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Welcome! Spring is nearly upon us (we hope!) and the arrival of spring means the annual FOCUS Gala is in the offing. Those of you who have attended the Gala in previous years know that it’s always fun and interesting, and this year’s will be no exception. In fact, we promise that it will be something special. That’s because we’ll be celebrating the great success of our charter school movement, recently named by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools as the healthiest in the United States. At the Gala we’ll be honoring our movement’s pioneering school leaders and those whose schools have done the most to close the education gap between middle class and disadvantaged students. Our keynote speaker will be Kevin P. Chavous, who was chairman of the education committee of the D.C. Council from 1998-2005 and did much to protect and nourish our fledgling movement. Mr. Chavous, who has gone on to become one of the nation’s strongest advocates for better schooling for disadvantaged and minority students, will be presented with our first D.C. Charter Champion award in recognition of his early support for D.C.’s public charter schools. I hope to see all of you there.
Achievement Prep PCS Visit For the first tour of 2015, the First Fridays team went to southeast DC to visit Achievement Prep’s Elementary school. Consistently among the city’s top-performing public charter schools, Achievement Prep is deeply committed to closing the achievement gap east of the Anacostia River. Achievement Prep provides a rigorous college prep curriculum with double instructional blocks for reading and math and a dual focus on character development. They currently serve 630 scholars in Kindergarten through 8th grade across their two Ward 8 campuses; 99% of their students are African-American, 85% qualify for free and reduced price lunch, and 23% receive special education services. Achievement Prep scholars outperform other schools in the Ward 8 community by as many as 40 points on standardized tests and perform competitively with students in the city’s most affluent neighborhoods.
We hope to see you on March 6th at DC International PCS! Sign up to receive invitations to First Fridays tours by emailing: info@firstfridaysdc.org.
Launch of the FOCUS DC Data Community FOCUS kicked off the DC Data Community with a networking happy hour in December for staff working in the education data field. Data staff from 13 LEAs came together in January for the first installment of the DC Data Community Workshop Series led by fellow school data analysts. The monthly workshop series focuses on best practices to streamline data processes, and equipping data staff with new tools to effectively collect, analyze, and report student data. Throughout the year FOCUS will host happy hours and professional development opportunities for school data staff in DC.
Larry Jerome and Angela Morgan presenting to a captivated audience. The next FOCUS DC Data Community Workshop is on Tuesday, February 24, 2015 Questions: Please contact Lindsay Templeton at ltempleton@focusdc.org
DC Charter Friends Network Happy Hour!
Click here to register for the DC Charter Friends Network Happy Hour Questions: Please contact Sarah Lick at slick@focusdc.org
High Performing Charter Schools in Ward 7 and 8! Below is a map of all the high performing schools in Ward 7 and Ward 8 who exceeds state average in both reading and math in the District. For more information please visit the FOCUS Data Center, offers interactive DCPS and PCS maps and dashboards to the public. Click around to compare demographics, graduation rates, and DC CAS performance by school, ward, or sector. Look at enrollment trends spanning the last 30 years, compare school and sector performance over time, and click around the interactive map to see how schools compare by neighborhood. |
Friends of Choice in Urban Schools (FOCUS) promotes school reform in the District of Columbia in partnership with DC's public charter schools.
Challenge met! Thank you for giving so generously during our December 2014 Matching Gift Challenge! Your donations to FOCUS helped us reach – and exceed – our goal of $2,000, and receive the full amount of a matching gift of $2,000 pledged by our generous board members Sekou Biddle and Dan Mindus.
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Upcoming Events
FOCUS DC Data Community Workshop
DC Charter Friends Network Happy Hour
FOCUS Gala
Deadline to submit your My School DC application for grades PK3 - 8:
First Fridays Tours - Spring 2015 Friday, March 6, 2015: District of Columbia International School PCS Friday, May 1, 2015: TBD
The 6th Annual DC Data Summit will provide DCPS and public charter school leaders and teachers with an opportunity to learn with and from one another about the latest trends and best practices in data-driven instructional decison-making and performance management.
Fair Funding Lawsuit
As many of you know, the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools, Washington Latin Public Charter School, and Eagle Academy Public Charter School filed suit in federal court in July, asking that the District government be directed to obey the law and provide public charter school students with the same amount of funding as their school system counterparts. For more information on the Fair Funding Lawsuit, funded by FOCUS, visit dcschoolfundingequity.org.
FOCUS Media Page Our new media page is LIVE! Check it out to see our daily compilation of published news about D.C. charter schools and the D.C. education policy environment, fair funding lawsuit updates, and more!
Data Corner Percentage of Economically Disadvantaged Students Scoring Proficient or Advanced on the 2014 District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System test (DC-CAS)
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