Former D.C. Catholic Schools Start New Life as Charters

Conversion Attracts Attention as Possible Model Elsewhere

Comment: It’s tragic to think that the work the Church did a hundred years ago is coming to this. Is it only a little sad to say goodby to a standard of education that lead the world? For some it is especially when the education that’s replacing it is failing.

When Principal Monica D. Evans led a morning gathering on the first day of school recently, she left out what was once a central ingredient: an opening prayer.

So began the former Holy Name School’s new incarnation as the Trinidad Campus of Center City Public Charter Schools. The reinvented elementary school here in the nation’s capital has given up its Roman Catholic identity this academic year to become a charter school.

“It was a little sad to say goodbye to what we knew as Catholic education,” said Ms. Evans, adding that the switch was far preferable to seeing her school close. “But we didn’t dwell on it. It was what it was, and we were given this wonderful opportunity.”

Ms. Evans’ school is one of seven former Catholic schools across the District of Columbia that were approved in mid-June to become charters. Analysts say they are aware of no other instance in which Catholic officials have sought to convert a batch of parochial schools into public charters.

The newly formed nonprofit organization that runs them, Center City Public Charter Schools, was handpicked by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. It was one of several organizations church leaders considered to manage the campuses.

With the switch to charter status for the schools, the archdiocese has relinquished its role in operating them. It is now simply a landlord for the buildings.

Financial Strains

The archdiocese first announced last fall that it was considering a move to convert eight schools to charters. Church officials said that the idea was being weighed with regret, but that the other alternative was to shut the schools down, given the mounting financial drain they posed. Rising costs, declining enrollments, and tuition levels that fell far short of actual expenses helped drive the decision, the archdiocese said. (“D.C. Parochial Schools May Become Charters,” Sept. 19, 2007.)

The plans sparked objections from some families, and one of the eight schools ultimately decided to remain a Catholic school.

School officials emphasize that much remains the same at the seven campuses, from a strong academic program and focus on promoting character education to many of the faculty members and school leaders.

At the Trinidad Campus in Northeast Washington, not only has Ms. Evans returned as principal, but all of the full-time classroom teachers from last year opted to come back as well, she said.

Ms. Evans herself attended the school as a student, and later taught at it before eventually becoming its principal. She said that as a public charter school, it now can serve many neighborhood families that previously couldn’t afford the $4,500 tuition. And on the opening day, Ms. Evans said she was struck by the strong turnout.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen that many students in the schoolyard,” she said of the roughly 210 students who showed up Sept. 2 at the pre-K-8 campus. Last year, the enrollment was about 170. Full capacity is approximately 245 students.

Across all seven new charter campuses, school officials estimate that about 1,300 students arrived for the first day, up from about 1,150 enrolled as of last December when they were Catholic schools. The new figures also could climb in coming weeks.

And while detailed demographic data were not yet available, the charters are projected to serve almost all minority students, with about 70 percent eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch.

Ms. Evans said “a little less than half” the students were returning from the prior year. School officials estimated that about 35 percent of students last year in the seven former Catholic schools lived in Maryland, and said that most of them would not be returning. Out-of-district students are permitted to enroll, but they must pay tuition.

Also, the archdiocese estimated that about four in 10 students at the schools when they were still Catholic last year received tuition vouchers under a federally funded program that provides aid to low-income families to attend secular or religious private schools in Washington.

‘Everyone Can Come’

Tyrone Calliham, a longtime resident of the city’s Trinidad neighborhood who lives blocks from the school, is among the parents enrolling children there for the first time.

“I knew their expectations for children were much higher than in D.C. public schools, so I always wanted to come here,” he said of the school. “But now they’ve made it so everyone can come.”

Mary Anne Stanton, the executive director of Center City Public Charter Schools, said the schools have long-standing local ties.

“They’re rooted in all of these communities,” she said. Many had been operating for decades. The Trinidad school, whose former name is still etched into the edifice above the double doors out front, was founded in 1924.

Ms. Stanton, who came out of retirement to lead the charter network, is no stranger to this school, or the six other campuses. A former longtime Catholic educator, she oversaw the schools in their previous iteration for eight years as the executive director of the archdiocese’s Center City Consortium, formed in 1997 as a way to revitalize and support a set of inner-city Catholic schools and provide greater support. Four of those schools remain open as Catholic schools as part of the archdiocese’s renamed Consortium of Catholic Academies.

At the Trinidad Campus’ morning gathering, Ms. Evans made clear the emphasis on developing students’ character, as she recited and asked students to repeat the school’s honor code. The “value for the month,” she then told students, was “respect.”

“Each day,” she said, “we will focus on how respect is a very important part of your everyday life.”

‘The Start of Something’?

As public schools, the campuses must administer the standardized tests taken by students in the city’s district-run schools. Yet school leaders say the curriculum is largely unchanged at the school—except for the elimination of a daily religion class.

Thomas A. Nida, the chairman of the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board, said he was impressed by the application from the charter group for the seven schools. “They just simply had an excellent application,” he said. “It covered all the bases we were looking for, and then some.”

The conversion effort faced resistance from some city council members and others worried about the costs to city coffers of adding more public schools.

“I wish that we had just been able to invite all of those children into the existing set of [public] schools, and not take on the responsibility of financing so many new schools,” said Margot Berkey, the director of a local advocacy group, Parents United for the D.C. Public Schools.

Mr. Nida said leaving aside federal dollars, the schools are eligible for roughly $11,500 per student in public funds, including the base funding for public charters, plus $3,000 per pupil for a facilities allotment.

By contrast, archdiocesan officials estimated per-pupil spending for the schools at about $7,500 last academic year.

Teachers, on average, will receive higher pay in the converted charters than they did last year, up to 22 percent more with a performance bonus, school officials say, though they did not provide actual salary figures.

Mr. Nida said he’s been hearing from Catholic officials around the country who are keenly interested in the conversion effort, given that many urban Catholic schools have closed in recent years. (“Papal Visit Spurs Plea for ‘Saving’ Catholic Schools,” April 16, 2008.)

“I know they’re watching it,” he said. “It may be the start of something you see popping up in due course elsewhere.”

Parent Nisha Long said the verdict is still out for her on whether the decision to convert the Trinidad school to charter status was a good idea. She was disappointed about taking religion out of the school, but decided to again enroll her two sons. “I was kind of skeptical in the beginning,” she said. “We’ll try it for a year and see what happens.”

The familiar faces on campus were a big selling point. “We love the teachers and the whole family atmosphere,” Ms. Long said. “They didn’t change the teachers, so that’s why we’re back.”

Healthy Kids, Naturally

Comment: these are excellent guidelines.

(Family Features) Keeping kids and teens healthy can be a challenge during the busy school year. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say that nearly 22 million school days are lost annually due to the common cold alone.

Fortunately, there are some simple, and natural, things parents can do to help kids stay healthy and energized for all their activities.

Hygiene. The CDC says that the single most important thing you can do to keep from getting sick is to wash your hands. When there’s not sink and soap around, use natural hand sanitizers—wipes or gel—with 100 percent pure essential oils.

Nutrition. Growing bodies and brains need fiber and nutrients to stay healthy. A child’s health can suffer from too few of these good things and too many sugary, highly processed foods.
The USDA Food Guide Pyramid recommends nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day. One serving size of fruits and veggies for children equals one of the following:

• 1/2 cup juice
• 1 cup raw leafy salad greens
• 1/2 cup chopped raw, canned or cooked fruit or other vegetable

Essential fatty acids, particularly omega-3s, are crucial for development and health of the brain, heart, nervous system, tissues, skin and immune system, especially for school-age children. DHA can be found in fatty cold-water fish like salmon, mackerel and tuna, and in DHA-enriched products like eggs and milk.

What about nutritional supplements? If kids and teens are actually eating nine servings of colorful fruits and veggies—plus foods containing all the other recommended daily nutrients—every day, then they probably don’t need them. But with picky eaters, tight schedules, food allergies and more, they don’t often get what they need. In these cases, supplements might be a good idea. But be careful. While it’s easy to find a fun and fruity multivitamin that kids don’t mind taking each day, it’s the nutrients they need, not loads of sugar or artificial colors and flavors.

Rest. Rest, relaxation and sleep are key for handling stress. While moderate stress is normal, the demands of school life can cause stress overload for youngsters and adolescents—and their parents and teachers! Be sure to schedule in downtime and allow for adequate sleep when you’re planning the week.

Kids need more sleep than you might think.

• 3–6 years old: 10 3/4–12 hours per day
• 7–12 years old: 10–11 hours per day
• 12–18 years old: 8¼–9½ hours per day

Stomachaches, nervousness, trouble sleeping, anger flares or infections may be signs of stress. Fortunately, there are plenty of safe, effective ways to handle it. Breathing deeply, exercising, stretching, physical play and homeopathic remedies may help.

If you would like to know more about natural ways to help your kids stay healthy, the Whole Body Team Members at Whole Foods Market are well educated about all of the products they offer and are happy to answer questions.

You can also visit WholeFoodsMarket.com for educational podcasts and more information.
Courtesy of Family Features

Report Finds Benefit to Quality Preschool Programs
As candidates debate national preschool policy, scholar urges policymakers to stick with what works

W. Steven Barnett
Kevin Welner

TEMPE, Ariz and BOULDER, Colo. (Sept. 10, 2008) — Amid a contentious debate over the benefit of preschool programs, a new policy brief, Preschool Education and Its Lasting Effects: Research and Policy Implications, examines what researchers currently know about the potential of those programs to bring about positive change. It finds that preschool can strongly benefit children’s learning and development. But the brief also finds that the quality of programs varies dramatically and that increased public investment in preschool education should be focused on program designs that have been demonstrated to be highly effective.

Comment: Every year the GS sends children to big school very well prepared.

The policy brief is written by W. Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University in New Jersey. It was released today by the Education and the Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University.

Preschool programs have become increasingly common over the last several decades, with states such as Oklahoma taking the lead. Recommendations for or against various forms of universal, publicly funded preschool have emerged in the current presidential campaign. For example, Barack Obama is proposing grants to encourage states to institute universal, voluntary preschool programs, while John McCain’s campaign has called for a more limited federal role, providing information and databases to help parents choose a preschool education program.

Comment: One does not throw tax payers money into the arena when the arena has no program. What is the money going to pay for? No one knows!!

Barnett’s brief offers a solid research foundation upon which this policy debate can proceed.

Barnett’s brief offers both warnings and hope. He explains that well-designed preschool programs have been shown to produce long-term improvements in school success—raising students’ achievement test scores, reducing the rates of students being retained in grade, reducing the assignment of students to special education programs, and raising student educational attainment. He also finds that these well-designed programs are extraordinarily cost effective, with their long-term payoffs far exceeding their costs.

The strongest evidence suggests that children from all socioeconomic backgrounds reap long-term benefits from preschool, Barnett says. And he notes that the strongest benefits are received by economically disadvantaged children.

Comment: So long as the program is preschool and not babysitting.

However, Barnett also warns that current public policies for child care, Head Start, and state pre-Kindergarten programs offer no assurance that American children will attend such highly effective preschool programs. Some attend no preschool and others attend educationally weak programs. Middle-income children often have the least access to pre-school, while many children in poverty may lack preschool as well.

Comment: Or parents buy day care thinking there is a developed learning plan implemented.

Although there are exceptions, highly effective preschool programs are generally characterized by small class sizes and the use of well-educated, adequately paid teachers, and Barnett recommends that policymakers stick with those approaches. Preschool teachers should undergo intensive supervision and coaching and “should be involved in a continuous improvement process for teaching and learning.” Preschool programs also should regularly monitor children’s learning and development.

Comment: If teachers are teachers, then the idea one must monitor them and treat them as social morons is not even a consideration. Good teachers really teach. You have to spend the money to hire teachers who really teach.

Because preschool programs vary so much in quality, Barnett counsels against simply raising child care subsidies. Instead, he recommends greater public investment in effective preschool education programs, with a focus on state and local pre-K programs with high standards, which have been found to be the most effective. Such programs “need not be provided by public schools,” he notes; public, private and Head Start programs all “have produced similar results when operating with the same resources and standards as part of the same state pre-K program.”

Comment: If you want something done right – do it yourself.

Finally, Barnett recommends that because existing results are strongest when children receive “an earlier start and longer duration” for preschool education, disadvantaged children under four who are likely to benefit most should get first priority in policies to expand access to such programs.

Find Steve Barnett’s report, Preschool Education and Its Lasting Effects: Research and Policy Implications, on the web at: http://nieer.org/resources/research/PreschoolLastingEffects.pdf.

After being interviewed by the school administration, the teaching prospect said,

‘Let me see if I’ve got this right:

‘You want me to go into that room with all those kids, correct their
disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse, monitor their
dress habits, censor their T-shirt messages, and instill in them a love for learning.

‘You want me to check their backpacks for weapons, wage war on drugs
and sexually transmitted diseases, and raise their sense of self esteem and personal pride.

‘You want me to teach them patriotism and good citizenship,
sportsmanship and fair play. You want me to check their heads for lice, recognize
signs of antisocial behavior, and make sure they all pass the state exams.

‘You want me to provide them with an equal education regardless of
their handicaps, and communicate regularly with their parents.

‘You want me to do all this with a piece of chalk, a blackboard, a
bulletin board, a few books, a big smile, and a starting salary that will
qualify me for food stamps. You want me to do all this and then you tell me:

I can’t pray?

Comment: I received this as an introduction to a new book that’s out called the Cole Family Christmas. You can find it on the Internet. I truly believe that stories from grandparents and great grandparents are a marvelous personal way to make the past a part of our present. These stories are priceless and beautiful and for most children a treasure beyond anything else. We all want to know. Growing up without grandparents and without extended family, I know the few pearls I have are treasures to me.

Don’t Let Your Family’s History Slip Away

Ten ways to preserve your family’s unique story this National Grandparents Day

September 4, 2008 – Grandparents can to take the lead in helping younger generations preserve their family history this National Grandparent’s Day, according to Milford, Ohio resident Hazel Cole Kendle, the 88-year-old first-time author of the just-released Cole Family Christmas. This year’s National Grandparent’s Day will mark its 30th anniversary on Sept. 7.

“It’s a myth that young people don’t want to hear the stories their grandparents can tell,” said Kendle. “However, too often grandparents and great-grandparents feel like they must wait to be asked before telling those stories. Realize that family members often won’t ask for the first story, but once you start talking, they’ll be begging for more.”

Jennifer Liu Bryan of Alexandria, Virginia, Kendle’s granddaughter-in-law and co-author, points out that grandparents don’t have to stop with stories, either.

“There are many ways to pass along family traditions,” said Bryan. “Remember the favorite dessert your grandmother used to make or the dishes she received on her wedding day. Each item serves as a connection to the past, but we have to work to keep that chain from breaking.”

For this reason, Kendle and Bryan suggest 10 ways families can preserve their memories this Grandparents Day.

1. Construct a family memory book. Gather pictures of family members across generations and make a scrapbook by writing in the stories that have been passed on through generations. 2. Play a game the grandparents used to play. Kids had fun long before video games were invented. Play a game from the analog era to show the grandchildren how it was done. 3. Read a book your grandparents read when they were your age. Grandparents can make classic children’s literature even more rewarding by adding in details of what life was like at the time. 4. Learn how to cook grandma’s favorite recipe. Whether that’s a traditional holiday dish or her secret cookie recipe, spend time in the kitchen with grandma cooking a recipe that can be passed down to the next generation. 5. Take part in a grandparent’s favorite hobby. Whether that is painting, gardening, or putting together puzzles, spend time with your grandparents and learn about the daily activities that bring them joy. 6. Pick out one interesting, unique or strange family heirloom. Grandparents can explain the history of the item and why it is special to the family. 7. Learn where you came from. Drive through your grandparents’ old neighborhood and listen to stories about their old neighbors or family outings at the local park. 8. Go back in time to the movies. Rent a classic the grandparents enjoyed seeing on the big screen years ago. There are plenty of great old movies other than just the ones that run during the holidays. 9. Ask to look at your grandparent’s wedding pictures or high school yearbooks. Learn about their best friends and see pictures of them when they were so much younger. 10. Preserve a memory for future generations. Make a home video with them and let them discuss their favorite stories.

Next Chapter Press has released 60,000 copies of Cole Family Christmas, a true, tender, and wholly unforgettable tale that has been passed down from generation to generation through a coal miner’s family.

When one of Mama’s few possessions, a treasured purple glass bowl with fluted edges, is accidentally broken by exuberant children rushing in from the outdoors, and an unlikely blizzard prevents Papa from coming home after working extra hours at the coal mine on Christmas Eve, hopes for a picture perfect Christmas were quickly quelled. However, the hours that followed that turbulent Christmas morning created a joyful story that has lived in family lore for years.

Comment: why should children be encouraged to eat salads and other leafy vegetables? Good habits begin in youth. Here’s an article for adults that should be taken to heart for children:

Last week we finished our Following Directions week with a tour of the old jail. It was a nice outing and we thank Susie Kirk for such a wonderful adventure.

Judge Trockman welcomed our group into his courtroom, and after Addie was arrested for possession of a sugar packet, there was a little trial with Emma as her attorney and Jay as the prosecutor. But Addie was innocent and everyone knew it and the jury exonerated her. Then we were off to lunch at Newburgh Fortress of Fun.

The tour of the jail was something Miss Judy had never seen before. I think I became one of the kids. The kids were interested in the whole idea that this was OTHER than what their experience had been up to then. We tried on handcuffs and found them very heavy.

Learning the rules, listening to directions, and following directions is a main teaching scheme all year long. It’s impossible to take the children anywhere if they don’t know the traveling rules, listen for the next direction, and then follow that direction.

Helping children with listening skills means taking the time to ask them what you said. Then asking them what that means. Sometimes you will have to interpret what the answer is, but listening and getting it right is an important skill.

Following directions is a modern word for obedience. Children should always question when they are unsure, but they should learn to trust. Blind obedience is never the issue. But obeying the rules, and understanding that the adult in charge who they know and love will probably not lead them in error. The problem most young children have is a failure to believe that the rules include them and that they must. These few weeks help get the point across that the rules involve everyone.

This week we will start our October theme: Work people do; community work; what I will be when I grow up. These are eye openers for young children. We will use terms such as “green grocer” and “haberdasher” this week just for fun.

We are thinking of adding a field trip to Owensboro to the botanical gardens and the bug museum on the 19th. There will be a trip to the farm on October 3, and there will be a tea party on September 26 for all our grandparents, so it’s going to be a busy month.