General News
UFT-Green Dot charter gets official go-ahead
Jan 31, 2008 10:45 AM
It’s a marriage made in public school heaven. In partnership with the UFT, Green Dot, a successful, unionized, charter school operator based in California, will open a high school in the Bronx this coming September.
After seven months of navigating the channels of approval on the local and state levels, the joint venture got the official go-ahead from the New York State Board of Regents on Jan. 14.
The approval of Green Dot New York heralds an unprecedented collaboration of a charter operator and a teachers’ union creating a school from the ground up. The common goal is to bring a topflight learning institution to students in a high-needs community.
“When we have a partner who shares the same values of respect for teachers’ professionalism, collaboration and fairness, many things become possible,” said UFT President Randi Weingarten. “So here we have the top charter school operator in California, which encouraged its teachers to unionize, coming to New York because the UFT reached out to work together, not because they came hunting for business.”
UFT Special Assistant for Charter School Development Jonathan Gyurko stressed that Green Dot is not a predatory company looking to open charter schools all over the country with a focus on profit instead of people. “They’re a good organization that wants the same thing we do — a great school that understands that to get real results one must value its teachers,” Gyurko said.
Going by Green Dot’s track record, students at the new school should soar. By implementing its “Six Tenets of High Performing Public Schools,” Green Dot has produced student outcomes that exceed those of schools in Los Angeles and the surrounding communities that serve similarly situated students within the Los Angeles Unified School District, where it currently operates 12 public charter schools in the highest-needs neighborhoods. To date those schools have graduated 98 percent of their seniors with 78 percent going on to four-year universities.
The tenets call for schools to: 1. be safer and no larger than 500 students each; 2. implement a college preparatory curriculum for all students; 3. empower principals, teachers, parents and students to make all key decisions regarding budgets, curriculum and hiring; 4. add more dollars to classrooms and significantly raise teacher pay; 5. value and support parent participation; and 6. stay open later for community use.
“When the UFT opened its two charter schools in New York, and Randi Weingarten, one of the most progressive labor leaders in the country, reached out to us, I knew this was an organization that we should partner with,” said Green Dot Public Schools Founder and CEO Steve Barr. “I have no doubt the Bronx school will have the same great success as we have in Los Angeles.”
Green Dot New York, which is currently working with the Department of Education to locate an appropriate facility, will open its doors to about 110 9th-graders, add a new freshman class each year and grow to 12th grade. Classes will be capped at 25 students each.
“We’re in the process of hiring the school’s principal and then staff hiring will follow,” Gyurko said. “It’s exciting. Now that we’re approved, the real work begins.”
Staff positions for Green Dot New York will be advertised in the New York Teacher.
