Charter school open house

[from Bill Murray, Development Officer, ABC Public Charter School]

ABC Public Charter School, the District’s only full-immersion English/Spanish public charter school, is holding an open house for prospective parents:

Wed 8/1, 7:00-8:30pm
Petworth Neighborhood Library
4200 Kansas Ave NW (at Georgia Ave & Upshur St)
202-541-6300

Please call the school at 202-822-6301 for more information or visit our website at www.abcpcs.org. ABC Public Charter School is a sixth through eighth grade middle school. It is currently located in Mount Pleasant but will be moving to a new facility at 209 Upshur St in Petworth in mid-August.

Comments

[Crystal]

Recent studies have shown that charter schools are not outperforming public schools and in some instances doing worse. Even though they say they are public, charter schools are private schools with public funding. They are not obligated by law to educate all students like public schools. Most don't allow for the same public input and decision making power as in public schools. They can also kick out underperforming students or those that act out and send them back to DCPS. And as mentioned in a previous post, they are siphoning off a lot of money from DCPS. With only a finite amount of money we need to put all of our energy into fixing DCPS and keep the idea of competition (in which there are winners and losers) to Starbucks and the like.

[charles jackson]

Hello - I want to thank everyone for their comments. We have taken great pains to design and run ABC so that we serve the educational needs of the children DC. We have made double digit gains in literacy and have a safe and welcoming culture. I encourage everyone to come visit us. On August 25th we'll have a block party on 2nd Street between Upshur and Varnum to say hello and get to know our new neighbors. Email me directly with any questions. [email protected] I'm the founder and Executive Director.
Charles Jackson

[Andy]

I still think that charter schools are a great alternative. Parents need to have choice. And despite some problems, competition between different kinds of schools leads to education improvement.

[jeffrey]

I've been in many impressive charter schools in DC. I think they are challenging and fixing the DC school system one by one. A few are poorly run though, so there's gotta be oversight by the Board of Education. And there is.

[Toby]

I'm relatively long-term Petworth resident and a public school teacher. And I have several concerns about charter schools and their recent proliferation. They are killing the local neighborhood public schools, leading to declining enrollment. Many of their teachers are not career educators, but people dabbling in the field and are often not certified. The teacher pay scale at charters is often not that of the public schools. Teachers can be fired and are fired with much more ease than in the public schools where we are protected by a union. But with that said, looking at the resumés posted of the staff of the neighborhood ABC Public Charter School, I was amazed. Few of my colleagues have such impressive credentials.