Yesterday, was an emotionally charged day for me as I attended the 5th Annual Public Policy Symposium for the Cesar Chavez Public Charter School for Public Policy.  It had special meaning for a couple of reasons.  First, I started my involvement in D.C.’s charter school movement almost 20 years ago as a volunteer tutor at Chavez before quickly joining its board of directors.  I had been to many student thesis presentations during that period.  The second reason that this event was significant was that it was held in the spectacularly ornate Healy Hall and Gaston Hall Auditorium at Georgetown University.  It was from exactly this stage in 2012 and 2013 that I addressed the scholars of Washington Latin PCS as board chair during this school’s first two high school graduations.  A chill went down my spine as I saw in attendance Dr. Darren Woodruff, chair of the DC Public Charter School Board.  He had handed out diplomas to the students during one of those Washington Latin ceremonies.

The symposium began with a welcome from Chris Murphy, vice president for government relations and community engagement at Georgetown.  In fact, this setting was a perfectly appropriate place due to the University’s special relationship with D.C.’s Ward 7 where Chavez’s Parkside Campus is located.  Georgetown is heavily involved in supporting the D.C. Promise Neighborhood Initiative in which Chavez PCS plays an important part.  Volunteers from the Georgetown campus are engaged with D.C. Reads, a program that works with seven public schools and one community center in the area.  Georgetown students also participate in Ward 7 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day activities and the Community Service Day program at the University which helps people living in that neighborhood.  Mr. Murphy mentioned that all of these efforts are consistent with the University’s mission of helping others.

The energetic Chavez PCS chief executive officer Joan Massey was then introduced, who proclaimed the Public Policy Symposium her favorite day of the year.  She quickly brought to the podium David Johns, the executive director of the White House Initiative on Academic Excellence for African-Americans.  Mr. Johns is obviously a passionate individual.  He revealed to the audience that he had given up a trip to Italy to be here today.  He felt that it was too important to miss.  It turns out that Mr. Johns has a special relationship with the charter; Ms. Massey described him as “their angel.”  In his moving remarks Mr. Johns wholeheartedly thanked the students, teachers, and parents of Chavez for their unwavering commitment to a high quality education even when times are tough and at these particular moments school is not at the top of their priority list.  His speech made an instant sincere connection with everyone in the room.  It was clear that if it were up to Mr. Johns all of these students would go on to college and then to jobs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

We had then reached the point when it was time for Erik Jones, Chavez thesis teacher and symposium moderator, to introduce the student presenters.  In the order in which they appeared, Alexys Hewlett, enrolled in the Parkside Campus, spoke on the topic of residential segregation; Nicolas Villarroel, attending the Capitol Hill Campus, covered the Syrian Refugee Crisis; and Brenda Guevera-Ortiz, also from Capitol Hill, discussed access to college for undocumented students.

I have to admit I don’t know how to adequately pay tribute to what I observed.  Each of these professionally attired young men and women lectured for about 20 minutes as if these were Ted Talks.  Accompanied by clearly laid out PowerPoints, they explained their material in a uniform outline format which included background, controversy, and alternative sections.  A long list of references were provided at the end of the decks.  All you really have to know to visualize the afternoon is that immediately after Ms. Hewlett started she was unable to automatically advance the slides.  With the calm cool that accompanies someone who does this type of public speaking for a living, she simply waited until help arrived to solve the technical issue.  She then picked up right where she left off as if nothing had transpired.  When it was Mr. Villarroel’s turn to address the guests, he tested the operation of the software first as if he was about to reveal his business plan for his brand new company.

We were witnessing the culmination of a year’s work by these students which were summations of their individual 20 to 30 page senior thesis papers.  I was most impressed with the ability of these pupils to explain equally both sides of the argument around the issues they had selected, and their skill in detailing and supporting their proposed public policy remedies. These were not superficial conversations about current day controversies.  They were three sophisticated in depth investigations of serious world problems whose solutions have major consequences.  So much progress has been made at Chavez PCS over last two decades.  It was enough to make you cry.

Last Thursday evening my wife Michele and I had the fortune to attend the E.L. Haynes Public Charter School Toast to Transformation event, held as it has been traditionally at the LongView Gallery on 9^th Street, N.W.  Much has changed since the last time I was fortunate enough to join this celebration.  Jennie Niles, the city’s Deputy Mayor for Education, was on hand.  Ms. Niles is of course the founder and past executive director of E.L. Haynes.  Hilary Darilek, who is now the chief executive officer for the charter and someone I recently interviewed, was the master of ceremonies for the formal program.  I also had the opportunity to speak with Abigail Smith.  She was the Deputy Mayor for Education the last time I was here; Ms. Smith is now the chair of the E.L. Haynes Board of Directors.  I have to admit that she looks much more relaxed now compared to the previous occasion in which we were in the same room.

The Toast to Transformation is really a party in which open bars and food stations appear everywhere you go in the space.  Waiters bring plentiful appetizers to the guests.  Early on I ran into Dr. Ramona Edelin, the executive director of the D.C. Alliance of Public Chartered Schools.  She was only too excited to tell me that the fight to raise the financial floor of the annual charter school facility fund is definitely not over with the passage of the Mayor’s 2017 fiscal year budget.  The goal, Dr. Edelin stated, is to increase this revenue level 2.2 percent from its current amount and then tie enhancements to this number to inflation.  Based upon her determination I had the sense that in the not too distant future her objective would become a reality.

Moving toward the entrance I had the fantastic opportunity to meet Soliyana Seyoum, an eighth grader who was demonstrating the results of her science project along with other scholars who were doing the same with other guests regarding their own work.  She had investigated what type of dance shoe was most amenable to performing a ballet pirouette.   In an enthusiastic and perfectly articulate manner she explained that she had looked at four different possibilities including bare feet.  Ms. Seyoum’s hypothesis was that ballet shoes would provide the most support but in the end it turned out that tap shoes were the clear winner.

After a stimulating performance by the elementary school’s choir, Ms. Darilek took the stage.  I continue to be extremely impressed with her as E.L. Hayne’s representative.  She comes across as such a sincere and caring individual.  Ms. Darilek spoke proudly of some of the accomplishments of her student body.  “In only six months,” she stated, “I’ve already seen so much – a group of high school students’ award-winning National History Day presentation on the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, our high school Robotics team’s competition-winning robot that is here with us tonight, middle school science fair projects on friction, perception, and the effects of video games on memory; and, our youngest students in pre-K teaching me about impressionist art.  I learn from our students every day and hope you did tonight as well. They will reach high levels of academic achievement with all of our support, and so much more. Thank you to E.L. Haynes teachers and leaders – many of you are here in the room – for making these opportunities a reality for our students.”

The high performing charter then honored John “Skip” McKoy for his years of support for all schools in Washington, D.C. through his service on the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which he chaired for a couple of years, and through his role as director of programmatic initiatives at Fight for Children.  Mr. McKoy paid perhaps the highest compliment to the institution when he emphatically exclaimed that E.L Haynes “is raising confident, competent, and contributing young people who represent the rich variety of DC’s urban demographic, with the skills base to become tomorrow’s effective global citizens.”

Most fittingly, the next speaker was Ariela Garcia-Queche, a senior who has been with the school since the third grade.  Ms. Queche explained that through the outstanding preparation E.L. Haynes has provided she will attend college next year at Salisbury University in Maryland to study nursing.  I now understand perfectly why this event is called a Toast to Transformation.