To bring you up to speed, at our tape recorded breakfast meeting last week, Vallas agreed that the stakeholders
via the steering committee, could determine the focus of Academies and ultimately who serves as principal.
He said that he would report back to the respective head of facilities that our community wants the Douglass building
renovated and the school to remain at that site.
We are charged with forming an advisory 'board' with officers that would eventually become a governing board. The RSD's objective, one
of them, is that high schools become 'charter-like' even if they don't formally become charters.
Staffas Broussard suggested a Social Justice theme which could encompass the writing, digital media and theater
work that SAC has done at Douglass over the past ten years as well as law and public safety. This compromise
was reached to mediate between my determination to continue our long-term work through Students at the Center,
Artspot and Junebug Productions on a theater and performing arts academy and Vallas' determination to have a Public Safety Academy.
Social justice is the foundation on which Students at the Center's work stands.
Vallas agreed to provide copies of the engineering report and to allow us to have an independent survey
of the building done.
Vincent Nzinga was appointed as our steering committee's liaison to the RSD and we have been encouraged
to submit a plan for the school to the RSD. Today we must request a copy of the draft plan that Principal Johnson and other RSD consultants and staff have worked on.
To my knowledge, the principal has been working on a plan for the school for several months and has convened a steering committee twice. Reggie Lawson
and I were invited to join this steering committee and haven't attended either meeting. I know of no other appointed community
members and it appears that planning for the school, including its theme, has proceeded thus far without community input.
On another note, Katrena Ndang raised the important issue of teacher certification at the breakfast meeting.
Vallas was unable to respond regarding an alternative certification process designed for Teach for America.
The question was whether or not these new teachers will be fast-tracked and receive certification status through
a less rigorous program.
Staffas Broussard, Reggie Lawson, Jim Randels, Steve Bradberry and I were part of UrbanHeart,
a successful afterschool program in which Douglass and Drew students participated. Both UrbanHeart and Students
at the Center are successful programs which should be continued at the Douglass/Drew site and replicated at other
schools. We need an opportunity to collect data on students participating in those programs because they passed
the LEAP/GEE at higher rates than their counterparts who did not participate in these programs.
I raise this issue because we have been through several attempts at school redesign, Amato's smaller learning communities and signature schools
for example and now Vallas' themed academies and charter-like schools. It is important that we and the RSD recognize the successful programs
that existed pre-storm and not throw everything away because a new superintendent would like to start with a blank slate to implement programs
according to a plan separate from ours.
Lastly, we have an architect and chefs willing to develop our culinary arts program which was planned in the former home economics room on the first floor.
See video of former principal Allen Woods discussing the culinary arts program.
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/fredrick-douglas-hs-culinary-program-1/1592460977