Join school design expert Leslie Talbot, SUNY’s Executive Deputy Director for Best Practices and Partnerships, Vanessa Threatte, and the Chair of the DC Public Charter School Board, Darren Woodruff, for an open dialogue about the challenges associated with authorizing charter schools to serve opportunity youth. While the charter school debates rage on concerning student creaming and other issues, many authorizers are discovering that charter schools offer an important option in serving out of school youth.
Learn how New York and Washington DC have clearly defined their student populations based on emergent conditions like court-involvement, chronic absenteeism, suspensions/expulsions, pregnant or parenting, physical and/or cognitive disabilities, food and/or housing insecurity; substance abuse, foster care, or domestic violence. Explore what authorizers are learning about working collaboratively to establish enhanced or additional accountability measures relevant to opportunity youth own definition of student success. Learn how these authorizers have found a way to tell an objective story about these schools and students.
Discover how these authorizers successfully address frequent reasons for charter authorization or renewal denial for schools serving majority opportunity youth including: lack of focus on strategies to address challenges faced by the target population; over reliance on anecdotal information, rather than on student progress towards mastery of college and career readiness skills; lack of evidence that school stakeholders understand or have partnered with community organizations that can support the school’s efforts.
