UFT to partner with Green Dot in new Bronx charter school
Jun 28, 2007 3:41 PM
In what will be the first collaboration of its kind in the nation, UFT President Randi Weingarten and Green Dot Public Schools founder and CEO Steve Barr announced a partnership on June 28 to bring Green Dot, the most prominent and union-friendly charter school operator in southern California, to New York City. The partners hope to locate the new school — a four-year high school — in the South Bronx.
Green Dot currently operates 10 public charter high schools in Los Angeles’ highest-need communities, and the schools outperform comparable traditional public high schools. Green Dot bases its success on its “Six Tenets of High Performing Public Schools,” which call for public schools to:
- be safer and no larger than 500 students each;
- implement a college preparatory curriculum for all students;
- empower principals, teachers, parents and students to own all key decisions related to budgets, curriculum and hiring;
- add more dollars to classrooms and significantly increase teacher pay;
- value and support parent participation; and
- stay open later for community use.
By implementing this model, Green Dot has produced real results for its students, graduating 98 percent of its seniors. In addition, 78 percent go on to four-year universities. These results are unmatched within the Los Angeles Unified School District where Green Dot currently operates.
“With the expansion of the charter school cap in New York State,” Weingarten said, “it was time to identify sponsors who both value teachers as a key ingredient of school reform and who have a great track record. Green Dot’s core principles are very much aligned with the UFT’s. Teachers want to work in schools with small classes, that foster collaboration, respect and school-based decision making and that engage and involve parents.”
Green Dot is the only non-district public school operator in California that has unionized teachers. The progressive working conditions Green Dot provides in Los Angeles will be replicated here in New York including giving teachers an explicit say in school policy and curriculum; a full and fair disciplinary process based on an independently mediated “just cause” standard; a professional work day rather than defined minutes; and flexibility to adjust the contract in critical areas over time.
Green Dot was able to achieve its reforms by establishing a relationship of mutual trust with the teachers union and committing to pay its teachers above the average of comparable schools’ pay scales. In doing so, Green Dot and its teachers share a unique relationship in the world of labor relations, one that is characterized by collaboration and a mutual interest in improving public education.
“Randi Weingarten is one of the most progressive labor leaders in the country,” said Barr. “When the UFT opened its two charter schools here in New York, I knew this was an organization I wanted Green Dot to partner with. Green Dot has had great success in working with the unionized teaching force in Los Angeles and I have no doubt our school in New York will have the same results.”
Green Dot and the UFT intend to submit a charter application to the State University of New York Board of Regents for approval and, if approved, open a high school in the South Bronx beginning with 100 students in grade 9 and eventually expanding to include all high school grades through grade 12. Class size will be capped at 25.
Green Dot will identify the principal, conduct hiring, and provide curriculum and professional development. The UFT Educational Foundation will provide administrative and operating support services to the school, including financial management, procurement and grant applications.
