Haricots Verts (French Green Immersion Charter)
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Anonymous
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Thank you, that is helpful as well. Still a bit confused though... there is a difference between board members and founders, isn't there? The criteria for being a Board Member (even if you're an original Board Member) usually does not require the sweat equity, time and intense commitment that being a founder does, right?
I can understand why founders' kids would get preference (at least in the first classes), while maybe Board Members would be limited, because really without the founders, the school wouldn't exist. So does the language above mean that all founders become part of the "Founding Board", plus other types of Board members, but ALL Board Members are eligible for the Founding Board exception for their kids? If so, I can see how that could get hairy. Sometimes you pick founding board members who have political connections/clout, or who are basically "good names" to have on your board, but they haven't necessarily done a whole lot to make the school happen. I bet there are tons of interesting stories from charters that already exist on how they navigated this dynamic when it came to which kids got preference, although maybe there was more equality of how much work founding board members put in in the DC charter schools? |
Anonymous
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@ 18:20 -- In addition to the law I posted, I also want to add that it is to the school's advantage to pick founding board members that can bring something to the table; expertise, connections, etc. You need members that can raise money, get grants, experience with curriculum or the language/culture you are proposing. Finding a space is seriously competitive now-- and having a real estate person, or a person that can help bring in $250K plus grants is what it takes now. You will be competing with established charter companies that have millions to get them going.
All this is said not to discourage your efforts-- I think the idea is great and could strengthen the DC school system. Being behind the scene at a popular DC charter has opened my eyes to potential pitfalls and work involved in starting and running a start-up school. You must think of this as a business. |
Anonymous
| Excellent points PP, and I know that you are 100% correct about those dynamics. Good to remind us about the business that charter schools are as well. Any prime school real estate probably already has all sorts of groups putting designs on it. Connections, creativity and real estate knowledge are all key in this. Oh, and money too, as you mentioned. A lot of money! |
Anonymous
I just want to thank you for this eye opening information. Wow! It's going to be tough, but not impossible. |
Anonymous
As I understand the law/process-- the founders make up the Founding Board-- which is the initial Board of Trustees at the proposal stage and after the charter is granted. After the school opens, the board members can change (although I think the cap is always 15) by votes like any other organization. But only founding board members, that is the initial Board of Trustees are eligible for the Founding board exception. The people that put in the sweat equity get the exception. Now, all the founding board members are not necessarily parents, only 2 have to be. You do not want the majority of the board to be families that are trying to get their kids into a school or else they are well connected or can bring something to the table. Some of your board members should be experts with no conflict of interest (i.e., not invested in the school for the sake of their kids). Oh, and I like the name 
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Anonymous
Of course, even if there were, say, 25 children that doesn't mean they'd all need to use preference at once. Say they're evenly distributed 2 y.o.,3 y.o,4,5,6etc. (5 of each). In the first year of the school's existence, it is very unlikely that every grade would be filled. Say you were starting with PS3, PK4, K, and 1. 1st is unlikely to fill up, thus those 5 6y.o. applicants get in easily. The 3,4,5 add up to 15 students, they all get preference. The following year, the 5 2 y.o. applicants get to the top of the list via founder's preference followed by the younger sibs of students now enrolled. Also, you can get one child in via founders pref (say, one of the 1st graders) and get his 3 or 4 y.o. little sib in via sibling pref. |
Anonymous
The PCSB and FOCUS (a lobbying group) will be resources to help you: http://www.dcpubliccharter.com/School-Leaders/Start-a-Charter-School.aspx http://focusdc.org/school-design-and-development-overview |
Anonymous
The discussion about the name is somewhat trivial. Once the group convenes, I'm sure a fruitful discussion will take place about everything including a real name, particularly is the working title is offensive to francophone families. |
Anonymous
| To the 2 (or more?) PPs posting info about the board and considerations of founding families, thank you thank you thank you! Very helpful info! |
Anonymous
Agreed about the final name coming later. But this discussion reminds me of when Chevy introduced the Chevy Nova car in Latin America, and didn't do any market testing before releasing it. Then, it didn't sell at all, and they found out it was because in Spanish "no va" pretty much means "No go", and who's going to buy a car called the "No go" car? These considerations are huge, even if they come later, and as much as I like Haricots Verts, I get that once we engage more Francophones in the exploration of this school, a lot of things will probably turn out differently than we see them right now. And that's not a bad thing. It's how things go from idea stage to completion. And there is a lot of stumbling, tripping, and laughing (hopefully) on the way.
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Anonymous
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Worry about the name later, this is the stuff to think about now:
(http://focusdc.org/startup) FOCUS Startup Program Startup: Pre-Approval In this phase, founding groups write their charter. Since 2004, when FOCUS first became a one-stop training and support center, 100% of the founding groups that have received charters have taken advantage of some or all of our application preparation offerings. For both local groups interested in starting an innovative public charter school and proven CMOs interested in replicating a strong model in DC, FOCUS provides workshops and a guidebook to help groups successfully navigate the charter application process. Charter Startup Seminar FOCUS Guide to Starting a Charter School in the District of Columbia (9th Ed) School Design Workshops Application Consulting Please click on a program above for more information. Startup: Post-Approval In this phase, approved startups spend a year turning their charter into a school. For those who have been conditionally chartered, FOCUS offers a series of meetings with local and national experts to provide guidance in everything from labor law to curriculum development to finding teachers, leaders, and a facility. We facilitate a Professional Learning Community where schools in their planning year learn from each other while receiving advice from experts. Schools in our Startup: Post-Approval program can also attend any of our Achieving Mastery workshops. Schools in our Startup: Post-Approval program will receive: Networking opportunities Consulting Help seeking funding Workshops: Operations & Compliance Facilities Finance Board Governance Labor Law & Employee Handbooks Personnel: Hiring a Principal and Teachers Curriculum Development Student Recruitment: Marketing Your School Data Management School Culture Special Populations For more information on the FOCUS Startup programs, please contact Alison Collier at acollier@focusdc.org. http://focusdc.org/startup |
Anonymous
Beans, plural. Children, plural. Not your individual child. If your child is middle school aged or older, would they really want to attend a school of "little green beaners"? The point is, something as basic as the potential name should not sound juvenile bordering on ridiculous to native-level French speakers. Multi-lingual Africans, like myself, might see the proposed name idea as at best a bad a pun on Mundo Verde. If the idea is to create a "green" school, then by all means it makes sense that the charter teacher and others who have not gotten into other charters for preschool should go ahead. Language immersion is not for monolingual amateurs who think it would be nice for their now-toddlers to speak (if not read, write, joke and calculate) another language. It is difficult to do well in the best of circumstances. |
Anonymous
The points about the name have been made well, and completely. More than anything, it's clear we have far bigger thing to worry about (and many of us who have done start ups before were well aware from the beginning of the bigger issues). So the name is not the priority right now, although if we do decide to move forward with some exploratory steps, we will have to revisit the working title of the school so we do not inadvertently turn off native French-speaking partners right from the beginning. Not sure where the continuous judgements about who is involved and what their language abilities are is coming from though. On what basis are you assessing that all those who've declared an interest are mono-lingual? And maybe no one so far has actually started a successful school, but "amateur" is a pretty strong word when there are a LOT of skills and experiences that need to combine to pull something like this off. Does everyone on DCUM really think that every other popular charter school in DC started from the idea stage with a group of people who had already previously started a charter school and who were already fluent in the target language (for the bilingual schools)? If so, you really don't know as much as you think you do about the founding of some of the already established charter schools. |
Anonymous
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Sorry, I must have missed this, but what/where is the link to join the Yahoo group?
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Anonymous
| Link hasn't been posted here. Please email the email addy in the original post, introduce yourself, and she will send the link to you. Welcome! |