A Successful School Takeover: Case Study
The National Charter School Resource Center created a series of videos highlighting our authorizing approach that allowed us to avoid displacing students at a low-performing public charter school in our portfolio.
The three-part video series showcases how we successfully supported Achievement Prep PCS’s takeover of Septima Clark PCS, a K-3 all boys school that was struggling academically and scoring below the state average on city-wide assessments, in 2013. Watch the videos below, and visit the NCSRC website to learn more.
1. Introduction to DC Public Charter School Board
DC PCSB - Mission Final from Safal Partners on Vimeo.
2. DC PCSB: Challenges and Solutions to School Closure
DC PCSB - Closure & Challenges from Safal Partners on Vimeo.
3. A Successful Takeover - Lessons Learned
DC PCSB - Takeover Final from Safal Partners on Vimeo.
It's our mission to transform education in Washington, DC by providing quality public charter school options to families. To ensure those quality options, we use student outcomes as the primary indicator of a school’s performance, as measured by our Performance Management Framework (PMF). Schools receive a rating of Tier 1, 2, 3 with Tier 1 being the best.
Achievement Prep PCS opened in 2008 and has been a Tier 1 school since the start of the school quality ratings or PMF. Click here for Achievement Prep PCS 2015 PMF.
We’ve been implementing several turnaround initiatives in the past few years. For low-performing public charter schools, there are three alternate options to closing:
- Transition to a traditional public school campus;
- Turn around a school's performance using existing leadership; and
- Takeover by a new public charter school operator (as the above videos highlight).
These programs are last resorts after an exhaustive and comprehensive accountability process. Theses videos highlight our lessons learned and a successful implementation of school reform.
The National Charter School Resource Center releases a case study on DC PCSB.