to us with less than 11 credits accrued towards a diploma. The remainder of our students would participate in Advisory, but not to the level we intended for our intensive group, who would need counseling, skill building and much more.

These are just two examples of the types of pieces as a team we had to research and work out. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of designing a strong school model that would make us stand out and show our different skill sets.  And after all this, did you notice that I STILL didn’t get to writing our letter of intent?

Stay tuned for next week’s installment on writing the letter of intent.

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This blog post is part of the Charter Notebook, sponsored by the Network of Independent Charter Schools, a project of the Center for Educational Innovation - Public Education Association.

The views expressed in Charter Notebook blogs represent the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Center for Educational Innovation-Public Education Association or the U.S. Department of Education.