This past Tuesday the DC Public Charter School Board held its first ever Summer High School Graduation Ceremony honoring about 60 seniors at the Thurgood Marshall Center in Northwest Washington, D.C.

The room for the event was packed with school leaders, teachers, parents and relatives of the students.  David Grosso, the chairman of the D.C. Council’s education committee was in attendance.  The Master of Ceremonies was Walter Deleion, who holds the dual distinctions of being the youngest elected representative in the nation’s capital as an ANC Commissioner and being a graduate of Washington Latin PCS.

Naomi Rubin DeVeaux, the deputy director of the PCSB, kicked off the ceremony, beaming as she explained to the enthusiastic audience that graduation events such as this are the reason she comes to work everyday.  The quick-paced agenda included a Presentation of the Colors by IDEA PCS’s Junior ROTC, a highly emotional signing of the National Anthem by Angela Moore, an operations assistant at the PCSB, and a poem by Michael Moore from National Collegiate Preparatory PCS.

The keynote address was provided by Quentin Liggins, the acting executive director of the D.C. region for Leading Educators, a group that provides teacher leadership training to improve the quality of classroom instruction.  Mr. Liggins spoke eloquently about the power of perseverance, asking the matriculating seniors to go boldly forward in life by having a vision for their future, to win or learn but never lose, and to not be afraid to ask for help.  His third piece of advice echoed a similar recommendation offered by Ms. DeVeaux.

Following Mr. Liggins were some remarks by Dr. Darren Woodruff, the PCSB chair.  Dr. Woodruff commented to me about the graduation ceremony, “This year marks the 20th year that public charter schools have been in Washington, DC. Our first ever summer graduation is a fitting way to kick off the celebration and put a spot light on the accomplishments of all of our graduates.”

The names of each of the graduates was then read aloud by Scott Pearson, the PCSB executive director, to wild cheers from the audience as each scholar dressed in their graduation cap and gown traversed the stage.  It was about the classiest sixty minutes that you will ever see.

An item on the agenda of last night’s monthly meeting of the DC Public Charter School Board caught my eye.  All it said was “DC Scholars PCS – Governance Structure Amendment.”  Of course, I’m extremely familiar with DC Scholars PCS.  The pre-Kindergarten to seventh grade school is one of two in Washington, D.C. that utilizes Scholars Academies as its management company, and whose founding board chair was Mieka Wick, the executive director of the CityBridge Foundation.   Interestingly, Scholars Academies also manages Stanton Elementary, a DCPS facility with grades pre-Kindergarten to five.  These institutions have something extremely important in common.  Both DC Scholars PCS and Stanton Elementary specialize in teaching children living in poverty.  Each school population is comprised of 100 percent of students coming from low income households.  So to find out what was going on I called Lars Beck, Scholars Academies’ CEO.  What I learned greatly surprised me.

Mr. Beck explained that Scholars Academies is taking the highly unusual move of dissolving it central corporate structure.  He related that more than a year ago the organization figured out that it could be much more responsive to the schools being served by bringing management closer to those it assists.  Therefore, the decision was made to give up the main office and create three regional centers, with each given the autonomy to make decisions about how best to serve students in that particular area.

Just as I was about to compliment Mr. Beck about how innovative I thought this approach was, since I don’t think up to now I’ve ever heard anything similar to a home office deciding to voluntarily give up authority over those under it, he hit me with a bombshell.  “I’ve decided to leave Scholars Academies,” Mr. Beck informed me.

In fact, it was Mr. Beck’s move that prompted the strategic discussion leading to the conclusion that students and parents would best be served by Scholars Academies separating into three regional networks.

I first met Mr. Beck a couple of years ago.  He impressed me from the second I introduced myself with his sincere interest in helping those that others had abandoned.  From my interview which took place in April, 2014:

“I came from the business world,” Mr. Beck answered. “My job was marketing and management for a firm in Canada. My mom for years ran a private faith-based school in Philadelphia for students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds characterized by exceedingly strong academic results. I wanted to do more with my life and the inequities between people of various races and income levels continuously gnawed at me.”

Former U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan described the work being done at Stanton Elementary as “remarkable.”  Mayor Gray commented that “We simply need to bottle this and figure out how to proliferate it all around the city.” Kaya Henderson has said that she wants to replicate what is taking place there.  Academic proficiency rates have doubled from the absolute bottom of the ladder.  But almost more importantly, Mr. Beck portrayed the school as one in which a culture of high performance has now infused the building.

Mr. Beck relayed that he will leave in September and that after 13 years in his current position he has no real plans for what he will do next.  It is a supreme understatement to say he will be missed.  Again from our interview:

All of these educational endeavors regarding improving the lives of the less fortunate are consistent with the life-long efforts of Mr. Beck’s mother. “Our drive is to transform low performing schools,” Mr. Beck commented towards the end of our discussion. “We believe in what is possible for students and then we try and let them realize their hopes and dreams.”

Tonight at the monthly meeting of the DC Public Charter School Board a vote will be taken to change the name on August 1, 2016 of the William E. Doar, Jr. PCS to City Arts and Prep PCS.

The move makes sense since none of the creators of WEDJ are currently associated with the school.  Julie Doar-Sinkfield, Mr. Doar’s daughter, who was the first board chair and executive director, had a public battle with the charter in 2011 when she and the two original founders, Mary Robbins and Nadia Casseus-Torney, attempted to wrestle control of the school from its board of directors.  The issue made it to D.C. Superior Court with a judge issuing a restraining order blocking the three women from involvement with the charter before they decided to drop their effort.  WEDJ received legal assistance from Stephen Marcus, the same attorney who is now facilitating the FOCUS engineered lawsuit against the city regarding inequity charter school funding, and ironically, the lawyer who negotiated WEDJ’s original lease with the landlord at 705 Edgewood Street, N.E.

Despite all of the controversy I hate to see the change.  I was part of the founding group of the school who met in Ms. Doar’s basement apartment on Capitol Hill over a decade ago to write the charter.  She cooked dinner for us as we sought to develop the best charter school the nation’s capital had ever seen.  I went on to succeed Ms. Doar as WEDJ’s board chair for five years.

I never met Mr. Doar since he passed away in 1982.  But he was obviously a remarkable man.  Here is a small portion of his biography:

“During his lifetime, he took steps to initiate the desegregation of facilities at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital and is responsible for placing the first African-American doctor on its staff. He was a member continuously since 1945 of the United Bowling League of Brooklyn, the league most responsible for the integration of the American Bowling Congress. He helped to bring about the integration of the Nursing School at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital and was responsible for placing the first black youth in the biology laboratory of that hospital. He worked with the late Congressman Adam Powell in integrating the stores on 125th Street in Harlem. With the New York State Employment Service he brought the discrimination at Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric to a halt with the cooperation of the NAACP.”

Mr. Doar was a member of the Kappa Beta Sigma chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity for over 48 years, holding a variety of leadership positions.  His involvement led in 1995 to the international headquarters of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity on Kennedy Street, N.W. to be named the William E. Doar, Jr. Building.

While I did not get the chance to know him I spent many hours with his wife.  I found Mrs. Doar to be the epitome of class and kindness.  She has a fantastic sense of humor which she expresses with a broad smile.  I especially welcomed that look when Julie would become completely frustrated when she couldn’t get people to do exactly as she wanted.

Julie, as well as Mary and Nadia, taught me so much about charters, regarding both pedagogy and governance.  The potential of these individuals to do good in the world was never more evident than on one of the annual faculty performances that we held as fundraisers.  We spoke of everything that was being accomplished at the school and everything that was still be be done.  We laughed at the joy being brought to us by those gathered in the room.

And we talked about William E. Doar, Jr.

Scott Pearson, the executive director of the DC Public Charter School Board, wrote an extremely interesting article recently on lesson learned by his organization when turning over management of a charter that is being closed to another school.  For many years now  when the PCSB shutters a charter it tries to identify a Performance Management Framework Tier 1 school to takeover the facility instead of finding new places for the pupils to attend.  It is a great move in that it minimizes disruption for families while significantly increasing the quality of what is taking place in the classrooms.

Mr. Pearson indicates that one of the traits that will increase the probability that a restart will be successful is to allow the board of directors of the closing school to select, within parameters, the incoming charter.  This is an engagement tool for those that are being in the unfortunate position of having to give up their institution.  Another important observation discovered through this process is that the new school should bring strong resources to the existing site.  This includes hiring an experienced principal and “flooding the zone” with extra resources to ensure success.  Furthermore, Mr. Pearson writes that the staff should avoid trying to expand their program to areas that they lack prior experience in carrying out.  In other words they should stick to what they know they do best.

One crucial issue the PCSB executive director has found with restarts is that there may not be a school agreeing to assume the task.  This was the case this year with Potomac Prep PCS.  When I interviewed Mr. Pearson a couple of months ago he explained to me that another school could not be found to take it over.  One impediment to a charter being willing to enter into a restart relationship could be the fear that the move will negatively impact their PMF score.  Therefore, to provide a strong incentive for a charter to boldly go into a restart situation, the PCSB should exclude this campus from PMF tiering for two years; the first year of operation at the new campus plus another twelve months.

Mr. Pearson admits in his article that one charter taking over another is a daunting job.  I content that by holding off grading on the PMF for two years for charters initiating a restart we could see far greater replication of some of our highest performing schools.