General News
South Bronx site chosen for UFT’s Green Dot charter school
Apr 10, 2008 5:40 PM
Green Dot Public Schools, one of the few charter-school operators to recognize employees’ rights to belong to a union and bargain collectively, will partner with the UFT in opening a new high school in the South Bronx in September.
The school will share facilities with 900 middle school students in the currently underutilized IS 162.
Located at 149th Street and St. Ann’s Avenue in the borough’s Hub section, the site is in a neighborhood that houses a large population of English Language Learners, and the school will be geared to meeting their needs.
Some 120 9th-graders will walk through its doors in the fall, and the school will add a grade each year until it fills grades 9 through 12. Class sizes will average about 25 students.
“The union and Green Dot looked at a lot of different locations, and this one seemed to provide the right mix of space and opportunity to address a critical need in the community,” UFT President Randi Weingarten said.
The innovative partnership between the UFT and Los Angeles-based Green Dot Public Schools is the first collaboration of its kind in the nation. Charter schools usually do not employ teachers in unions and thereby avoid being bound by union contract requirements.
“Green Dot’s core principles are very much in sync with those of the UFT,” Weingarten said. “Our educators welcome the opportunity to work in schools that have small classes, foster collaboration and respect for educators and actively involve parents.”
Green Dot also offers teachers a voice in determining school policy and curriculum, and a fair disciplinary process.
Former Jane Addams HS government, economics and history teacher and Bronx native Ashish Kapadia was named school principal. A former assistant principal for organization and supervision at the Eximius College Preparatory Academy, a College Board school in the Bronx, Kapadia was chosen after an extensive search involving more than 100 candidates interviewed by a team of Green Dot principals and staff.
Kapadia is also a cum laude graduate of the University of Chicago and holds master’s degrees from NYU and CUNY’s Queens College.
Green Dot currently operates 12 high-performing public charter high schools in Los Angeles’ highest-need communities. Its schools have no more than 500 students each and it implements a college preparatory curriculum for all students. Some 98 percent of its seniors graduate, with up to three-quarters going on to four-year universities.
