Reply to What's it like to be in a new charter school in its first year?

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[quote=Anonymous]We started in a new immersion charter when our child was 3 (not in DC!). The school now has a great reputation but the initial 2-3 years were really horrible. The problems that were most acute, to the point that I wouldn't repeat the experience for anything until the school is well on its way, were the following:
- The charismatic leadership was very passionate about the school but also extremely amateurish in the most basic aspects, the kinds of aspects that you can find in a routine parent handbook in any established school. The passion and ownership of the leadership turned into something of a tyranny when relatively minor conflicts arose. (The school was in the end actually "taken over" by the parents and rolled forward well once the new co-ownership committee had put in place new leadership staff.
- I think due to the very set-up starting a new school, most of the parents were at least as passionate but amateurish about their involvement. Virtually all of them enrolled firstborns. This makes for a somewhat fretful and overbearing parent community with few cool-headed and pragmatic forces, which certainly was in part to blame for the rocky start.
- The focus was on building the organization, which such things as building management, front desk staffing and routines, accounting questions, a lot of hiring absorbing resources, all of it clearly dominating operations. Highly motivated and certainly mostly very gifted teachers, were left in a total void. The problem was augmented because, in their situation as new teachers, even if experienced, at a new school, for some in a new city, they actually needed the support most. This created very high turnover, actual burn-out, and in one instance a in hindsight dangerous situation (with a classroom in charge of a mentally unstable teacher).
- The curriculum seemed very well thought through and the school days very well planned on paper and many attractive specials listed, all of which is what attracted us to the school (which a relocation firm had recommended we check out). But very basic problems had not been accounted for, for instance how to enroll new non immersion language speakers at higher grade levels, what math curriculum to use and how to train all teachers in that one math curriculum so it would connect across grade-levels. The specials just never materialized until way into the second year. Bullying, probably exacerbated by a somewhat laissez-faire environment in that initial stage was a problem no one had ever thought of.
- The building had significant investment needs. The funds were available but no one really accounted for the fact that pretty much an additional person would have been needed to manage all of that while also building and consolidating the educational piece while also building a non-existing community and find common grounds.

I have to emphasize that our child, even though supervised for several months by someone who shouldn't have been in the classroom as we later found out, did fine. He obviously does not bear lasting scars. But he was only 3 and 4. So the described shortfalls, while maybe compromising his safety at a couple of turns, did not set him back academically. That he was with a bunch of largely just really nice kids also helped.

I can compare this situation to the next one, which brought us to an under-enrolled, dilapidated, and somewhat under-invested DCPS. Although I can't say I didn't lose any hair over this experience, the problems were very different, and in a way more manageable, less taxing, and less roller-coaster like I feel. Happy to elaborate on this but that wasn't the question.
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