My First Time at EdFEST

This year’s EdFEST brought another burgeoning example of the diversity of public charter schools.

On Sat Dec 10 at 10AM, I logged onto My School DC’s virtual platform alongside many families looking to learn more about public and public charter schools in DC ahead of the DC common public school lottery opening. 

 After a few technical difficulties, I was ready to visit schools’ booths. I was excited – and hopeful prospective parents were going through similar journeys!

Each school on the EdFEST virtual platform has the opportunity to add an explanatory or promotional video, as well as written introductions, location information, and contact information. Visitors can opt to send direct messages to each school, call them, or chat alongside other prospective families in a live video chat.

I opted to read schools’ introductions, watch their videos, and attend their live chats, because I did not have specific questions and wanted to learn as much information about the school as I could in a short period of time.

 I managed to visit six public charter schools, which doesn’t compare to the number of options available to families in Washington, DC. 

Still, I wanted to visit a wide variety of different schools, to get a picture of how diverse public charter schools can be. At each one, I asked them the same questions: what makes their school special? What kind of learners are a best fit? Here is what I heard:

AppleTree Early Learning Center PCS – Columbia Heights is a diverse community that prioritizes social-emotional learning and the transition process to school for its young children.

“Our commitment to families is to lay the foundation for your child to be a successful learner,” explains Jamie Miles, the Chief of Schools for AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter Schools, in her school’s promotional video. “We use a research-based curriculum, Every Child Ready.”

Like AppleTree PCS, Capital City Public Charter School’s teaching philosophy is also based on research. Their school follows the Universal Design for Learning and prioritizes EL Education (formerly known as Expeditionary Learning). For example, one class recently took a field trip to visit a human rights lawyer, during their discussion on human rights.

“We meet kids at their level,” said a teacher during the virtual video chat.

Capital City PCS offers a dual language immersion program through UDC and is one of four schools I visited that highly values language acquisition. 

Global Citizens Public Charter School offers language immersion programs in both Spanish and Mandarin and is the first of its kind in DC to do so. It strives to provide “equitable access to education to kids east of the river,” said one school leader. She and her colleagues explained how teachers, students and parents alike confront their own biases. During early education, for example, students can draw self-portraits using brown crayons in all shades. 

Different from Global Citizens PCS, DC International School offers the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum. The school, too, works hard to make sure its philosophy is based on equity.

“There should never be a demographic of students that cannot access this curriculum,” Chris Nace, the school’s principal, told me during a live video chat with him.

“All kinds of learners” are fit for Latin American Montessori Bilingual PCS’ Montessori curriculum, several leaders told me during live video chat. The Montessori method is an adaptive model that follows a child, allowing for early detection and differently abled learning. Dyslexic readers, for example, can have reading support even into older grades via color coded and patterned mosaic tiles. Early language immersion, for them, is an even bigger boost.

“Learning a new language rewires the brain’s synapses,” a LAMB teacher said. “It helps kids learn things in a new way.” 

The last of the schools I visited was KIPP DC College Preparatory Academy, one of 20 schools within KIPP Public Schools’ network. The wide variety of different KIPP schools and DC College Prep’s curriculum and extracurricular offerings leaves multiple different pathways for students to choose to take with their education, said the leader with whom I talked with over live chat.

Most of the families whom I encountered across all six schools had children in lower grades, especially PK3 and PK4, or children experiencing a big transition, such as newly attending middle school. 

What I do know for sure, is that there are a lot more different school curriculums, philosophies, and values offered by DC public charter schools than what I saw at these six school’s virtual fair booths. It seems, every student can find the school that works best for them.

If you would like to learn more about DC Public Charter schools, head to our school profiles page. 

Several schools have open houses coming up as the deadlines approach for the common public school lottery: Feb 1, 2023 for high school applicants, and March 1, 2023 for PK3 - 8th grade applicants. 

Open Houses Through December 2022

See more open houses, including those in January and February, here.